Facebook
Monday, October 29, 2007
First of all, let me give my compliments to this yet-again-nifty little programme (oh pardon me, "program," as the Americans spell it) called "Facebook," which allows one to connect to various friends and acquaintances in this little network of sorts.
No, I am not being obtrusively rude here, I have just paid homage to the centre of americanisation. Of course, MacDonald's is another successful venture, possibly the most successful one spearheading America's colonisation of the world these days. What I'm trying to get at is this: the food at Macdonald's is not the attractive point; the point is that people think it is appealing, and that's all that matters,
really.
Facebook is essentially no different from Friendster, which is nothing short of the former's predecessor, albeit a less courteous and less user-friendly programme. The difference is people's idealised image of Facebook. I'm sure the fact that it hailed from America had nothing whatsoever to do with its popularity.
Of course, this has got to be the main difference. How can you invent a programme and hope it to "catch on" when nobody wants to use it? If everybody wants to use it, it will definitely become part of mass consumption.
Surely I'm not looking down on Facebook and its networking pyrotechnics. In fact, I'm rather impressed at the influence it has been wielding on everyone, including those who don't use it - even they have heard about it.
To date, I have found enough long-lost friends on Facebook who have gotten married and even have kids to be able to count them so I can keep track. And that really is a feat. No, I'm not talking about my friends who are around my age now and who have certainly tied the knot in the last three years or so, although I do think that is quite a feat. I'm talking about how even these people are not too busy with their married lives to keep up with a supposedly juvenile programme like Facebook.
Let me defend myself, before I get shot at by people as young as my "kiddies" in school. I meant that Facebook must have gotten that tag here because people have grown up using Friendster in their younger days and think that Facebook is just another Friendster, only improved and is the "in-thing" right now. So because of this label, some people are naturally adamant about joining and I don't blame them. I joined Facebook because my American-Chinese cousin wants to keep in touch and she doesn't have MSN, neither do I have AIM.
Anyway my point is that everybody's on Facebook, possibly even that uncle you see sitting at the coffeeshop or that little toddler in his mother's arms, even people's pets are on Facebook. So the question is why is Facebook so accessible? It is not MacDonald's, which reason can be that food is the minimum requirement to survive, so everybody knows about it, even if they may not eat it.
Yes, it may not be a typical part of your diet but in this place and age, actually if you think about it, it is fodder for us in the internet world. Of course, you could argue that it is not a need in this world.
Perhaps not. But it is definitely a want in our society to stay "cool" and connected to it, as lame as it sounds.
6:00 pm
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