My Ode To Facebook
I love Facebook.
There, I said it. I am out in the open now, available for public scrutiny. I have admitted my love affair with the Golden Domain of tech, the offspring of Mark Zuckerberg, the great Blue Monolith of the Internets.
I love Facebook in the way people love sports or that Bachelor show. I love it the way you love a lost puppy. You can speak out in a public forum, sharing insights with hundreds of interested parties. You can craft a brilliantly worded expose and people will cling to every word. I can’t remember who said it exactly (okay, it was Mark Zuckerberg) but this is a 100-year invention in the same league as the printing press or Starbucks.
So, here is my tribute – a few examples of what makes it so valuable:
Letting us know you are sick. And I don’t mean you have a mild cold. I mean you are literally coughing up a lung. With Facebook, you can go into great detail about your deeply morose infection, your flaming sore, your wholly inconflagulated condition – e.g., something so painful and so worrisome that you had to make up a word like inconflagulated.
Posting baby pictures from all angles. Seriously! Thank you. We’re talking over the shoulder, with and without a rattle, sitting in the sink, burping in a hilarious fashion. (By the way, I want to publically thank everyone for not posting any shots involving diaper changes.)
A memo about attaining a major milestone in life. This is incredibly valuable to us. We need to know this information, because most of us are keeping track. You lost 5 pounds? I am making a mental note of it right now. You got engaged? All 700 of your followers are doing high-fives with you in their minds. Please keep posting more of your achievements. PLEASE.
Stating your political views. See, this one helps. I was on the fence about gun control, trying to decide if I was going to buy that AK-47 or start picketing about it on the steps of my state capitol. Then I read your post. I’m changed forever. You have stemmed the tide and swayed my position.
Birthday wishes, even from that long lost cousin. How else would we know? None of us keep good records. By seeing 50 other people congratulate you on this wonderful day, we all get a chance to add our two cents. It is a deeply meaningful way to say you’re special. It also saves us on A) a trip to Walgreens to get a card and B) postage.
Curiously compelling motivational quotes. I remember that one you posted about how there is no gain without pain, and I immediately picked up some barbells and did about 300 pumps in one sitting. (You were right! There is a lot of pain!) Another time, when you posted that quote about letting go of someone you love, I felt really good about it. I know someone at the humane society will adopt our family cat eventually.
Diet programs, especially those with scientific benefits. I mean, we would be lost without them! We’d be blimps. Some of us would gorge ourselves on donuts and cheese curds. But because we have Facebook, because you posted that diet regimen, we are saved. We can live.
In the end, I don’t think any of these things would be possible without Mark. He has helped us form a unique bond with each other – a social network! – that will last through time immortal (or at least longer than Friendster). We have a record – a timeline! – of our daily activities, our interactions with those we love, and our weight loss.
Someday, we will all look back and scroll through these milestones, these pronouncements, these historically important events and recall with great fondness that one time you started a diet program or posted a picture of little Billy Bob crawling up the staircase for the first time. And, we will be thanking you, singing your praises, and/or crying.
Honestly, where would be be without Facebook? How would the world continue to exist? Our relationship with that distant cousin would sour like yesterday’s expired milk. We’d wonder, in blind acrimony, what that little tyke looks like now, three months after we saw him at Christmas.
So let’s all salute Mark Zuckerberg. Let’s hail him as a visionary, a champion for the social cause. Hip-hip-hooray! Mark Zuckerberg has saved us! And, indirectly, from me having to put up with the cat.