Since I have been dicking around on Google+ for the last few hours, I am pretty much an expert. Seriously, it is very clean looking and fairly easy to navigate. These were the things that put Facebook ahead of the late (not so) great MySpace. People like things to be clutter-free and easy to operate. But the things that Facebook has over Google+ is the nostalgia factor and several years invested in building a relationship (albeit rocky at times) with its clients.
I have had my Facebook account for about 6 years now. 6 FUCKING YEARS. I am almost embarrassed by the amount of time I have spent on it. It's because of these countless hours that I won't be able to cut ties with my beloved Facebook account any time soon. Get comfortable 'cause I am going to take you down a trip down memory lane. Yeah... shit just got real.
Picture it: Summer 2005. I had graduated high school and was getting pretty excited about starting my freshman year at THE Ohio State University. I was spending the weekend in Columbus with a small group of friends from high school (oddly enough, they are the only ones I still stay in contact with, but that's another story). We were going to the Renaissance Fair because we were(are) supah cool. Since no parents were around, there were plenty of alcoholic drinks to be had. I never drank in high school; so the couple glasses of Smirnoff Ice and pink Catawba wine had gone straight to my head. We all had a little bit of a buzz, when one of my friends turned to me and asked if I had my OSU email address yet. After I responded in the affirmative, they all gleefully (I like to imagine them holding hands and skipping, but it was probably more like a fast-paced stumble) ran to bedroom and brought up Facebook. I had never even heard of this thing they were so excited about. Once we finished creating my account, I felt like I was part this elite club. It was a club that only people in college could join.
This was the start of the Golden Era for Facebook. Every new feature was awesome. Facebook could do no wrong. The ability to add photo albums of my college adventures really rocked my shit. It was this awesome time when you could friend anybody you ever had a class with -- even that know-it-all, pretentious dick from English 110 who thought he was so smart, but totes did not get what the hot TA was really saying about Beckett's Endgame. You totally did though. You connected with the gorgeous thing in jeans and tweed jacket with patches over the elbows. Oh hey! You could friend your hot TA, because he was hip and had a Facebook. Oh no! He did not put anything for sexual preferences!... Gay. Oh well. He is still pretty dreamy... The moral of the story was that Facebook was awesome when it was more selective. Users felt somewhat safe that some creep isn't looking at their profiles. Or if there was a creep looking at your profile, at least the creep was in college.
Then things took a turn for the worst. Facebook allowed anyone to join. At first, it was just a bunch of high school kids and young adults who did not go to college. As it grew in popularity, more old folks wanted to get in on this action. Moms, dad, and grandparents wanted to check in on their precious little snowflakes. These people who could barely text started poking and "liking" things left and right. Farmville happened. Facebook was no longer cool.
By this time, it had become a huge part of our everyday interactions though. "Did you see my post?" "Did you get my invite?" "I can't believe so-and-so broke up with what's-his-face." It's annoying, but true. Many times I have considered deleting my account, but to do so I would become a social pariah. Not to mention, I would have nothing to do when I was killing time between class. Plus, I have posted tons of photos. Some of the photos have been lost over time due to hard drive crashes. At least with Facebook I will have access to them. I thought about starting a fresh; Unfriending everybody I haven't talked to in a month. I just couldn't do it. I don't want to be rude. I know how it feels to browse someone's profile and you find they have unfriended you. What's the purpose of social network if you don't network after all?
And this is the reason why Facebook will stick around for a long, long time. People like me who can't let anything go. I have boxes upon boxes of t-shirts from events and groups I participated in. I can't throw them away because they have memories (I promise I am not a hoarder). Facebook is the same way. It has memories attached to it. Remember those few months when everyone put "stickers" on each others walls ? Or the first time you untagged an unflattering photo?
The best metaphor I could come up with is that Facebook has become the Linkin Park of social networks. Yeah you heard me. Think about it. You really loved it when it first came out. It was edgy, cool, and your parents hated it. As you grew older, your tastes changed. Your parents started to not hate it. It wasn't cool to listen to it anymore. In fact, you are kind of embarrassed whenever it pops up on shuffle, but you just can't get rid of it. Although when nobody is around, you like to put on that Hybrid Theory album and rock out like it's 2000... sometimes.
Google+ offers me that option of starting over without being rude or deleting the friends I am no longer close with. I can use it as my main social network but keep little ol' Facebook on the side. Facebook can become more like that email address I use when signing up for discount cards and stuff. I can be much more discerning about who I add, and what gets streamed to me. Finally, I don't have to hear about some high school classmate's toddler doing something completely trite. I don't give a fuck that your little angel does the "funniest" things. I just don't.
