What’s the buzz in Social Meed-ya this week?
Was it Twitter’s share price taking a tumble? Or Facebook announcing that Q4 2013 was their biggest ever quarter for advertising spend? Or is the news that it was 10 years to the date that a lowly Harvard student launched a social network in his dorm room that is now worth approximately $157 billion and boasts over 1.23 billion members worldwide? Well sort of, because to celebrate their 10th birthday this month, Mark sent us all a little thank you note inviting us to view and publish our very own one minute long Facebook Movie – a cheeky little roundup of our life in pictures since the year that we joined the network (the year when we all became ‘Friends’… aww). So how has this lovely idea of Mark’s gone down?
Well a large majority of the ‘Friends’ I know have gone ahead and published their movies and, on the whole, I’ve enjoyed watching them, but most of all I’ve enjoyed watching the fallout and the strong opinions they have uprooted amongst the more strident members of my FaceFriends. I’ve enjoyed reading through (and mostly ‘Liking’) comments such as;
“My newsfeed is clogged with these, they are awful. Please no more of this self indulgent s***”
“What a job lot of egotistical [ahem]. I for one am disgusted with myself that I’ve shared such BS with you poor people and for that I am truly sorry”
“These lookback videos are making me feel nauseous. Please just stop it now people”
“It’s actually made me question why I’m on Facebook”
They go on…
Well I have seen enough of them now to form an opinion myself and that is, although these movies are a splendid shower of random indulgence, they are exactly what Facebook is about and has been about since that very day back in 2004 in Mark’s dorm room. It’s about sharing your life with ‘friends’ as you would do normally in the real world, it’s just that in Facebook Land (just like in those messed up dreams you have when you’ve had a bit too much wine and a piece of chocolate before bedtime) there are a whole load of ‘acquaintances’ in the room with you. They don’t always want to listen to you telling everyone about that lovely steak you had for dinner or the holiday you’ve just come back from where you went scuba diving with two great whites and an overly friendly octopus. The difference here though is that we can actually choose to ignore those people and do so without having to offend them as we would face to face, simply by not listening or engaging with them. Instead, we can just accept that they are there and be safe in the knowledge that there are ways and means of blanking them if we want to. Then, every now and then, we can dip in to see what they are up to and maybe even Like some of it.
Personally, I think the Lookback Movies are great. For the people I know well and love I have really enjoyed seeing their little one minute roundups (that they didn’t actually create themselves remember). What is more, I’ve enjoyed counting how many of them I feature in. I guess that makes me an egotistical, self-indulgent nausea-inducing Friend and, for that, I am sorry.
