On The New Facebook

By Mary 

The new Facebook profile spread faster than HPV and, as we’re all well-aware, last week this option became obtrusively mandatory. News feeds were inundated with Facebook friends’ profile updates: current cities, interests, and my personal favorite: “Who inspires you?”

Sure, there are many reasons for an aversion to the new profile – familiarity with the previous format and not knowing any foreign languages to proudly display along with the rest of the vital stats – but regardless of our motivations, the implementation of last week’s mandate defeated the resistance to change we old-profilers maintained and communism broke the glimpse of what seemed like choice in the market of Facebook profiles.

We’ve experienced both positive and negative modifications to Facebook throughout the course of its existence. Forget the invasion of privacy and targeted advertisements, the new profile ranks up there with “Moms on Facebook” on the list of all-time worst Facebook changes. While we were in college, the old-fashioned Facebook was not only a fun tool of procrastination and display of party photos; Facebook was intentionally purposeful, as it allowed us to connect with people taking the same courses. It then took on a madness of its own and in the same way that we were connected by the network of our alma mater, Facebook has expanded to connect us by the music we like, activities we enjoy, languages we speak.

We all remember the arrival of the News Feed and feeling hyper-exposed. Then, we realized how much more easily we could find out which people we went to high school with are now preggers and, much like during fornication, we became comfortable with the nakedness almost instantaneously. The improvement was like upgrading to DSL from dial-up and with the profound ease of Facebook-stalking, the news feed became our preferred form of pornography and we wouldn’t think twice about reverting back to the old ways.

Last Thursday, Facebook upgraded me to the new profile against my will. Like many of my fellow comrades in la resistencia, I updated my status to reflect my denunciation and accordingly made modifications to my profile to fit the new format.

LANGUAGES: Aside from ordering a burrito, my Spanish-speaking skills are non-existent, which almost makes me wish I didn’t drink so much red wine in Spain or tequila on Spring Break. ‘English’… On second thought, maybe I’ll just leave that one blank, rather than announce that I never bothered to learn a language in addition to my native tongue.

FAMILY: Not sure if I need to make that facebook-official. Christmas dinner is enough of a reminder. BLANK again.

PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE YOU:

Being the serious type, I decided to announce to the entire Facebook realm who actually inspires me, once I figured it out for myself. As I stared at the Facebook (NEW) profile update page, I asked myself: “Where am I? What am I doing here? And whose fault is it?” I entered the first influential individual’s name and Facebook did not recognize it. I tried it again: nope. I entered another name, then another. Unlike political beliefs and religion, Facebook wouldn’t let me save the unrecognizable changes and, in a panic, I threw my laptop out the window.

Facebook has crossed the line with the new profile. In its attempt to connect us all through these interests, our alma mater, our occupation and employers, it restricts us to this assumed level of commonality. I tried to play along, but now realize we simply don’t need to share something with somebody else for each and every aspect of our profile. I am admittingly a Facebook-junkie, and this is where Facebook has gone wrong.