According to a New York Times article, hating Facebook is about as awesome as hating your utility company, meaning NOT AT ALL. Apparently, even though Facebook has turned into the life-glue that holds the under-30 society together, it engenders hate similarly found as those living under a police-state.
And, frankly, there’s a lot to hate, especially since the site’s primary user base is an incredibly bitchy crowd. I mean, who the hell cares about my friend’s pet What-The-Hell on CrapVille? Apparently Facebook thinks I do.
Also, there’s a group for everything. I haven’t even heard of half the genocides that groups are opposed to (and don’t get me started about the groups that are created in favor of those same genocides).
Like "Puppies for National Socialism." Do we really need that Facebook group?
Of course, Facebook users get put on edge not just by the things the company allows them to do, but also by the things the company does to them. Every single time there’s a format change, no matter how small, there’s a boycott group founded to oppose it. And while I do think Facebook’s privacy rules were basically “we sell your personal details to advertising companies for profit, sucker!”, half the people opposed to the rules couldn’t say what exactly they were opposing.
So what can you, the unassuming hipster, do to break the trend and escape all this bandwagon Facebook hate?
Well, the most common strategy would be to quit Facebook. But unless you’re also going to go out into the desert and live a life of solitude, religious reflection, MySpace, and celibacy, I wouldn’t recommend that.
No, the strategy I would suggest would be to become a Facebook fanboy. If you’re having trouble visualizing this, imagine if I said that Apple kills puppies. You see how your reaction is to automatically naysay me without even fact-checking to see if I’m lying? That’s what you do whenever someone criticizes Facebook. And if someone thwarts you by having reasonable objections, just hit them with the old “Well, let’s see you do better.” That should shut them up.
