How I was converted by Facebook

When I was a college freshman 3 or 4 years ago, I thought Facebook was the devil. At that point, it was still a relatively new phenomenon and not yet a social requirement. Myspace was just something that my little brothers did, and as I was too cool for Mypsace I was also too cool for Facebook. I remember swearing that I would never have a Facebook account. I didn’t want to conform to the stalkerish practices of looking up someone’s info/pictures, racing to grow my army of online friends, or searching out and “poking” the cute girl I met at some party the night before. People told me I would eventually succumb to the powers of the Facebook, and that when I did I would love it. What the hell did they know?

Of course they turned out to be right. I lasted maybe one semester in college before I gave in and joined. My first social network. People had told me it was addicting, but I really didn’t understand until I realized that I could literally look up practically every person my age that I had ever known in life. EVERYBODY was on this goddamn thing. The kids I used to go to summer camp with, my friends from my sixth grade soccer team, the guys I lived across the street from growing up…. You get the idea. After making a few initial friend requests, Facebook didn’t even need me to do its dirty work anymore; I would login daily to 7 or more friend requests from people who had been made aware of my new existence on Facebook from looking at someone else’s page. My Facebook came alive, and grew and grew itself into some kind of monster with a mind of its own. Sure enough, I began posting pictures and posting on walls like a good little Facebooker. Hook, line, and sinker.

3 or 4 years later, and Facebook is simply a part of life. I check it (sadly) AT LEAST once a day, not to mention anytime I am bored on the computer. Obviously I am not alone, as Facebook was pretty recently (I think in the summer of 2006?) the most visited site on the entire frickin internet. I guess there is something in creepily looking into the lives of people you don’t know that well that our generation just really takes to. But seriously, I got on board in the very beginning and within 4 years it’s the most visited site on the web? I said before that everybody was on Facebook, but now everyone REALLY IS. It is such a rarity for me to find a fellow college student without a Facebook account that I almost regard them with a kind of awe when I do. It’s like that kid growing up who didn’t have a TV in his house; very hard to comprehend.

So what does this mean? It means that Facebook (for me at least, maybe Myspace for others) has officially changed the way people our age interact and communicate with each other. Forever. I think my initial resistance to Facebook wasn’t necessarily anything else than a classic resistance to change. I had never seen or been a part of a virtual social network before, and I was hesitant to accept such a major overhaul to my social practices and activities. That is what Facebook has done. It has somehow (brilliantly) converted us all into online social networkers. Now the next time something smart and unique comes along related to social networking, I probably won’t hesitate to jump on the bandwagon.

DRM: Dumb Ridiculous Menace

By now we are all familiar with how frustrating and utterly annoying Digital Rights Management is. In a pitifully desperate attempt to retain some control over the free trade and ownership of music files, the powers that be created a technology that effectively hinders the use of their product. Way to go guys, that’s a great approach. Force upon us an actual DETERRENT to using your service. That’s definitely going to dissuade us from getting our music for free with no restrictions at the click of a button. I understand that those are hard, maybe impossible alternatives to compete with, but don’t take a frickin step in the WRONG DIRECTION! Oh wait, DRM is the strategy you employed after realizing that suing 12 year old girls for hundreds of thousands of dollars wasn’t really solving the problem of your unprecedented decline in sales. Good choice using oppressive scare tactics and litigation to force your consumers into buying from you. Riiiiiight. Another brilliant idea.

And speaking of that decline in CD sales, remember back in the day when you bought a CD how you could play it on any CD player you wanted to? Now if I pay to download an album I also have to download the “player” from that site, and my playback of the music I just bought is restricted to that device. That’s like having to carry around 10 separate CD players: one for Sam Goody, another for Tower Records, and an individual player for every independent CD store I happen to buy an album from. And their brilliant solution to the problem: iTunes starts selling selected DRM free downloads for MORE MONEY!?!? Why would I pay more money for something I can get for free and that should go without saying in the first place? I’m sorry, but if you want me to actually pay for my music, you are going to have to make it at least equally as easy to use it once I do.