Your Facebook account and pick up the phone to talk with people. Also, don’t buy shit from their advertisers so their money dwindles too! Subscribe to a newsworthy site like this one or Bluesky!
Facebook is the most evil platform ever developed and it will now get even more disgusting. The only way we can fuck Zuckerberg over is to drop Facebook and switch to other, better social media platforms. For example, this platform “Substack” is an excellent platform and completely bans MAGats
I’ve been thinking about this and while I gave up FacePlant and Twitter long ago, I still have Instagram. I mainly use it for family and friends but I realized my world didn’t come to an end when I deleted FB. Many of non-family accounts I follow on Instagram are on YouTube so I’ll follow them there.
I am of that extremely narrow generation of the very few first Facebook users, joining by invitation as it opened up to current students at certain universities. So this hurts. Over 20 years on facebook just to see it end up like this. I’ve weathered all previous changes but this one might be too much.
"...to be clear, if you feel this way, stop reading and take a quick trip to the garage with your car keys)" 😂😂😂 I love it!
This is a great piece, Geoff, and makes me realize even more that my days as a social media manager are over, if not numbered. Facebook has become worthless to me personally, and I'm sure my clients will wake up and figure it out. They are unwilling to take any creative leap of faith or do the real work of engagement with their online audience. Social media without a social conscious is doomed to mediocrity...and eventual failure.
Who is out there working on the next big thing? And what will it be? 🤔
Well, Susan, if you ask my veteran tech brother (he came up in the early 90’s and has made a spectacular living in that sector), it won’t be him. Or a multitude of his former and current colleagues. He’s finally fed the fuck up and is getting the fuck out. To hear it from him, what used to be a vibrant and exciting field has morphed into the very worst kind of rat race. As bad as it is for us as users, it’s exponentially worse for the rank and file. He’s done. He’s leaving to go touch some grass, “get back to being on the planet” (direct quote), and maybe grow his own food for a while. As for me, I’m an optimist: I’m hoping the next new thing is the internet we were promised in the beginning… right after the utter destruction of the current corrupt version.
Your brother sounds like a very smart guy. I think it's the human race that turns interesting digital ideas into shit. We're such a stupid lot. If things get REEEEALLY Bad, I can hide out at my farm in nowheresville Missouri, grow food, (I know how to can), maybe put some chickens back in the coop, and play with the dogs in the woods. 🤷🏼♀️
Going full scorched earth Meta, don't forget to 86 your WhatsApp. Well, also because there is Signal.
Proud to say I am a LikeBook virgin, but only because when I got those first few invites from intentionally estranged high school alums, it gave me the creeps. So I declined each one. I'm not a Luddite, but the second mouse does get the cheese.
But that's where it gets weird. For some unknown cosmic reason, I scrolled down the latest email LikeBook invite from the latest forgettable H.S. alum, only to notice there was a fucking list of all of the invites I had declined (all of them). Christ on carrion, the LikeBook assholes were tracking me even though I was never on LikeBook??? Yup.
That sealed the deal for me -- no LikeBook or its spawn, ever. Then Cambridge Analytica? ROTFLMFGAO at the beatification of Christopher Wylie, the "whistleblower."
Must I have a preemptive restraining order for every VC startup who would like to sell their granny's ashes and my information to the greediest bastard? Apparently. WWJFO? (Who Would Jesus Fuck Over?)
I attended my first high school reunion in 2013 (my 30th) and a ton of people requested to be my friends. Turns out that shitheels in 1983 were even bigger shitheels in 2013.
Don’t know about you, but in a situation like you describe, I’m encouraged every time I learn that I am not completely jaded yet and still have a shred of my childhood naïveté remaining.
Is he having some sort of midlife crisis?
Zuckerberg is a creepy little fuck eho Flys a LOSER flag
Hit them where it hurts- cancel
Your Facebook account and pick up the phone to talk with people. Also, don’t buy shit from their advertisers so their money dwindles too! Subscribe to a newsworthy site like this one or Bluesky!
Facebook is the most evil platform ever developed and it will now get even more disgusting. The only way we can fuck Zuckerberg over is to drop Facebook and switch to other, better social media platforms. For example, this platform “Substack” is an excellent platform and completely bans MAGats
We’ve dumped FB. Feels good. Like a relief.
I’ve been thinking about this and while I gave up FacePlant and Twitter long ago, I still have Instagram. I mainly use it for family and friends but I realized my world didn’t come to an end when I deleted FB. Many of non-family accounts I follow on Instagram are on YouTube so I’ll follow them there.
“Desperado, you will never come to your senses🎶🎶”
I am of that extremely narrow generation of the very few first Facebook users, joining by invitation as it opened up to current students at certain universities. So this hurts. Over 20 years on facebook just to see it end up like this. I’ve weathered all previous changes but this one might be too much.
"...to be clear, if you feel this way, stop reading and take a quick trip to the garage with your car keys)" 😂😂😂 I love it!
This is a great piece, Geoff, and makes me realize even more that my days as a social media manager are over, if not numbered. Facebook has become worthless to me personally, and I'm sure my clients will wake up and figure it out. They are unwilling to take any creative leap of faith or do the real work of engagement with their online audience. Social media without a social conscious is doomed to mediocrity...and eventual failure.
Who is out there working on the next big thing? And what will it be? 🤔
Well, Susan, if you ask my veteran tech brother (he came up in the early 90’s and has made a spectacular living in that sector), it won’t be him. Or a multitude of his former and current colleagues. He’s finally fed the fuck up and is getting the fuck out. To hear it from him, what used to be a vibrant and exciting field has morphed into the very worst kind of rat race. As bad as it is for us as users, it’s exponentially worse for the rank and file. He’s done. He’s leaving to go touch some grass, “get back to being on the planet” (direct quote), and maybe grow his own food for a while. As for me, I’m an optimist: I’m hoping the next new thing is the internet we were promised in the beginning… right after the utter destruction of the current corrupt version.
Your brother sounds like a very smart guy. I think it's the human race that turns interesting digital ideas into shit. We're such a stupid lot. If things get REEEEALLY Bad, I can hide out at my farm in nowheresville Missouri, grow food, (I know how to can), maybe put some chickens back in the coop, and play with the dogs in the woods. 🤷🏼♀️
Damn. Not surprised in the least.
Going full scorched earth Meta, don't forget to 86 your WhatsApp. Well, also because there is Signal.
Proud to say I am a LikeBook virgin, but only because when I got those first few invites from intentionally estranged high school alums, it gave me the creeps. So I declined each one. I'm not a Luddite, but the second mouse does get the cheese.
But that's where it gets weird. For some unknown cosmic reason, I scrolled down the latest email LikeBook invite from the latest forgettable H.S. alum, only to notice there was a fucking list of all of the invites I had declined (all of them). Christ on carrion, the LikeBook assholes were tracking me even though I was never on LikeBook??? Yup.
That sealed the deal for me -- no LikeBook or its spawn, ever. Then Cambridge Analytica? ROTFLMFGAO at the beatification of Christopher Wylie, the "whistleblower."
Must I have a preemptive restraining order for every VC startup who would like to sell their granny's ashes and my information to the greediest bastard? Apparently. WWJFO? (Who Would Jesus Fuck Over?)
I attended my first high school reunion in 2013 (my 30th) and a ton of people requested to be my friends. Turns out that shitheels in 1983 were even bigger shitheels in 2013.
Don’t know about you, but in a situation like you describe, I’m encouraged every time I learn that I am not completely jaded yet and still have a shred of my childhood naïveté remaining.