The Giddy Social Whirl: Facebook Love

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today wonders... What is it with us and Facebook?


Ach, my dears, sit down: there’s something I have to tell you. I’m tired of living a lie, and you deserve the truth. The fact is - I can barely speak it – I don’t get Facebook. I don’t GET Facebook!

There, I said it. It’s out.

I don’t know what the problem is. Twitter – well, Twitter sets my heart a-flutter. My eyes sparkle, my complexion blooms. But Facebook? It’s like I’m dead inside.

I’ve tried, Lord knows. Every day I flick listlessly through my feed, going through the motions in the hope that today will be the day that I finally feel the spark. I’ve heard that you just have to really, really relax and then suddenly it clicks - but to be honest, I do it now from a sense of duty, with no real hope of the scream of social joy that sets a girl’s soul on fire. It’s just so.. static. There’s none of the back and forth of Twitter, none of the reciprocity – it just lies there, expecting you to do all the work.

And there’s something else. As an interface, it’s a bit needy, you know? With Twitter and its clients, the medium is just the medium. You could be doing it anywhere! But with Facebook, the medium is the message: Look at me, Facebooking! For something which exists in the ether, it’s far too tangible for me, and I confess this puts Facebooking on a par with scrapbooking in my, erm, book.

I can imagine what you’re thinking. Jeez, Earl. This is not the usual urbane tittle-tattle which keeps us coming back week after week, like out-of-town moths to a gorgeous metropolitan flame. It’s like she has an agenda here.  I’m so sorry, really I am. I’ve kept my feelings hidden till now, because I pride myself on the Geistiness of my Zeit. For many years now, Facebook has been the toast of the town, and to be thus at odds with the spirit of the age - well, it was more than my shallow little heart could bear.

But now it seems like I might not, after all, have been as disastrously out of step as I’d feared. Though Facebook stats are, by any measure, stratospheric, it seems you’re not all enjoying such an entirely healthy and fulfilling Facebook relationship as I’d thought.

Last week Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s velvet-cheeked CEO, announced that the global social megalith now has 500 million active users. Combine this with the faint but discernible outline of a 2011 IPO valued at $35bn to $40bn - and it was something of a triumphant week for The Zuckster and his team.

Which makes it all the more striking that this was also the week in which the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Facebook as one of the US’s least beloved companies. In the hierarchy of happiness, Facebook languishes near the very bottom of our love list - just a smidge above the Inland Revenue Service’s tax e-filing scheme.

Lets consider that for a moment: we love Facebook so much that we have increased its user base by an astonishing 25% in under six months - but at the same time so little that it ranks alongside the act of paying tax. 500 million users… as pleasurable as paying taxes. I’d say that these two facts, taken in conjunction, indicate that we're a little conflicted in matters Facebook, wouldn’t you?

Now some of this disaffection can doubtless be put down to the various privacy debacles which The Book likes to wade into every three or four days. Others can be ascribed to the unannounced fixing-things-that-ain’t-bleedin’-broke thing that Facebook is so fond of, and which this week saw some users unable to display their news feed chronologically. All of these are fixable, and almost certainly temporary. Lord knows, Facebook is in no danger or losing its ‘king of the platforms’ crown anytime soon – neither for users, nor the brands that want to reach them.

But the truth is that, while I am conscious that my feelings put me in a minority demographic, we might have to admit that Facebook sometimes struggles a little to bear the weight of our social expectations. And as if to demonstrate this fact, this week saw the release of the thrilling trailer for the upcoming film The Social Network, which is loosely based on the birth of Facebook.

Impressively - and despite the resolutely pedestrian nature of its raw material - the filmmakers have contrived to make the development of Facebook seem hotter, by several hundred degrees, than the final 4 minutes of 24. In fact, they’ve made Mark Zuckerberg seem a bit like the prequel to Jack Bauer, if only people could be prequels.

Have a quick look at the trailer, and then compare it to this video of the real Mark Zuckerberg, in which he demonstrates his mastery of the autocue at the launch of Facebook Stories (a slightly saccharine confection, designed to highlight the ways in which the network has been a Force For Good in the world).

You back? Boy, that is some reality gap, huh?

Now it’s true that my general outlook is formed of a grim admixture of thwarted hopes, bitter umbrage and bilious envy. Also that I am British, and therefore legally obliged to cut down any tall poppy in my path with a sharp aphorism. But despite this, I think it’s fair to propose that Mark Zuckerberg is really not Master of The Universe material. For one thing (I’m whispering now) he comes across as a bit of a prig.

The film-makers, though, have clocked the popular cultural saw which holds that this is the Age of the Geek. The idea that, after many years of having the sand of hipness kicked in his face, a chap like Mark Zuckerberg can now bestride our culture like a giant amongst men. And we’ve invested such a big chunk of our social media hopes in his platform that we’re now pretty keen to believe that its creator is a cultural colossus.

You know, maybe we just need to take a breath here. We’re tired of the old heroes, for sure - ain’t nobody going to be making a film about Wall Street Alphas any time soon. We want a new and improved model – and here comes The Social Network to tell us that, hey, maybe Mark Zuckerberg could be The One! But in our heart of hearts, don’t we know that we’re kidding ourselves? This one is never going to make it to the aisle. Try as we might, we can’t make him into a hero for our times - just like 500 million users, wildly impressive though that number is, can’t quite make Facebook into the social network to set my heart aflame.


A bientôt, mes amis!