Facebook: ravaging history one page at a time

2007 was the year your life went blue, white, and pixellated. No, you didn’t become a digital smurf, but rather You, Me, and Everyone We Collectively Know joined Facebook. Which pretty much amounts to the same thing...

"One Facebook to rule them all, One Facebook to find them, One Facebook to bring them all and in the shiny-bright blue-and-whiteness blind them": isn't that how The Lord of the Rings starts? I forget — I was on Facebook at the time. No matter, there'll be an "I know J.R.R. Tolkien's grandson and he looks EXACTLY like Legolas!" network group not more than two friends away...

Facebook wasn’t invented by an allegedly crafty college eavesdropper back in 2004. Nope — it’s always been with us. Seriously. Just check the "World History is AWESOME" group. "Et tu, Facebook?" was Caesar’s actual blood-gargled final quibble. And didn't Dorothy click her Superwall three times and get whisked back to some Kansas internet café? Damn straight. Check The Wizard of Oz, chapter nine — you’ll find it’s all there.

But enough glib Facebookery, else we'll be trotting out "I came, I saw, I Facebooked" quips for so long you'll have changed your status five times, developed an acute sense of paranoid dissatisfaction with your life and will never so much glance at a screen again for fear of glimpsing your miserable face in the reflection.

In all grave seriousness, Facebook really has pissed all over my history books. Within a mere few weeks of opening an account, I was accosted by a breathtakingly comprehensive roster of past faces from my short life — each requesting some form of vacuous digitalised hug. From playgroup through University, gap year to workplace — they were all there: former friends, acquaintances, lovers, enemies, even deceased chums (courtesy of "tribute groups"). My life, quite literally, was flashing before my eyes — every single time I logged on.


At best, I resolved, this was decidedly weird. At worst, it was crushingly dispiriting. The idea that everyone you've ever known, including yourself, can now be condensed into a thumbnailed identity parade, to be scrutinised and consumed at one’s leisure, might appear mindblowing. But isn't it horrendously ‘demystifying’ at the same time? A kind of parallel-universe dream-assault by an evil BFG, where all your hazy nostalgic mindbubbles are sucked up by an unfathomably large monster and blown back all over your face, wall, bedroom and street in lurid Technicolor. Roald Dahl would be turning in his grave.

And let's be honest..."At one's leisure" really means post-pub nailbitten frenzies on cold Tuesday nights. Doesn't it...

It would probably have done old Julius a favour (Facebook would have been ideal for keeping track of potential assassins) but personally, I never thought the notion "the tangled webs we weave" could have assumed such a shudderingly banal form.

That Gemma Foss from primary school didn’t half turn out fit, mind. Not that I’ve looked.


Taken from a little piece forthcoming in London's Koo magazine...

Facebook's not just a stain on the past, mind. Oh no. There's a worrying amount of present-related Facebook blog-bile to come, too. And then it'll be time to fly.