Facebook Dinosaurs

Remember the days when Facebook started? I joined August 2004 as a freshman at Ball State and vividly remember the first days of my relationship with the site now half a billion people use. It felt my use of the site was illicit for some reason; a place where only people our age existed. A place that we could do or say whatever was on our minds. A place where it was justifiable to glorify the stupid shit we did on Fridays and Saturdays.

We are all for the most part six-year-old Facebook users. As odd as this might sound, at the same time we are Facebook's oldest people. Remember when you had 150 friends? Then you went through school and have 500. Now your grandpa is on Facebook, gazing at the picture of you slamming jello shots on new year's (or doing bear crawls on St. Patrick's day). And he, your grandma, their friends all feel they need to know you. Now you're up to 1000 friends. What is going on here?

With the society's emphasis on a person's need to control the amount and type of one's personal information on the web, our collective online documented history has been left up for judgment by people who haven't been online as long as we have. As the oldest on FB, we draw the most scrutiny. Because my uncle views pictures of me at a bar playing a young coed's leg-guitar, that becomes a cause for a family sit down across the state about my condition and the life choices I've been making (real things, people...). Before that same uncle was on Facebook, anything was possible. Now, I have to control the content of my profile because some 40-year-old (and 2-year-old FB user, mind you) says I have to. Well eff you, sir.

I remember back in my day when bitches were poking bitches for fun, and Fox News wasn't reporting it on the horrors of it. I remember before all the companies, the causes, the kids and kin were running Facebook. I felt comfortable the display of my reckless youth was for everyone to see, because it was -- and still is -- hilarious. Nowadays, if I so happen to be sipping a beer at a bar and some hussy snaps a photo of it, in the back of my mind I can't help but think I'll be chastised for it. Call me old-fashioned, but the Facebook as I knew it died when it started having real people on it. Now every time someone in my family tells me "I love you" on my wall, it honestly makes me want to vomit.

Exactly like I did after drinking too much in college, when someone photographed me and showed the world how big of an idiot is was. And like it still should be today.

I'm done with Facebook.