The 'New' Facebook

I’ve almost abandoned Facebook this week, closing its tab in my browser and opting for the much more upbeat nature of Twitter and my blog. Since implementing its new interface, Facebook has faced a barrage of feedback regarding the new layout, and well, it pretty much sounds like the feedback from the last re-do. “THE NEW FACEBOOK SUX!#@!!1!!” You get a real sense of the sloth in America when you read the feedback forums on facebook for their updates. In the few I managed to read before my eyes started bleeding, you couldn’t go more than one or two entries without seeing “I hate change!”

Really? You hate change?

In addition to this being a completely ridiculous if not sadly pathetic statement, where is this semi-political-anarchy-chest pump for other things that are going on in the world? What’s that? You’re going to boycott Facebook? Well there’s always Myspace, who didn’t respond to the changing social media market until it was too late. GL with that.

I force laugh (or I’ll cry) at the nature of the comments in relation to what they are applied to. It’s silly. Hating change on the internet. The internet is a fluid, dynamic interface. Its constantly changing and expanding to become more intuitive and capable of handling user input and demand it wasn’t able to even four years ago. Remember news and entertainment sites in the late nineties? How about the Apple home page from ’97? Remember how static they were? How finite their capability was? Aesthetically disgusting? Things change, they develop, period. And not just in context to the internet, its like…part of existence, if you’re one of those crazies that believe in evolution and sciences anyway.

Face it, you’ll bitch and moan for another two weeks. You’ll join useless “groups,” sans motivation and pitchforks to air your emo angst. You’ll reach across the globe and find “20 million ethiopians who hate teh new facebook!1!” and pat yourself on the back thinking you did something real meaningful because ireport.com or your student paper featured a blip on it.

Once you’re finished being a whiny bitch, you’ll figure out the interface and deal with it. You won’t stop using Facebook, because you wouldn’t have taken so much time to whine if it weren’t surgically rendered to your face. It’s as likely as Detroit becoming a booming industrial eutopia or a two year old not throwing a tantrum because something didn’t go their way. How do I know this? Because they’ve done experiments on hamsters for years. Throw the hamster a curve or change its environment and it will react in pithy rebellion before finding a solution, accepting change and submitting.

Jes

PS – Sorry if this came across as harsh, it was not my intent. I re-read it and it sounds pretty forceful, which is very much what I’m not about in normal cases, but people complaining and not offering solutions or constructive ideas is pretty well my only major peeve.