How do you “like” them apples, Obi-Wan?
“I felt a great disturbance in The Farce, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” — Mark Zuckerberg, Jedi Not
All those delicate eggs in Facebutt’s inexplicably unraveling basket. Has anybody pulled in the Easter Bunny for questioning? Just what is it he does between Easters, anyway?
In its coverage, The New York Times observes:
The Facebook outage on Monday was a planetary-scale demonstration of how essential the company’s services have become to daily life. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger have long been more than handy tools for chatting and sharing photos. They are critical platforms for doing business, arranging medical care, conducting virtual classes, carrying out political campaigns, responding to emergencies and much, much more.
Pardon my smirk, but the only reason these “services” have become “essential” is because the rubes, marks, and suckers have made them so. Some of us limp along just fine without them.
I croaked all my social-media accounts long ago and I don’t even pop round to piss on their graves, that’s how little I think about Buttface, Twatter, and the rest of ’em. Hideous time-sucks that encourage humans to indulge their every whim, no matter how grotesque.
Convenience is not always your friend. Convenience leaves you with Amazon, Walmart, and Starbucks after the mom-and-pop corner stores are gone. Anybody remember AOL? Email, messaging, browsing, website hosting, chat rooms, etc., all under the same leaky roof. O, the howling when that dog decided for one reason or another that it would not hunt when you whistled it up.
Some of us eventually built our own website(s) elsewhere, set up any number of email accounts, used Netscape for web browsing, and so on and so forth. More fiddly, but more rewarding, too.
I did use AIM for instant messaging when Netscape and AOL teamed up for that project. What the hell, it was convenient.
Tags: antisocial media, FaceButt
Mad Blog Media 
October 5, 2021 at 9:08 am |
They are designed to be addictive and everywhere. The design worked. Facebook same same as oxycodone. Zuckerberg and Sacklers have the same MO.
October 5, 2021 at 9:41 am |
Before those two, we had Phillip Morris, and didn’t learn a gawddamn thing from that endeavor.
As long as your product keeps investors happy, you’ll do fine.
October 5, 2021 at 9:34 am |
Things are only getting worse. Anyone ever hear of Team Snap? It’s basically Slack for little league. Parents these days are in love with every latest shiny object. The app is a freaking train wreck, and they’re collecting and selling data on kids as young as 5-6, and parents just effing love it.
Its selling point is that it a one stop shop for everything you’d need for little league coordination. A chat feature, place to post schedules, and a way to sign up for various tasks like working the clock and running the score board. But there are so many damn ads, that when you pull up the next game and try to see whether it’s home or away, you get blasted with a video selling some training program that will put your uncoordinated little munchkin into the Hall of Fame.
“Let’s see … I could build an iCal calendar that anyone can subscribe to … that’s a whole 3 minutes … and then I need a group chat … there’s another 2 minutes … a google form to collect names and phone numbers, that’s 3 minutes … or (now hear me out, I’m just spitballing here) I could pay someone $60 to do it for me, plus $2 a month for every parent to subscribe.”
(the sound of no one thinking)
“Let’s go with that second option!!”
We have met the enemy, and he is definitely us.
October 5, 2021 at 11:25 am |
Get a Pi Hole, where ad requests go to die. NSA uses ad blockers, why shouldn’t we? I do, and love it.
https://pi-hole.net/
October 5, 2021 at 9:39 am |
I’m a spritely 56 years old. Am I old enough to start thinking that everyone under 45 is a freaking idiot? Cuz I seriously don’t see any sign of intelligent life amongst my PTA/PTOs, little leagues, the neighborhood HOA, my kiddos teachers, or any other gathering of carbon-based life forms.
I take that back … the kids are alright. They’re all doing their best, and just begging us to stay out of the way.
Of course, you can’t turn your back on the over 70 crowd, either.
And now that I think about it … all of my college buddies are pretty much loony tunes as well.
I guess the age factor isn’t the important part. The real deal is, don’t trust anyone who doesn’t ride a bike.
October 5, 2021 at 5:39 pm |
Jeezus SAO you got up on your hind legs and growled a bit. And I for one agreed with all of it. I’d add further that I would love to see Zuckerbutt publicly flogged just prior to doing a stretch in one of the Mitten States wonderfully appointed prisons.
October 6, 2021 at 11:17 am |
That little rant was missing quite a bit in the context department. The obsession with Facebook amongst pretty much every age group just has me flummoxed. How many red flags does one company need to waive at us before we walk away?
I had just finished a little talk with the rest of my kiddo’s hockey team’s parents, and just couldn’t get them to understand that creating a player profile on the web for 8 year olds isn’t a good idea.
I’ve got the door locked about as tight as it can get on my kids, and when I check their official school email, it’s 90% ads. I can only image what it’s like for the folks who are actively putting their kids into the ethernet willy-nilly.
We’re doing a social experiment on 7B participants with no control group, and we ain’t going to like what we find out when the results come in.
October 6, 2021 at 12:39 pm |
I am so glad we don’t have kids. It’s a cliché to say, “When I was a kid. …” But still, damn. The only evildoers out to steal our minds and enslave our bodies were International Communism and rock ’n’ roll, which of course were the same thing.
October 6, 2021 at 6:14 am |
Or make him move to Flint and pay for the replacement of all lead water pipes.
October 5, 2021 at 9:56 am |
// They are critical platforms for doing business, arranging medical care, conducting virtual classes, carrying out political campaigns, responding to emergencies and much, much more. //
Every single thing that smells of opinion that comes out of the New York Times lately makes me want to puke.
Everyone see this over the weekend?
“She looked left, then right, then left and right again before venturing into a crosswalk, only to break into a rant-laden sprint as two cyclists came within inches of grazing her.”
Getting the Malachi Crunch from an F350 and a Dodge Charger is fine, but we have to stop those almost grazings.
October 5, 2021 at 4:09 pm |
The NYT seems to be getting squishier on the homepage in an attempt to be All Things to All People All the Time®. Some of the shit I step in over there stinks to high heaven. For instance, everything now must have a list of “key takeaways.” Take it away, please.
I likewise could do without the relentless flogging of Stephanie Grisham’s alleged book, which has spilled over into The Washington Post as well. Here’s your ice floe, there’s your polar bear, what’s your hurry?
October 5, 2021 at 8:27 pm |
Grisham was happy there until January 6th. That makes her an enabler, and part of the disease, not the cure. And spare me the “I was trying to stop the major damage” crap ‘cause I ain’t buying it or the damn book.
October 5, 2021 at 10:09 am |
Twitter and Facebook (and its step children) are anxiety and anger churns; feeble attempts in creating a “community” of users (suckers). Best be done with both of them.
October 5, 2021 at 10:58 am |
Facebutt was down? How about that. I never noticed.
October 6, 2021 at 7:25 am |
speaking of rain, we normally get about 60″ per year. so far this year we’re at around 82″, 12″ inches in the last few days. if you guys want i can load up the van with a bunch of kitty litter buckets full of water and drive it out for you.