Finally, with a sick-day, I have the time, energy, and conviction to do so... and some of the ugly truths I've discovered about the creation of Facebook are quite shocking, albeit unhidden.
The facts I'm about to present and analyze have never been hidden from the general public, but I assume most that waste away plenty of time on Facebook, never really take the time to look; therefore, lets hope you at least give this article a quick boo.
PART 1: THE UGLY BEGINNING
And that's to say the least. For whatever it may be used for now, whether it's used for good or bad, you have to know something: Facebook is an ugly product of the spite and anger of creator Mark Zuckerberg following a sudden break-up. Regardless of his his true intentions later in Facebook's evolution, the original, known as Facemash, was a direct breach of personal privacy and a shallow attempt at comparing peoples physical features with, you guessed it, barn animals.
A short time after the break-up, Mark posted this to Facemash, which showcased his anger and shock at the events which transpired, and is probably used as justification for what he did that night from his Harvard dorm-room:
"I'm a little intoxicated, not gonna lie. So what if it's not even 10 p.m. and it's a Tuesday night? What? The Kirkland [dorm] facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty horrendous facebook pics. I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive." —9:48 pm
Obviously, this really conveys the bitterness that was most likely to be pulsing through his (possibly temporarily) arrogant head. Instead of venting it somewhere it belonged, he instead vented it to his 'Facemash,' a trend that is still observed today by disgruntled individuals via modern Facebook. Well, that definitely goes to show: it wasn't created as a simple social networking website; no, from the very get-go it was a spreader of drama and hurt-feelings.
As was stated in the previous quote, "I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive," using his computer-savvy skills, he actually created it, and was quite (arrogantly) happy with the results:
"Yea, it's on. I'm not exactly sure how the farm animals are going to fit into this whole thing (you can't really ever be sure with farm animals...), but I like the idea of comparing two people together." —11:09 pm
This quote really conveys the shallowness in which Facebook still basks in to this day. Although much more complex now than it was in its 'humble' beginnings, it all really comes down to one thing: social boundaries. Whether these boundaries are cultural, related to popularity, or both, it seems Facebook was created in emphasis of physical attractiveness over anything else, and may be responsible for the social boundaries created outside of cyberspace, leaving nothing to the imagination in terms of a persons personality which is skewered all across Facebook's section of the internet world, and in some sense really molds how an individual will be met by other peers.
According to the Harvard Crimson, Facemash "used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine [Harvard] Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person." To rewind just a little, let me explain exactly what a 'facebook' was back in 2003: It was a reference book or electronic directory made up of individuals’ photographs and names; A college publication distributed at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better.
So, despite the shallowness in which Mark Zuckerberg's rendition of a global facebook came to be, it seems that when you replace 'Facemash' with 'Facebook,' it does indeed have a humbler, much more innocent beginning, with golden intentions as opposed to deciding which of two people are more physically attractive. Regardless, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook origins still stand, and will remain the ugly truth. The original 'facebook's' are better to be considered where the modern name is derived from, as opposed to the websites actual origins and/or intentions.
To accomplish the creation of his 'who's hotter' application, Mark hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network, and copied the houses' private ID images. Now that's just cold, Mark.
To continue his seemingly endless streak of uncontrollable cold arrogance, Zuckerberg wrote on his personal blog: "Perhaps Harvard will squelch it for legal reasons without realizing its value as a venture that could possibly be expanded to other schools (maybe even ones with good-looking people...), But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for making this site. Oh well. Someone had to do it eventually..."
Well, what do I do now, Mark? Do I give you the benefit of the doubt because you at least (partially) acknowledged your arrogant assholery? Do I justify what you did by stating, 'leave the poor guy alone, he's only doing all of this out of anger because his bitch of an ex-girlfriend couldn't find it in her heart to stay with him'? No. Because I think I can see why she broke up with you in the first place; I can certainly see why if this kind of attitude is simply part of your personality, as opposed to an angry side-effect created by an undesirable situation.
The website was forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but soon after, just as Zuckerberg had correctly predicted, it was shut down by the Harvard administration, and Mark was charged with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and he now faced expulsion from the university. Despite all this, the charges were ultimately dropped.
Quickly following the Facemash incident, Mark quickly changed his aims, and during the same semester he created a social study tool for an art history final exam, uploading 500 Augustan images to a website with one image per page, and a comment section below. He opened this website up to his fellow classmates, and people began sharing their notes on the subject.
In an interview with technology news-network TechCrunch, Zuckerberg stated: "The professor said it had the best grades of any final he’d ever given. This was my first social hack. With Facebook, I wanted to make something that would make Harvard more open."
Touche, Mr. Zuckerberg. Either you've had a serious change in personality, or your just in a better mood.
PART 2: 'THEFACEBOOK'
The following semester, after managing to avoid expulsion from Harvard, Mark began writing code for a brand new website in January 2004, stating that he was inspired by the editorial in the Harvard Crimson regarding the whole Facemash incident.
"It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available," the Crimson observed. "The benefits are many."
On February 4th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched 'Thefacebook,' which was originally located at www.thefacebook.com.
"Everyone’s been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard," Zuckerberg told the Harvard Crimson. "I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."
His roommate at the time, Dustin Moskovitz, who was present at the time of Thefacebook's creation, stated: "When Mark finished the site, he told a couple of friends. And then one of them suggested putting it on the Kirkland House online mailing list, which was, like, three hundred people, and, once they did that, several dozen people joined, and then they were telling people at the other houses. By the end of the night, we were, like, actively watching the registration process. Within twenty-four hours, we had somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants." As we can see, Zuckerberg's soon-to-be drama machine was spreading in popularity, but at this time with better reason than Zuckerberg had intended a semester ago from inside his lonely dorm-room. At this time, it was used only to get to know people better.
Initially, membership was restricted to Harvard students, and by the end of the first month, more than half of the undergraduate population at the University was registered to the service.
There was Eduardo Saverin, in charge of business aspects, Dustin Moskovitz, in charge of programming, and Andrew McCollum, in charge of graphic artistry, all of whom joined Zuckerberg in promoting the website. In March 2004, Thefacebook expanded to the Standford, Columbia, and Yale Universities, with expansion continuing when the website opened to all Ivy League and Boston area schools, and eventually most Universities in Canada and the United States. Facebook, as was obvious, was a universe of its own, destined to continually expand, as it continues to do to this day.
Facebook officially became a corporate enterprise in the summer of 2004, and entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Mark on different business aspects of the website, became the company's President. In June 2004, Facebook moved its headquarters to Palo Alto, California, and in 2005, it dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name 'facebook.com' for $200,000.
After launching a high school version of Facebook in September 2005, the company not only widened member eligibility to Apple and Microsoft employees, but also to everyone ages 13 and up with a valid email address in September 2006, and announced it was opening its official international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland in October 2008.
But blah blah blah... you probably fell asleep during that whole last part, especially if your one of Facebook's many users who needs to get back and see if anyone's commented on your latest status yet, and could care less that Mr. Zuckerberg is now a very rich man because of people like you, which is why I've chosen to leave the remainder of Facebook's history out of the mix, as it's simply corporate jibberjaber; stocks being exchanged, different corporations expressing interest in investing in Zuckerberg's enterprise, etc. And I know, if your anything of a typical teenager, you really don't wanna hear it. You already did math today, and you'd rather not listen to more. I can relate, and therefore, you won't have to listen to Zuckerberg's numbers, new and old. If you happen to be someone who's abit more interested in Facebook's later history, I suggest that you check out Facebook on Wikipedia, and read from the 'Financials' section onwards.
PART 3: THE MODERN IMPLICATIONS OF FACEBOOK
To say the least, issues involving present-day Facebook are numerous; but only a slight percentage of them have been influenced and/or created by Facebook itself.
Usually pointless drama is constantly created and sustained via Facebook's cyberspace, which can lead to social ramification (ex: loss of friends, pointless fights, the subconscious drawing, or redrawing of social boundaries), and just as a friend of mine said, whether an original quote of his or not: "Facebook sells drama." And I'm sure plenty of us couldn't agree more.
Another issue involving the prominent social networking site is an obvious one: the broadcast of physical fights via cameras, camcorders, and camera phones to the entire world, which seems to scream out: "Not only is it ok to do this, it'll make you incredibly popular among your peers!" which isn't entirely true. Although it usually does increase one of the combatants popularity, it can completely discredit the other, causing them to become a social outcast as well as seriously injured in a worst-case scenario.
The very fact that most of these videos existences are sustained on Facebook shows a lack of responsibility on the part of the administrators.
To counter the latter point, I will admit that one of Facebook's definite upsides is the fact that it allows content to be shared on a wide-scale; for example, sometimes I will record myself doing either an original, or a cover song, and publish it to Facebook as to receive some feedback, or just to simply share it. In the case of my latest video, one in which I perform my latest original song, Be If This Were, I have yet to receive any feedback on the scale of my last video, which was a cover of Blink 182's I Miss You, leading me to conclude that my lyrics are only popular among a select few, which is actually alright with me. Either that, or I just wasn't singing and/or playing my best that day; I really don't know.
Facebook also allows me to broaden the horizons of my blog, in which it automatically publishes all my articles in note-format to the social networking site, allowing it to be viewed by my Facebook friends without them being required to actually go to my blog. What I'm hoping it does, however, is provide my Facebook friends with the option of reading it while they're busy on Facebook, and if they like the article, they may wish to visit my blog more often.
Facebook has also allowed me to create a fan-page of myself and my blog, in the hopes that when people become fans of either, two things will happen: one, they themselves will visit my blog more often, and two, when their Facebook contacts notice that they have become a fan of 'Kyran Paterson-King' or 'It's a Friendly Inferno!,' they will follow the link in curiosity, and will ultimately end up on my blog. A pretty lame way to advertise, I know, but it's the only advertising I can afford at this point in my life. Because it's free.
Well, I don't really wish to drag this on longer than it needs to be, or any longer then I have time for, but one last thing I'd like to point out are fan-pages: in a single day, I've seen people become fans of over 200 different pages, such as 'I can't believe Megan Fox looked like this!,' in which you must become a fan to actually see what Megan Fox looked like, and on some occasions, it won't even show you, and instead attempts to force you into doing an online survey, claiming that you will get to see the picture as soon as you're done. Really? I don't even care enough most of the time to become a fan, let alone earn the right to see the picture by wasting 20 minutes of my life doing some survey for some company I've never heard of.
Well, I may or may not update this article if I've realized I left something important out of the mix, but otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this in-depth analysis.
Have a great week, blue planet.
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