Faceoff
Before I tried to delete my account, I merely disliked Facebook. Now I actively loathe it.
My journey into seething Facebook hatred began with the realisation that Facebook is a virus. Like most viruses it does little other than perpetuate itself. Any benefit you gain from it is incidental to its main aim, which is to increase its size by any means possible. If your privacy or your lifestyle get trampled on the way, too bad. Facebook exists to suit itself, not you.
I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by and allow my precious life to become just another rung in Facebook's ladder to internet power. So I decided to delete my account. I figured that my friends will still be able to contact me via phone, SMS, email, blog comments or, as a last resort, talking to me face to face.
I should have realised it wouldn't be that simple. Did you know that it's not possible to delete a Facebook account? You can "deactivate" it, which from what I can tell does precisely nothing, other than giving you an illusion of closure. Your profile remains and is cross-referenced throughout the network. You can remove friends, drop pictures and reset personal details to zero, but your name and email are locked in.
After some thought, I believe that like a cursed object from a horror story, the only thing you can do to get rid of a Facebook account is to offload it onto someone else. So I have. Her name is Marcia van Fook, and fortunately for her she doesn't exist. She's just a silly name with a hotmail account which should expire and die in three months.
Poke this, you Facebook arseclowns.
My journey into seething Facebook hatred began with the realisation that Facebook is a virus. Like most viruses it does little other than perpetuate itself. Any benefit you gain from it is incidental to its main aim, which is to increase its size by any means possible. If your privacy or your lifestyle get trampled on the way, too bad. Facebook exists to suit itself, not you.
I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by and allow my precious life to become just another rung in Facebook's ladder to internet power. So I decided to delete my account. I figured that my friends will still be able to contact me via phone, SMS, email, blog comments or, as a last resort, talking to me face to face.
I should have realised it wouldn't be that simple. Did you know that it's not possible to delete a Facebook account? You can "deactivate" it, which from what I can tell does precisely nothing, other than giving you an illusion of closure. Your profile remains and is cross-referenced throughout the network. You can remove friends, drop pictures and reset personal details to zero, but your name and email are locked in.
After some thought, I believe that like a cursed object from a horror story, the only thing you can do to get rid of a Facebook account is to offload it onto someone else. So I have. Her name is Marcia van Fook, and fortunately for her she doesn't exist. She's just a silly name with a hotmail account which should expire and die in three months.
Poke this, you Facebook arseclowns.
posted by Blandwagon at 5:26 PM
3 Comments:
Ha ha ha! That's great! Just what I would have done. Same fake name, even. Creepy!
I'm not sure about this, correct me if I'm wrong, your subtlety leaves me uncertain at times: you aren't a fan of Facebook?
Too bad you can't leave a virus or Trojan hourse in the account.
Loved the Korean car-cattlegrid metaphor. :)
Happy birthday for Sunday!
I've found a couple of old school friends through Facebook, which is pretty neat, but regularly delete the barrage of applications and group that people keep asking me to join.
Also, I notice more than a few people appear to be perpetuating the ridiculous "I have 3000 friends" MySpace thing. Sigh.
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