Monday, February 11, 2008

A Facebook Clarification

I've recently heard my friends referring to "my Facebook" or saying things like, "Do you have a Facebook?" Every time I hear it, I want to stab myself in the face with...well, something very soft. I value my face. But still, I'm not very fond of these expressions.

No, you do not have a Facebook. There is only one Facebook, the Facebook, as in the site's original URL, <www.thefacebook.com>. The Facebook is an online directory of individuals' profiles and pictures; it is a BOOK of FACES, or a FACE BOOK. You have a page in this enormous online book, on which one can find your profile and, if you also belong to MySpace, a glut of ugly, cluttering, trivial applications that make finding any actual information about you impossible. You have a Facebook profile; you do not have a Facebook. Have I made myself clear?

And don't even get me started on MySpace.

EDIT: So Lucas tells me that the name originated from actual paper "facebooks" that colleges used to hand out, as a way of helping students meet new people and associate names with faces. Yet another reason not to refer to a person's profile page as "their Facebook"...

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