From AOL to PictureTrail to Friendster to Myspace we finally made it to the world of Facebook. I'm always pondering how we could have gotten by without Internet stalking but when you think about it, we didn't have to get by for that long.
For me, I was a young stalker at age 8. What could I possibly have wanted to stalk before age 8? All I cared about was if I had the newest My Little Pony and when the next Home Alone was coming out. It was a simpler time, a time when we used our 3rd grade class photo to stalk the boy we liked, not the Internet to collect info on who his latest girlfriend is, where he attended college, and whether or not he lives in Murray Hill.
Facebook started out very meagerly. In the beginning you simply posted one picture of yourself along with your basic information. Each user had a simple wall on their profile and you couldn't really tell who was writing on it. Soon it began evolving. You could add albums and tag friends and the wall became more advanced. Now when you posted it on it, your photo appeared next to your post. And even though you could now access more intimate details of your friends lives, it had not yet spiraled out of control.
Originally, Facebook was limited to college kids, which was cool because essentially a Face Book is what colleges use for students to identify each other. It didn't take very long for Facebook to become open to high school kids. And once you let high schoolers jump on the bandwagon you may as well let everyone on. From my 4th grade teacher to my Grandpa, everyone I knew now had an account.
And so, the day came when I had to part ways with Facebook. We had a nice run, but in the end, I just couldn't stay in a world where my 11 year old camper posted statues about her gym teacher being a hottie. So to all you Facebookers, enjoy your run with it, but eventually, you'll see what I mean.
