Despite this “recession,” or whatever term television journalists at large have used to classify this horrific era of the class of 2009′s depression and lack of activity, Facebook has announced that they plan to increase their hiring by 50 percent this year.
Shit, man. How do I get a job at Facebook? Do applicants have to be even creepier than they already are? Increase their friend count? Status update all day? That wouldn’t be right.
An article from Global CIO says:
Facebook’s hiring spree runs counter to the experience of its social networking rival MySpace, which recently announced it would trim its international workforce by two-thirds and its US staff by 30%. And, a recent informal survey at an Enterprise 2.0 session found that participants were cutting back on their use of Facebook as well as MySpace.
However, Facebook’s user base continues to grow and its workforce has reached the 1,000 mark to keep up. Earlier this year, company executives said Facebook expected to grow 70% this year with revenues surpassing $500 million. Facebook generates revenue from advertising and other payments
Frankly, this makes sense. As more people are sitting around at home, indulging in daytime television and reading copious amounts of online news in order to seem informed, or trying to fill empty work hours, they also spend more time on Facebook.
It also makes sense that many are “cutting back” their MySpace usage because that whole phenomenon is just weird. MySpace should just take their cut, say their piece and become a Facebook app.
The creep factor has skyrocketed.
The original Facebook simply provided a platform for social connection. You had to be in college to use it, a rule I liked. You had a nice picture and not 1,003 pictures tagged at obscene hours of the evening or workday without you knowing. Status updates were non-existent.
Now, I can find out what you said to your ex-roommate via wall-to-wall, I can see where you were last weekend via your status updates and “recently tagged pics,” I can find out your email, workplace, current city, group affiliations, favorite news articles, what you’re trying to sell, what you blog about, if you have a website, and your hopes, dreams and general outlook on life.
And thank goodness for that. Because Facebook has become the sole way to reconnect with your past, and by past I mean college.
While reading this post, you may scoff “Okay, how much time does this girl think I have on my hands? Who is she, even? I don’t sit around all day reading Facebook. I’ve never even made a status update!”
Yeah, sure.
Count how many times you just “check your Facebook” in a week. Now, scroll your minifeed. Oh, looks like that person feels great about seeing her “girlies! xo” this weekend. Wow, those guys sure hate Barack Obama. School must be starting, because a lot of people are “packing” and “can’t believe how quick the summer went.”
The nursing boards must have happened nation-wide, because it seems like many RN’s just joined Facebook.
And what is that mini-phone thing next to an update? Tweeting, I mean Facebooking, from a mobile phone? It’s all about location.
Facebook even provides a “good friend” cushion.
Example: It’s your sophomore year suitemate’s birthday and you forgot. Everyone else wished him/her a “happy birthday, bro!” before you. Shame on you, but thank goodness- Zuckerberg publishes “the list.” You can save yourself with a craftily timed “inbox message,” which is “more personal” than a wall post.
Sidenote: I’m not hating on any of this. I am guilty of every Facebook action.
Now that Facebook has replaced AIM, Webshots (remember them?), sometimes email and often interpersonal contact, I fear that everyone may join Dwight Schrute’s game of “Second Life.” If you don’t watch “The Office” and the reference is lost on you, then start watching “The Office.”
These are the tools we’re given, though, and we use them for what they’re worth.
Some questions to ponder about this consistent conversation we all participate in.
1. Why and how does Facebook keep “suggesting” people and things to me? I understand the “50 friends in common” backstory, but I can’t quite figure out why a girl I met once doing a service-learning project keeps popping up as “someone I may know.” We have no friends in common and she is not in my “contact list,” if that even makes sense. I’ll even see random activities I might like pop up, groups I’d think about joining, etc.
Facebook is a person, and he is an acquaintance that sort-of “knows” me.
I sense a conspiracy.
2. Why isn’t there a “dislike” button, similar to the “like” thumbs-up symbol? I assume I speak for the majority when I say it would be much more fun to dislike 3, maybe 4 things a day on your minifeed. Maybe cause some “drama” in Schrute’s world.
3. Why do people keep inviting me to become a pirate, an eco-friendly farmer or a fan of an unknown band? Do you think we could create filters for the invites we receive? I don’t really want to find out the sex of my future child via a quiz made by a random college student or send you a faux, virtual gift on your birthday. If a person sends me a Facebook cake via my wall, I’ll just wonder why anyone would bother to send something that looks so delicious in virtual form. That’s just mean.
4. I think there should be an “awkward” filter-thing on friend requests. For example: You and person X are in class together. X sits behind you, but you and X do not speak. You see each other at the bar said evening. X yells “Yo! You sit in front of me in ____ class! Dude, I hate that class!” You respond “I know! Let’s do the project together!”
Flash forward to the Saturday morning Facebook friend request. X friends you, or you friend X. But, don’t you wish there was a filter that flagged this request as “Warning: This is a potentially awkward request that will have no significance to either of us after ____ class ends. In fact, I may or may not speak to you outside the four walls of the bar ever again. Post college – seeeeeya, but I’ll probably creep ya?”
Or, if a random person from college “friends” you after the fact of graduation, you could accept it but with a “return receipt” that says “yeah, we don’t speak, but I find virtual friendship perfectly acceptable. I may even shout-out your birthday, but not with a wallpost-cake, because that’s reserved for my real life friends.”
Also, moms have Facebook.
5. Facebook Chat just makes a person way, way too available.
I could go on, but I think I just out-geeked myself, which I thought was an impossible feat.
It’s okay to spend time on Facebook. Despite a few weird features, it helps friends from all over the world connect all the time and in a personal way. I would not talk to half the people I have met in life if I did not have an account.
When Match.com makes an app, that’s when things will start to go downhill. And that’s when I’ll most likely delete my account.

I have to say, though, that the King Creep (pictured) is a genius.