2012 - 19

Change or Die

It's been a while since I had a Facebook rant, but it appears overdue and necessary now.

I've made it clear that I don't play many games and the ones I do tend to be through Facebook - Scrabble, Bejeweled Blitz and Collapse - and I get up to an hour of mindless fun a day before I move onto other things. Today, two of those games have effectively been barred to me and I expect scrabble will follow suit if the Pop Cap Games rep's comments are anything to go by.

Apparently, if you are the provider of an application that works on Facebook then you have to 'upgrade' to Timeline and therefore people who use the game also have to 'upgrade' and that means the end of the old Facebook and in with a dog's dinner of a set up. Timeline is a fucking abortion and that's being kind to it.

I have noticed that gradually all of the things I've used have migrated to Timeline, which means that unless I'm forcibly made to upgrade, in which case I shall say my goodbyes and quit the thing for good, I shall just be using the thing to promote my blog and maybe post some tunes. I expect the next thing will be people being unable to post comments on Timeline users pages without upgrading. It's just a load of bollocks anyhow. All it is is a way to find out what you like so Facebook can sell your info to companies that might find a mug to buy things from them. I am going to seriously investigate what I've liked over the last five years and unlike it, even if it means missing out on important info or updates.

Google+ is like Facebook was, but unfortunately it is just as easy to pick up 'friends' or follow people you have zero connection with and regardless of a suggestion that people would go and use it, the grand exodus hasn't materialised. People have become dependant on Facebook and therefore don't want to risk missing something by not being on it. Zuckerberg deserves credit for addicting people to a drug that he can tinker with until his heart's content with the knowledge that 99% of the people using it will follow along like willing sheep to the advertising gallows.

Over the last year I have been waging a campaign against the adverts on my page. It has been, I'm well aware, a futile gesture because most of these parts of the application are manned by robots, but I click on 'offensive' or 'sexually explicit' or 'other' and type in "I will never, as long as I have a hole in my arse, ever buy anything from anyone that advertises on your crappy company's pages." At times I definitely don;t have as many adverts. But now I'm having my friends likes thrust down my throat. "Fred Bloggs likes this!" Well, whoop-de-fucking-doo for Fred Bloggs. I'm sure he also likes having his scrotum licked by cats and his eyes pissed in by goats, but that's him. Just because he is my friend doesn't mean I want to share his fucking life!

Oh God; Joe Public likes One Direction. Perhaps I should abandon nearly 50 years of eclectic musical taste to listen to a boy band with less collective pubic hair than Gail Porter. Or perhaps, because Helen Back likes Audi UK I should abandon my belief that all Audi drivers are cocks and get myself into 30 grand's worth of debt by buying one of these German monstrosities that turns all the drivers into knobs? Hey, Sheila Blige likes Lady Ga Ga - my God how individual of her! Maybe I should do the same, even if I think she has as much talent as one of the paving slabs in my duck run.

Sheep. You're all fucking sheep. If I'm forced to use Timeline then I will not be a sheep even if it means I have to use my computer for other, possibly important, things.