The Death of Facebook

(The following is a canned obituary for when the announcement is made.)

Facebook is dead. Almost. Facebook for adults is dead.

A few archeologists are looking over the excavation and anthropologists are studying the remaining older indigenous natives and trying to figure out exactly how they fit into the Empire when it was at the pinnacle of its glory. But this is on the old site. The new site is still thriving and bustling with new teenage angst statuses quoting bad R&B songs and college witticisms. But where the old folks used to be – that's a ghost town. Facebook has become eerily reminiscent of Logan's Run. Nobody over 30 can be found.

For a while there were funny status updates that for the most part only the more experienced fb members would find funny.

- Joe Smoe is for eliminating, getting rid of, disposing of, and abolishing redundancy – and this time he means it!

- Joe Smoe's waistline is expanding faster than the universe.

- Joe Smoe is trying to recall a famous German philosopher but he Kant.

- Joe Smoe's chances are disappearing faster than a hairline near his forehead.

In the interest of confession – these were all posted by some guy named Rick. I eventually had to unfriend that guy.

The Unfriend: This is Facebook's greatest contribution to society. You could become friends with total strangers, and remain total strangers. You wouldn't even know a thing about them. You couldn't vouch for them on any verification. If you ran into each other on the street there would be no recognition. There weren't even complimentary Christmas cards. But they were a friend. It said so right on the list. And the list would grow. Some people added as many friends as they could. Friends and more friends; the number of friends said something about you. You were popular. You were in demand. You were special. You had lots and lots of friends. I always imagined that this could come up poorly for me at some point.

"But Mr. Doray, this…this…gentleman who sits before you, systematically crippled the entire banking network by deliberate and repeated overdrafts, ruined the environment by driving a gas-guzzling carbon-emitting clunker, consorted with known fans of MC Hammer, and he gave away unneutered puppies to small children. You had extensive electronic communications with him. He was your friend, SIr! Are we to understand that you knew nothing of this? How do you explain this?"

"I confirmed his request on Facebook, but when I found out about all this I unfriended him. "

"Oh I see, well, that is a different story. Wait a minute! Isn't he also your brother?"

And yes, you could unfriend them. Click the mouse and Poof! They were off of your friend list. And here is the genius of it. Facebook wouldn't notify them that they had been unfriended. They didn't have a clue. If you felt like sniping off a few people it was easy. Click. Unfriend. Click. Unfriend. Absolute power giving way to absolute corruption. The only setback – it didn't apply to real life. That would be sweet. Click. Unboss. Click. Unbrother-in-law. Click. Unstupid driver who cut me-off. Click. Unlady in the checkout line in front of me who is now searching in her purse for her checkbook only after all her items were bagged and loaded into the cart and the cashier waiting.

Some of the social networking sites have kept stats on their growth. In August Facebook claimed to have over 370,000 people joining every day. 360,000 sent me friend requests. Or was it that I sent 360,000 requests and got 3 confirmations. I can't remember now. But I do remember that the feed was hopping. People were a status-posting, comment-leaving, quiz-taking, game-playing and photo-snooping. Now it seems like hardly anybody is on there anymore. I think yesterday two people from the Michigan UP joined but one of them immediately forgot their password. The other forgot to turn the crank on the side of the computer and Windows 3.0 froze up. "Say yah to da U.P., eh!"

The whole craze was a tidal wave of older travelers on the global information superhighway checking out the latest digital tourist stop. Finding it cute for awhile, they soon got bored with it. The over-30 crowd having finally gained the wall after laying siege to the famous college social networking site, looted, pillaged and then – they left. Nobody is on there anymore. Their fb pages are still up - a testament to a generation who have perfected digital narcissism. But the city of Troy has more evidence of life then the ruins of the "I love Michael Bublé" group. They just couldn't come up with 25 more random things to say about each other now that everyone knows their pimp name. Farmville looks like the dust bowl part deux. Right now everybody is going tweet, tweet. But I expect that canary will soon be in the bottom of the cage, too. Maybe not though, it feels like texting and that could give it staying power.