The Day Facebook Ended the World
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On Thursday Facebook went wonky. Images and videos wouldn’t upload. You could still write on your wall, but pictures and videos were a no-no. Messenger too was up the creek. Well, it would be wouldn’t it as it’s connected to Facebook. WhatsApp too. I didn’t realize that Facebook were responsible for that too.
Anyway. It all went wonky.
‘Never mind’, I thought, ‘somebody will sort it out’. Was it a technological glitch? Was it the Russians? Was it the Martians? No idea. Wasn’t bothered either. I just chatted to neighbors over the fence. I popped to the supermarket and had a good chinwag with members of staff I’ve got to know.
Life, as they say, carried on normally. Actually, it carried on better in many ways. I probably talked to more people as I wasn’t walking into them with my face in my mobile.
Later on, I did a bit of surfing to see whether I could find out why Facebook had gone wonky, and I was amazed. I was amazed and highly amused.
All across the globe people were wandering into chat rooms and onto various sites regarding Facebook going all wonky and, they were angry. They were seriously angry.
From what I could gather, they were angry because they couldn’t post pictures or videos. Really? I post, mainly, pictures. Usually of my garden. Did I feel angry that I couldn’t? No, not at all. So what?
There were literally thousands of people all raging about not being able to post pictures.
It was surreal. It was like the media had just announced that the world was about to end or something.
“The world will end tomorrow at eleven o’clock GMT, and it is believed to be the fault of politicians who have allowed humanity to screw up too much of the world, so, as a result, it is ending and we are all doomed”
Now I could understand thousands of people on social media going ballistic at that. I could understand rage against the ‘rulers’ cocking it up so badly we were finished. Rage under those circumstances would make sense.
Rage because Facebook has gone wonky?
Really?
“I can’t see anything!” screeched one angry Facebooker. Well, she wrote it rather than screeched it, but you could imagine it being a screech if she had spoken it.
‘Good grief!’ I thought, someone’s gone blind all because Facebook has gone wonky.
“This is ridiculous!” wrote another, “we can’t do anything!!”
Excuse me? You can’t do anything? You can’t just go for a walk in the sunshine and enjoy the flowers and the trees and the birds singing?
Facebook goes wonky and you go into a vegetative state? Is that it? You’ve lost the use of your body and communicative skills all because Facebook has gone wonky??
Wow! Facebook must have extraordinary powers over some people. It didn’t bother me. I must have some immunity to it.
Hey! Maybe I can sell my immunity to social media sites crashing! I could make a fortune!
Thousands and thousands of them all screeching via the written word. “Facebook is down! Oh my God!! What can we do?? The world is ending!!”
Today, I have stomach cramps. They are most uncomfortable. I may consider suing Facebook. It is, sort of, their fault.
I laughed so much at the metaphorical screeches of the disenfranchised social media lunatics that, I think, I may have pulled a stomach muscle.
Another particularly hysterical part of this was the people who kept posting pictures and videos regardless.
“This is me taking a selfie”, and “This is me taking another selfie”, and “This is my third cousin twice removed when they were two years old in 1974”.
Each and every explanation was accompanied by a bit of grey screen with a funny little circle going around and around and around.
Hysterical. Well, it was to me anyway.
An extraordinary number of people, clearly desperate to have their 6,000 friends – of who they actually know about 3 – see their latest picture of themselves outside the public lavatory in Leicester Square, actually assumed it was their home PC or mobile phone that was to blame.
Apparently they deleted their Facebook account and tried to re-install it. Something like that anyway.
When they tried to reinstall it they couldn’t – because it had gone all wonky.
“Oh my God!!! I can’t reinstall it!!! Where are my pictures??? I can’t take it anymore!!! I’m going to hang myself!!!”
Scientist, James Lovelock, was 100 years old the day after facebook went wonky. He was on BBC Breakfast TV that morning. He is bright as a button. Sharp as knife, and all the other analogies you could mention. He is a very very clever man.
He did get one thing wrong though.
He said something to the effect that “One day, AI (Artificial Intelligence) will be smarter than us”
One day James? One day? How about now mate?
Facebook goes all wonky, and thousands and thousands lose what ever marbles they had left, and go into a worldwide rage that they can’t walk about with their face glued to their mobiles staring at selfies they just posted.
Artificial Intelligence left thousands and thousands behind years ago James.
Come to that, given the reaction of those thousands and thousands to Facebook going wonky, I have a very strong feeling that my kitchen appliances have more intelligence than the average social media user.
Now if my fridge went wonky and my beer got warm, that would be a reason for rage and the end of the world!!
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Bill : Absolutely nailed it mate. Absolutely nailed it!
Glenn : Likewise to Bill mate. Humanity is beginning to lack the ability to function without a bloody mobile phone and the internet.
The other day, a young woman walked into me because she was looking at her mobile and not where she was going.
She glared at me and said “Watch where you are going!”
To her clear surprise, I responded truthfully, albeit in an ungallant way, “You are a moron. Get your stupid face out of your phone and YOU watch where you are going you bimbo!”
The look on her face as I strode away was a picture 🙂
Since Gutenberg, the powerful have been trying to outlaw printing presses and mimeograph machines, radio transmitters and anything that lets ideas be spread. Now, our culture simply is the internet and truth and lies, advertising and propaganda all contend while we sit around at the dinner table and text each other. The sky could fall – it wouldn’t matter.
Good piece Neil. A couple of years ago I discovered somewhat of a miracle. In my haste to go pick something up at the grocery store I left home without my cell phone. Of course by the time I discovered I was already at the store so if I really needed my phone with me it made little sense for me to run home and get it then come back to the store. So, albeit nervously, I grabbed the items I had gone to the store to get and went home. Amazingly, the world was still spinning correctly, at least it appeared to be, the roads had not crumbled, and my house was still standing. To say the least I was amazed. I could actually function without my cellphone. Will wonders never cease.