Facebook Applications Are The New Pet Rock
September 13th, 2007
The 1970’s brought us Gary Dahl’s famous Pet Rocks.
For about $3.95 you could buy an ordinary rock, swaddled in excelsior, wrapped in a glorious box and paired with a manual that helped you figure out how to care for your pet rock. It made Dahl a millionaire and about 400,000 people silly, fad-chasing automatons. And sadly, today, while there has yet to be money involved — our good friends over at Facebook are spitting out silly, time-wasting, ludicrous add-on applications that the automatons are flocking to yet again…and trying to get me to join.
Which I won’t. Because Facebook Applications are the new Pet Rock.
When I tell you that Facebook Applications are the new Pet Rock, I mean to say that they are (much like the Pet Rock) a useless, insignificant bit of nothingness that does nothing more than annoy my sensibilities on a daily basis. At least MySpace tried to keep things simple with the video streaming and the music players and the photo sharing devices. At least they didn’t offer the masses the opportunity to grow a gift in a pot, much like you’d grow a plant. At least they didn’t offer up the feature where I send a hot potato to you over the Internet and then you take that hot potato and send it to another person who gets the hot potato and then sends it to another person who must figure out what to do with the hot potato.
Ahem. Pet rock.
Do I have a desire for my own virtual pet monkey? No. Do I have a desire to have my own pet monkey and get to whip it with a wet noodle, sabotage style? Not really. Am I pretty sure that I don’t have any desire whatsoever to add some application where all my human friends can pretend to be animals, including (if they want), a pet monkey? Damn yeah.
Cough. Pet. Rock.
Should I care what my porn star name is? My stripper name? The name I might have if I was a plumber, dry-waller, contractor, pirate, ninja, vampire or werewolf? After figuring out said referenced name, would I have any desire to add an application on Facebook that lets me bite my friends, thus turning them into vampires, werewolves or dry-wallers? Yeah, not so much.
[Clears throat, violently.] Pet……ROCK.
I don’t care to compare people, have people sketch me, rank my sex appeal, test my ability to know TV trivia, invite me to a fake, virtual Oktoberfest party, determine if I may or may not be a multimillionaire by using some really expensive digital and virtual evaluation techniques specific only to, um…Facebook… I have no interest in finding out what two friends’ children might look like if they mated, who is currently stalking me or how well I know my friends… Not to mention, I don’t want to pee on my friends either — although there’s an application on Facebook that’ll let you do that too.
I don’t want to get in a virtual pillow fight, a virtual rock, paper, scissors fight or even a virtual Facebook water fight. I don’t want to create my own zoo and then decorate it to my hearts content, don’t want to open up a virtual lemonade stand and get zero customers and a virtual sunburn like when I was a kid, and have zero desire to share my current dieting goals on Facebook for all the world to see.
I don’t want to send you fake chocolates, angels, or “real winks” nor do I want to invite you to have to sign up for the same stupid applications so you can retrieve the same fake chocolates, angels and fake “real winks” available to you through the glorious wonders that IS Facebook applications (a.k.a. the pet rock).
And I especially don’t want to make you sign up for an application so you can find out what’s in the currently-hatching virtual egg that I’ve sent you with my awesome new virtual hatching egg Facebook application. In fact, I don’t want to make you do that, determine who would win between pirates and ninjas, and/or double dare your friends (”don’t forget to be daring!”) in the virtual world that is Facebook.
At least there was only ONE Pet Rock. On Facebook, there’s more than 4000 of these annoying, stupid, frustrating little applications that everyone and anyone is signing up for.
I mean, really…Facebook. Really. Don’t you have anything better to do?
Except for the application called “Dinosaur Comics!” where it’s nothing but comics involving dinosaurs. That’s got potential. I mean, real money making potential. But everything else…?
Pet. Rock.
Paul Davidson is complaining about Facebook.
Comment by Jeff — September 13, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
Paul Davidson is eating dinner now.
Comment by Pauly D — September 13, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
Just so you know, the “kick me sign” I sent you on Facebook, was my one free gift they let me give out, apparently to get me hooked. I tried to send you another “pet rock” but when I saw I had to pay for it, I was like, yah right.
Not that you aren’t worth it, but um, I’d rather pay for a real gift, like some Fritos or something.
Comment by Jacquie — September 14, 2007 @ 5:05 am
call me a pet rock but I cannot stand either Facebook or My Space as they both are just means for folks to elevate themselves. Little tools of Egomaniacs and Narcissists — look at me, love me, post on me messages of adoration and praise for I am that true undiscovered genius who has not yet sold out my brillance for profit to the Corporate Man. These sites are the Reality TV for the Internet with posters being fame-crazed wannabes hoping to leap to stardom by merely getting more face time (friends and website hits) than anyone else.
No offense intended for this site’s great and geniune host or the wonderfully sincere folks who post on this site who may have a Facebook or My Space account.
Comment by Jerry — September 14, 2007 @ 7:04 am
Kathleen is leaving you a comment…and snickering.
I never got into Facebook. I tried, but nahhh.
Comment by Kathleen — September 15, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
But what about Scrabulous?
Comment by sandra — September 15, 2007 @ 8:58 pm
Facebook: Read an articlea few months back that one of those Harvard Facebook dingbats branched that off of Myspace is currently going through a pitiful lawsuit at bat. Never got into Facebook. It was a tough run getting into putting a Myspace post together and since then …has remained my own enough ether-ego show-off realm pour moi.
On the Pet Rock:I have a plethora of collected,’ be-still-ma-heart’ shaped rocks that I think have more character than any pet rock-inna-box could live up to.
I’ve kept my love for random heart rock findings with me over the years, like thumb-sucking or bed-wetting, I’ve kept this heart rock complex with me for the past 31 years and going strong. I just can’t give it up.
Facebook.com = bologna that tries too hard to be something it will never amount too … like the kinda bologna with Spanish olives that somehow remain intact in it’s own casing. Spooky meats have never done it for me and never will.
I’ll take a URL link to WFME over Facebook any day o’the week.
-Nic
Comment by Nicoletta — September 16, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
Does this mean no more poking?
Comment by scarlet hip — September 18, 2007 @ 7:10 am
Sandra - I like to call it Crap-ulous.
Scarlet Hip - To clarify, poking is not a Facebook app. So no, you can keep poking to your heart’s content.
Comment by Pauly D — September 18, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
First of all…what kind of pleasure does a facebook kiss, hug….or poke do for me? As far as I’m concerned Facebook has screwed me.Where was it when I was in college? I was stuck with just going to parties, hanging out on the mall at Old Main , drinking crappy coffe because starbucks wasn’t out yet…oh and yes tanning on the roof of the dorm. Crap I could have used a few hookups rather than the drunken ones I was stuck with. Ok, I’m just bitter..and aging myself. LOL.
Comment by christie — September 24, 2007 @ 6:59 pm
Oh, you are SO right about this. I have Facebook and it’s SO obnoxious when I see I have a “Werewolf invitation!” Who cares?! I think you should send this TO Facebook so they know. I can’t stand all that crap.
Comment by Gina — September 29, 2007 @ 5:54 am
I am SO posting a link to this on my Facebook Blog Article list app.
Comment by Ursula — October 4, 2007 @ 10:04 am
I know what you mean… but really facebook was designed as a communications tool, i.e. for the transfer of information. Given, much of the apps are pretty stupid, but a good amount of them do supply information. How valuable or eminent that information appears is completely dependent on the eyes looking at it. A majority of them do seem to supply information based on the need for inflating the individual users ego, which may be useless to one that has no need, but isn’t that why facebook gives you the option of using the application or not? Although I do think it would be nice if there was a mail block option for all application mail.
While I don’t use many applications outside of general tools, (movies/music/etc.) I feel you did not really address the vampire/werewolves/zombie apps well. I do use werewolves and it is more of a primitive RPG game than a “useless application”, and I don’t know, games may seem to be useless to you, but the electronic games market shows a lot of people may not feel the same. I know in the end, a game is useless, when judged by the final end-effect. But think about this: In a video game, you spend “years” creating an empire, and succeeding in whatever the goals were supposed to be, then you get tired of the game, grow old, and die. When you are dead, it will not matter if you played the game or not. But if you spent your real life creating a “real” empire in… whatever, after you die it still won’t matter at all, because everything in this world will end anyway. Now, depending on your religious views some of the things you do in this life may make a difference. I believe they do, and most of the things you can do in a game would affect that to the negative.
This being said, I think video games provide an outlet to some of the darker urges in this life, possibly keeping them from being “useless”.
I would also like to point out that I have always had a feeling that allot of the hate some have for certain icons or objects in our culture is directly proportioned to the popularity it possesses. If it is from the injured ego of one who has never possessed popularity or just a general distaste or the popularity concept, I can’t say. In this age, our society as a whole is trying in vain to define themselves. The definition of “Define” is recognizing attributes that make an element stand out, or be different, when compared to other elements like it, which is arguably useless with regard to social behavior, because no matter what you choose to do, (even if you choose to do nothing) has already been done by someone else before. I have met so many people who hate the iPod, and can’t tell me why… until I finally get it out of them that it’s just because everyone has one. This leads one to the fact of “Everyone is trying to be different….just like everyone else”. But what confuses me is that people hang on to their own way of being different no matter how illogical it proves to be. Keep in mind that I am not trying to attack your ideas, I am just expressing mine. It has been a long time since I have felt compelled to write about something for fun, and I thank you.
So, I guess my point is, If you spend all your time deciding how not to spend your time (or arguing on what ways you should), you end up doing nothing, and then you become the pet rock.
Comment by Jason — October 5, 2007 @ 9:58 am