December 16th, 2010: Approximately 4:30 PM EST. The world’s third largest nation disappeared off the face of the planet for about 10-20 minutes. Drastic changes to Facebook’s New Brand Pages made the social networking giant crash, and crash hard. I experienced this outage from inside the offices of The Campus Socialite, where Facebook is God. We were cut off from the world for what felt like an eternity. We all felt the absence of the divine presence. I watched my fellow socialites roam about the offices without purpose, questioning the meaning of life and trying to figure out what they should do with themselves now. I tried to imagine what the world would be like if Facebook just never came back up…and I shivered to think of it. Here I have compiled my thoughts on A World Without Facebook.
After the Fall
Try not to freak out: You’re now living in the age of the apocalypse, but not in the traditional sense. Everyone will feel the immediate effects of this world gone awry. It is as if a large portion of the Earth’s matter just disappeared into another dimension, throwing off the force of gravity and expelling our dear little blue planet into the depths of space.
You feel lost. You can no longer communicate with your hundreds of friends, family members, and acquaintances, all at the same time. You attempt to BBM, call, text, or physically talk to them, but it just isn’t the same. There’s too much work involved in all of that. You can’t anonymously creep through peoples’ pictures or read constant updates on their lives. You’re off the grid. You now have two choices: 1. Commit a mass suicide with all of your work/classmates or 2. Wander the Earth in search of a way to stalk everyone you know simultaneously. Good luck, you’ll never find what you’re looking for.
Suicide
So you’re mentally weak and can’t fathom a world without your beloved deity. Do what ancient cultures did for thousands of years and sacrifice yourself. Who knows, your death might appease Mark Zuckerberg enough for him to bring back Facebook. If so, thanks. If not, then at least you escaped the misery of living like nature intended. Either way, you did what you thought was the right move.
Go Road Warrior Style
If you decided to give reality a shot, then welcome to a world of grand adventure! This would be my personal choice. I’d go nomad and travel the world in search of some semblance of connectivity. Imagine Mad Max, but without the hubbub about gasoline. Who needs that stuff anyway? So, I’ll sling my laptop over my shoulder and head for greener pastures…maybe Facebook will still work in India. Only Zuckerberg knows for sure. Perhaps I could even hunt him down and get an answer to the ultimate question: Why, Mark, why?
Reconstruction
But don’t worry: the world won’t be so dark and lonely for long. If you survive without the connectivity that Facebook provides, then you know that you didn’t need it all along. You can make friends the old-fashioned way.
Of course, the scope of your social activity will be much narrower, and you’ll lose that God-like ability to know everything about everyone in your life, but maybe that’s a good thing. Instead of playing Farmville, you can actually do some farming and work out that core. Instead of creepily hitting on girls online, you can work on your real-life game (you know who you are). Play Frisbee or some stuff. Get a real life, you Facebook whores!
