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Anne Enright, Evolution, Facebook, Myspace, Social network, Twitter, Wikimedia Commons, WordPress, Zuckerberg
“The internet ate my novel, but this is much more fun #careerchange #nolookingback oh but #worldsosilentnow Hey!” Anne Enright, Twitter fiction
In the beginning there were bulletin boards – the grandparents of contemporary public posting, followed by internet forums – somewhat similar to the state planning of the former USSR – ’twas was hard to get in, and even harder to leave them.
Then, there was MySpace – looking back at it, its sparkling layouts could only be compared to the shiny parachute pants, shoulder pads and big hair popular in the 80ies – no one remembers gladly they actually wore those.
Thereafter, the new kid on the block arrived – and we welcomed the aeon of Facebook…
Back in the days of Myspace – Tom was everyone’s friend and many of us had developed a certain emotional attachment to his dorky picture, yet somewhere in 2008 it seemed that he went missing… He reappeared on G+ several years later and I swear I felt as if I was reunited with a long lost family member! (I bet you that many of Tom’s 237,991,950 MySpace friends felt exactly the same!)
Speaking of which, let us take a better look at cyber biodiversity.
First, we need to choose a method for categorization and here we are opening a whole new can of worms: Evolutionists are often asked what they mean by “species,” and creationists are often asked what they mean by “kind.” Creationists would like to define “kind” in terms of interbreeding, since the Bible describes different living things as “multiplying after kind,” and evolutionists also use the interbreeding criterion. However, scientists recognize certain bower birds as distinct species even though they interbreed, and they can’t use the interbreeding criterion at all with asexual forms.*
I am as confused as you are. Other sources clarify that: “Creationists oppose the idea that species can evolve indefinitely and charge evolutionary biologists with failing to define their terms properly.”
Right… It seems I am with evolutionary biologists on this one – most of my MySpace friends shapeshifted into Facebook friends and it was very few, Tom among them, who didn’t make it …
Anyway, as the story goes – any real (macro)evolution requires “an expansion of the gene pool, the addition of new genes and new traits as life is supposed to move from simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms.” So far – so good; according to an ancient data Facebook ‘s expanded gene pool “now has nearly 100 million more worldwide users than MySpace, which added 4 million new users in December to 125 million total. The page view difference is more dramatic – Facebook had 80 billion monthly page views in December v. 43 billion for MySpace. Just six months ago the sites were about the same size.”
‘Twas January 2009, mind you – and that’s probably the last time anyone bothered comparing the two; from there on Myspace, it seems, went down the online memory lane, extinct like some totally enormous dinosaurs.
As per transition from “simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms”, if you too are regularly bashing your head against the wall every single time Zuckerberg’s team introduces a new, complicated and unnecessary innovation, then you’d know that the above mentioned criteria is fulfilled as well.
Lo and behold, influenced by the philosophy of Zen, minimalists – whom for the purpose of this classification we can compare to evolution’s bowerbirds – started an upraise and in their everlasting search for simplicity had moved to Twitter. But, some of this distinct kind had interbred by keeping both accounts and interacting – tweeting and facebooking – inbetween the two networks.
With time, some started feeling rather nostalgic and occasionally started checking out their old forum accounts, albeit hardly anyone paid visits to the neglected message boards…
Anyhow, natural selection started favoring good typing skills and fittest Alpha males&females were pushed to the corner by those who could type faster.
It’s probably at that very time that the oldest question in the cyber world was raised – and the question which no one has answered yet was: To Tweet Or To Facebook?
As you would know, the impending 2012 elections are actually insignificant juxtaposed to Twitter vs Facebook dilemma and there are whole sorts of criteria one should be using while determining between the two- the former consisting of, but not necessarily limited to, the following:
a) are your grand-grand parents on that social network?
b) how many A list celebrities use it?
c) is there enough daily drama – so that you don’t have to watch soap operas (and thus can save on cable TV)?
Stuff like that.
That being said, given that everything changes but the change itself, as twitterrific as 140 character minimalism was, many felt too much is left unsaid – and here we are on WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging platform…
What’s next? That – Cyber Gods only know, but when it comes to me – I reckon I’ll stick around here for a while.
*adopted from: www.answersingenesis.org

France in the Year 2000; series of retro-futuristic illustrations by Jean-Marc Côté between 1899 and 1910 (public domain )
France in the Year 2000 (50 illustrations) are cataloged at Wikimedia Commons, the illustration above is my favorite.
L.R.S.
I missed the whole MY SPACE thing because I was very active on Live Journal (I still keep a private live journal as a diary because my hand writing got to awful over the years I no longer keep paper journals). I do prefer Twitter to Face Book, it’s more educational and less drama. Great post and I love that illustration, which brings me to: I can do without the social networking and would love my own flying car! 🙂
Oh, i envy you that you missed MySpace actually! 😀 I feel bit sick in my stomach when i remember all the flickering unicorns and posters saying “just passing by to wish you a nice day”! tht being said, I don’t keep paper journals either anymore – only a small one to note I Ching hexagrams – while before i’d write several notebooks in a month!
I am just getting used to Twitter (i spent years on forums) – it’s very informative and fast, but it does require a lot of attention i think, i feel it like a toddler whom one mustn’t neglect! 😀
Thank you for commenting, much appreciated!
great post! Who can forget those old bulletin boards – LOL – sending email then was so archaic!!
Thank you so much! Lolol, i agree! 😀
I ignored MySpace totally. It became too childish, even for me.
Hahha, so true Hildegerd! I met Emily Carding on MySpace and we did that awesome project together – but except for that, i’d really rather forget it! 😀
Great Post! and funny 🙂 I do miss the unicorns sometimes 😀
Thank you so much! I must admit that on occasions i do miss the shiny Fairies! 😀
I never even saw ‘MySpace’ or even knew it existed… should I hang my head in shame? LOL
When my son set up fb for me I was nearly 54 yrs old… It was at the time some people somewhere were telling us that the world was going to end… (again)…. next Thursday or something.
My son said words to the effect of… “Maybe the world is really going to end… my Dad now has a fb page!”…
In all honesty I did think fb was a young teenage thing (some adults of course behave on it as such… or as even younger…. though I do think they are in a minority 😉
Like Lena has said above, did I “neglect a toddler” of technology?
Regardless, now I am over 55 yrs of age and I do very much like most of it & what is going on within it… though I will keep my archaic pencils/ hand written diaries/notebooks & journals…. I do not really know or care why… just because.
Apparently I have a twitter or wordpress site… The truth is have no idea or desire of how to use it … or how to even access it at the moment :O … I do get lots of emails saying such & such is now following me LOL, if they are following me I will lead them over a cliff as I cannot access it myself..with all respect to these people …I really have no idea or the time needed to devote to it…. I think? I had to set it up so that I could access the writings of others… and I am glad I did,
Hhahha, Jim i bet your son didn’t dream that you will become even more popular than him on Facebook! 😀
I don’t remember how i got to MySpace, but i do remember how i got into “foruming” – i was looking for more information on this mysterious deck of cards that i inherited from my granma… (Piatnik’s Gypsies/ Zigeuner-Wahrsagekarten ;))
I really, really wish you’d start a photo blog, your pictures are AWESOME and i ‘d love it if you spent more time on WordPress too! It’s easy actually, you go “dashboard” (left upper corner – falling menu) and from there it’s a pieace of cake! Some features took me a while to understand, but if you google whatever you want to know – there are very detailed instructions and also youtube videos, so it’s really not a problem, even for techno dummies such as i! 😉 Twitter – as it seems to me – requires a lot of attention, i spend very little time there and i am still not really used to it… that being said – will look you up there lolol! Thank you for commenting, dear friend!
Excellent post! I never created a Facebook, and now am thinking I should. I never even thought of MySpace, but I heard that it is making a comeback. We shall see! It may be time for something new!
Love this post and I hope you don’t mind that I reblog your link on the reblog page!
I am honored, dear Judy! Thank you so much!!! I think you should definitely create a fan page on FB (if you don’t feel like keeping an account), i think it’s quite important for online presence…albeit i love the social aspect of it too! 😉 If/when you start the fan page – please let me know because i definitely want to promote it, i love what you do!
This is such a funny post – I love it! I never had a Myspace account and thought I was being “SO 2000” by getting an FB account. Now I probably check it once a week….
WP on the other hand is keeping me busy, but I’m not travelling around in a flying car (just yet) 😀
Thank you, dear Dianne! I got on fb because the peeps from private Kabbalah forum moved there – and they “pulled” me with them, otherwise i doubt i would have joined any other network after myspace… 😛 Note to self: must get a flying car – so to pop to Dianne’s for a coffee LIKE A BOSS 😉
Have a great weekend, dear friend! xxxx
They’re kind of like layers that feed on each other, aren’t they? But they do make us less lonely.
I agree, Shovonc! The thing is that the folks you (generic you ;)) have a lot in common with – are not necessarily in your time zone/ geographical location… there internet comes to our rescue 😉 Oh – and in full honesty – i think that as soon as primordial man starting thinking, it struck him that he is alone lol! But seriously, i vent a lot that i am lonely and all, yet i seek it actively, i can’t hear my thoughts when in the midst of crowd…
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