Don’t mean to be a buzzkill (she says right before she’s about to be a massive buzzkill) but…
Can we just NOT with the Facebook Look Back videos?
You’ve probably seen them pop up in your Newsfeed the last couple of days. Basically, Facebook is turning ten, and to celebrate, they’ve created a handy tool that takes all the highlights from your profile since you joined, and puts them into an minute-long personalised video montage, complete with emotional music and fancy graphics.
If you want to see yours, go to https://www.facebook.com/lookback/ and it happens automatically.
Here’s the thing you guys: We control our own Facebook profiles for a reason. A video montage put together without your own creative input is practically guaranteed to be a disappointment, because Facebook doesn’t select the BEST MOMENTS FROM YOUR LIFE, it just selects some photos you’ve posted on Facebook, via a super-personal algorithm.
I joined Facebook in 2007, and since that time, I’ve been through a pretty bad break up, gained heaps of weight and posted a LOT of statuses about TV, all of which was represented in my montage. I also graduated university, ended up in my dream job and became an aunty for a second time – none of which was represented in my montage.
Your system is flawed, Mark Zuckerberg.
If I wanted to listen to a sentimental piano solo while looking at a photo of myself drinking cheap wine straight from the bottle, I’d organise that in my own time, thanks.
Top Comments
The first picture on mine wasn't even me!
Rosie, I think you are a wonderful, talented writer but I don't agree with your position here. The following shouldn't be read as rhetorical/attacky but honest questioning...
If you don't care to see a montage of what you or your supposed 'friends' consider worthy of sharing, then question how you use Facebook rather than firing down the montage concept.
If you don't care about the people whose montages are appearing in your feed then why do you choose to share your online life with them and follow theirs? If you don't care about what you have posted previously yourself, then why are you posting it in the first place or why do you allow it to remain?
Sorry, but it is such a bugbear of mine. Personally, I think leave the enormous followings to Twitter and Instagram, it's what they were designed for. If more people used facebook as a community more like their real life community, we wouldn't have all this negativity about what people choose to share. My facebook experience is great, because I genuinely have an interest in every single friend in my relatively small network of facebook friends.