Give Us Our Facebook Back

We college coeds have lost our last great escape

Two very influential PR practitioners came to speak with my class the other day. Ken Luce (president) and Erika Holland (VP) of globally-renowned Weber Shandwick Dallas spoke candidly about what to expect as young PR people entering the business. Their honesty was much appreciated.

Towards the end of our discussion, however, they touched on one thing that got me thinking (and ended up making me just plain mad)- PR has infiltrated Facebook. Luce said he recently spoke with clients at Clorox and explained the need for them to expand their marketing to reach Facebookers. Here's another pretty good argument for the trend, as well.

As a potential future communications professional, this makes sense to me. It's a cheap, yet totally effective way to get young people talking about your products.

As a 21-year-old college student, this pisses me off.

My professor pointed out that, back in the day, Facebook used to belong to students. Only those privileged enough to have an email address ending in ".edu" could become Facebook addicts.

Let's take a nice, little trip down memory lane, shall we?

Remember when we could post any and all pictures of our wasted weekends without fear of future employers seeing us in less-than-flattering situations?

Or, how about when the ads on the side of the page used to be purely random shout outs and birthday wishes paid for by friends?

Or, when wall posts were written by actual human beings, rather than the spam bots posing as our friends that now send crap like, "Hey, buddy, I download super cool ringtones from www.hotringtonesforfree092342.com. You should check it out!!!!"

Ahhhh, those were the good 'ol days.

Now I cringe every time Mark Zuckerberg makes an announcement on the home page. What stupid feature have they thought of this time that will continue to kill off the true essence of Facebook-- its ability to let college students be the immature, shallow and self-indugled "adults" that we really are behind our pretty resumes.

So, with that said, no, I do not want American Airlines as my friend on Facebook. That goes for you, too, GE, Apple and any other creepy marketing/advertising man sitting in some cubicle. Go make a TV campaign and run it during The Hills. I promise I'll go buy your product then.

What has happened to my one escape from the corporate world? I miss it so.

It makes me sick to think that something so pure and beautiful as Facebook could be tainted by companies looking to capitalize off young, impressionable Facebook addicts.

So, consider this my call to action. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT click on the ads on the side of your Facebook page. And DO NOT become friends with a company (that's just weird).

I will, however, recommend detagging that grossly inebriated picture of yourself in a tennis skirt, because, like it or not, we all need jobs when we graduate. And it's my bet most real adults won't accept your explanation of "Ohhh...that was just from the 'Tennis Hoes and Golf Pros' party."

I'm done ranting. And don't get me wrong-- I love PR. I think it's a dynamic industry full of creative opportunities. I just want my Facebook back. That's all.