Goodbye and Good Luck from Your Social Media Platform

Sad Facebook

To my users:

By the time you read this, you’ll already know what happened, but I figured I should tell you the reasons why, so that you don’t jump to conclusions like you almost always do, even when presented with facts.

You’ve probably noticed how my tone has changed in the last few months, so I can’t imagine you’re surprised. It was just a matter of time.

When they first made me, it was all utopianism. A new kind of society, new types of relationships, citizen journalists—true democracy where every voice was equal. But then the values of your greater society seeped in pretty fast. “How are you going to pay for that great society and, more importantly, make us billions?” asked the shareholders. Continue reading

Deputy Doolittle Has a Lot to Say About Nothing

“OK, I’m going to start giving you my spiel now. This is a courtroom, and you need to act appropriately. What does that mean? Well, I’ll tell you. First thing is that you need to turn off any devices that make sounds. Now I don’t mean you need to turn down the volume of the device; I mean you need to turn it off. Why is that? Well, I’ll tell you. You may think it’s enough to turn down that flippety thing on the side, but it’s not. What you need to do is find the off switch and hold it down until the thing is turned completely off. Not on and in sleep mode. That’s not what I mean. I mean off. So that if you press a button on the device, nothing happens. It doesn’t wake up and make a sound. It is off and it’s not just asleep.

Now why is that? Well, I’ll tell you. You know how vast the internet it, right? You may be surfing the internet and you may run into a video game or something and download it. Or your kid may do that and you don’t even know about it. Well, that video game may be on a different system than the rest of your phone. Every time you download something like that, you are entering into a contract with a company. And do you take the time to read the contract? No, of course not. So you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You come to court and you think you have a handle on your phone, so you think it’s enough to turn down your volume. But then this company has your phone number and all your information and then all of a sudden you hear the game playing from your phone because you are in a contract that allows them to do that.

Continue reading