- I was in Grade 4
- My classes were in the big kid building
- Learned all the Capital Cities of Canada
- Told my crush I liked him
- Wore my ballet skirt over jeans to school
- Held hands and did laps around the school yard with my crush
- Puberty was beginning
As you can see, 2004 was a big year for me. But while I was going through all these life changing and riveting events, Mark Zuckerberg was creating Facebook. The most revolutionary social media platform created today. Although I am a bit of a laggard to Facebook, joining the site in 2007 (and pretending I was 18), I feel like I have seen it evolve and grow into the depths (or lack there of) that is today.
For a while, Facebook was central to photo's. It was all about finding the perfect photo to one up one another. Showing off how much cooler your vacation to your friends. Mastering the camera, duck face, mirror, flash combo with your digital camera. Slowly photo's have evolved from the raw digital camera photos that you uploaded to your parents PC's to the iPhone selfie edited on 10 different app's. These day's it's all about the GoPro and selfie stick. Who can take the coolest, most adventurous photo in the most exotic place and get over 100+ likes. Likes...don't get me started on the 'Like' button, I have a bunch of theories about self-esteem and competition that was brought on by that dreadful button. But I do also think it's what changed Facebook from being just a photo sharing site to strategic marketing tool. In some senses, it's a measurement of reputation and popularity for businesses and people.
Since Twitter and Instagram have come onto the scene, Facebook has had to shift from being statuses and photo's to much more than that. Lately when scrolling through my news feed, every second post is a video that is being shared, reaching viral statuses, or completely weird and outrageous. It began with camera phones, allowing people to capture every moment. Youtube being a sharing medium but then being able to share those videos on Facebook to gain even more views. Then with the influx of GoPro's on to the scene, it is easier than ever to capture every funny or amazing moment. For these reasons, I think Facebook has shifted to video sharing platform just as heavily as photo sharing.
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