Daniel Jones
Intro to Cultural Anthropology
Michael Wesch
September 20, 2008
Koobecaf
Facebook has quickly become a major part of American culture in the last four years. The Facebook phenomenon has become such a large part of our culture because of many reasons. I will emphasize three of them, the monetary aspect, the American attraction to individualism, and finally the natural attraction to social acceptance.
First of all is the monetary aspect. Facebook provides advertisers with the perfect target audience; mostly high school and college aged students. As the younger generation, we are the most desirable target audience because of the simple fact that our generation is spoiled by instant gratification. If we want to talk to someone, we have so many ways of getting our message across. We could text, call, write, or in this case Facebook. Facebook panders to our lust for instant gratification by not only notifying us of every move our friends make but also allowing us to almost effortlessly contact dozens of friends by using private or public messaging. Advertisers take full advantage of this knowledge and bombard Facebook with an ad on every page that actually targets each person individually using the information that people give on Facebook. It is a gold mine for any advertiser.
The second point I would like to make is that Facebook panders to the American attraction to individualism. Our generation has always been told that it is best to “be ourselves”. Luckily enough, Facebook gives us that ability. Any person can have their very own webpage and personalize it with hundreds of applications, pictures, personal information, quotes, et cetera. With the ability to only show the public what people want the public to see, we can bend the truth to show our individuality without revealing our faults. Our love for being unique causes us to spend so much time and energy personalizing our own Facebook pages.
Lastly I would like to address the natural need for acceptance by our peers. We are obligated as American youth to conform to some extent with what are peers are doing or to what are peers like. Since so many people of college age have a Facebook, all of those without a Facebook are pressured to get a Facebook. It may seem like a contradiction to address two such opposing issues, conformity and individualism. This is not such a stretch if we can take a look at individualism in our own culture. Why do we have such a lust for individualism? Well, it is simply because everyone else has the same lust. We crave to be individuals because that is what is socially accepted in our society. By being individuals we are conforming to what we think will make us socially acceptable.
In conclusion, Facebook is so popular in our society because of three interrelated reasons. By allowing us to personalize our own little space on the internet, it allows the younger generation to express our own individuality to the rest of the world without having to reveal our faults. By allowing us to express ourselves, it gives us security that we are doing the same thing as all of our peers. And lastly, because Facebook provides these two important aspects to us, it is a very attractive mode of advertising. It lets corporations advertise to millions of people, making money for them and thus making money for the owner of Facebook, a proverbial win-win. Simply put, Facebook is so popular in our society because of our love for others’ approval, ourselves and for money.