Facebook Was NEVER Actually Cool, Kids

So every few months, some new clickbait appears about how the kids these days "say that facebook isn't cool anymore"; indeed, some of these kids have told me so in person, telling me that they spend so much time on the twitters and the instagrams and so forth that they're "hardly ever on facebook anymore"--yet these same 18-year-olds keep adding me on facebook, "liking" my statuses and photos, and updating their profile pics.  If this is what qualifies as "hardly on facebook anymore," I'd hate to see their instagrams.

Although the demise of facebook would probably be one of the more positive things that could happen to our civilization, the reports of its impending death have likely been greatly exaggerated, no matter how much the kids and the clickbaiters might pontificate otherwise (and not just because a billion-plus active users kinda gives the lie to its supposed loss of prestige).

What it comes down to is this: Facebook was never actually cool, kids!  Serious.  I was in college myself when this ridiculous little social network exploded--that was my generation--and I can testify that every single other person my age who first opened a profile did so with a groan and a grimace.  We couldn't believe that we were doing this--in fact we still can't believe that we did this.  We mocked it as mercilessly and relentlessly during the Bush Administration as we still do today.  Each and every day, from roughly 2006 to the present, we have asked ourselves why even have a facebook, and only sheer inertia and the occasional cat video keeps most of us from up and closing it for good.  Claiming that facebook isn't cool is like claiming that insurance adjusters aren't cool, or that public utilities aren't cool--they were never cool to begin with, and their continued existence and utility has little to do with their coolness factor.