We all hate it. We all hate change every time it happens on FB, yes, and then like lemmings we throw ourselves off the cliff and continue to overshare online. Really, FB’s tagline is “TMI.”
So why? Why do we hate timeline? Why do some of us (guilty) hate it so much that we continue to hold out, hoping against hope that Zuckerberg will just never notice us lurking in the corners?
We carefully avoid that stupid little button that says “Get Timeline Now” like a hyperactive kindergarten teacher shilling naptime. You know it’s not really for your own good. Even as kid you were all, “Yeah, and what’re you going to do while I sleep?” Now that we have friends who are teachers we know: check Facebook. (How’s that for a transition?)
1. It’s stupid hard to find things on people’s profiles, even stuff you saw just a minute ago and you know definitely is there.
It’s even harder on Timeline than it used to be. Speaking of, why doesn’t FB have a better topical search button yet? It’s called “google search” and my understanding is that it’s basically HPV: already there, just waiting to be found.
2. You have to be a graphic designer to use it and what if I’m not, Facebook, GTFO.
Seriously. Timeline requires some sort of aesthetic/graphic aptitude: your cover photo and profile picture have to complement each other. Have you seen someone’s profile where they don’t? It’s ugly as sin. AND WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE GRAPHIC APTITUDE, FACEBOOK. YOUR MOM HAS IT.
I already have to make graphic design decisions concerning this blog and god, shoot me now. you’ll notice it hasn’t changed in two years, and didn’t change in the 2 years before that. And every time I do post a photo I realize– oh wait this has to look not-barfy against that yellow banner. Do any of you want to come draw sketches for me?
3. Have you even looked in the mirror lately, Facebook? That isn’t body dysmorphia disorder. You’re weird now.
Timeline does not look good with FB’s surrounding layout– the way that little bar at the top scrolls down with it? The settings buttons at the top which keeps the cover photo from truly being a banner, which is how we’re accustomed to seeing it work on blogs? It’s like a truly terrible tumblr theme.
It only took me seventeen tries to get a decent cover photo / profile pic combo! You?
The huge gaps in the profiles of people who almost never use FB look awful– thus forcing you into an “all or nothing” sort of use. That is, if you want your own wall to look palatable. You know how you know it’s a bad design, though? Even if people do post photos all the time, if the pictures aren’t through the same filter, or taken with similar lighting, they look strange lined up next to and against each other. Our eyes can’t reconcile them. There’s a reason movies don’t generally film every other shot with different tints to them. Film editors are paid billions of dollars to fix such discrepancies.
All those “buttons” under the cover photo (“friends, maps, etc.”)? First of all, you have to use those functions for it to be visually appealing, which most of us don’t. See that blue box with “158″ and the thumbs up in the picture above? It looks dumb. It needs an image. Second of all, the colors of them also should be in the same color family. (Right? “Color family” is a thing? See above lack of visual design ability.) But you have no control over what those buttons display.
4. What it leads to: the apocalypse and paid Facebook wall designers.
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Tags: blogging, dear facebook, Facebook, facebook buys instagram, facebook changes, facebook graphic design, facebook instagram, facebook status updates, facebook trends, facebook wall, friends, how to suck at facebook, timeline profile, TMI, tumblr
