Who killed Google+? A fable

by Jo Slade - Story: 75277
May 21, 2012 / 5:00 am

Photo: Contributed

I like that!

Once upon a time, there was a humongus privacy-challenged social network giant called Facebook. The giant, who was lonely and craved company, swooped down, scooped up all the humans from around the world, and turned them into ‘friends’, after which it turned them into mindless status-updating drones. Some people managed to escape the giant, but typically the only real way to escape was to die, and even that proved to be surprisingly ineffective.

In another kingdom, an even bigger - but equally privacy-challenged - giant called Google decided to beget a social networking son of its own, one like Facebook but better. Because the giant was narcissistic, it wanted to give its son the name ‘Mini-Me’, but when it googled the term, it saw that ‘mini-me’ was the standard term for virtually all children after they stopped being ‘baby bump’, so instead it dubbed the wee giant ‘Google+’.

Google+ proved to be an energetic little giant, and a rather competitive one, too. It dressed itself in prettier clothes than its nemesis, Facebook, and studied hard to find ways to save all the world’s people from being Facebook drones, allowing them the freedom to become Google+ drones instead. It also played hard-to-get, which, it turns out, was a pretty good trick, because in short order everybody and their monkey’s uncle wanted to be part of the trail-blazing Google+ in-crowd. “Build a seemingly exclusive hard-to-access social network, and they will come” seemed true enough, at least for awhile.

However, Papa Google had made a terrible mistake when he named his social networking son ‘Google+’. People on Facebook (read: the entire planet) were used to ‘facebooking’, and quickly discovered that they would, in their new social networking home, be ‘google-plussing’ instead. ‘Google-plussing’ just sounded stupid, which was not something many Facebookiteers were willing to be, except in their status updates, so back to Facebook they ran, as fast as their little networking legs would carry them. It was one thing to be a mindless drone perma-attached to a Wall and posting endless status updates, it was a whole other thing having to say one was ‘google-plussing’. There are limits, even in the murky say-anything world of social networking.

To make matters worse - far worse - Google+’s version of the ‘like’ button was the ‘+1’ button.

“Hey, I ‘liked’ a pic on Facebook, check it out!” . . . reasonable

“Hey, I ‘plus one’d’ a pic on Google+, check it out!” . . . FAIL

People wanted to like things, not plus-one them. They held onto their trendy new Google+ homes, which were good to use as quiet-time guest houses for a handful of b-list friends, but they went back to doing their actual living over at Facebook. The threats to leave Facebook in droves slowly faded over time, and Google+’s jubilant hopes were dashed, one dying plus-one at a time.

Meanwhile, the Facebook giant was lol’ing all over the place with this turn of events, one could even say it was ishahfflsh’ing (in stitches having a hysterical fit from laughing so hard). It realized that all was well, the drones really didn’t have anywhere else to go. It decided to celebrate by removing a few more privacy features.

It was laughing so hard, though, that it failed to notice that another giant was back on the scene, a massively huge giant, one so übercool and totally hot that everybody wanted to be with it. They loved playing together under it . . . after applying sunscreen, of course. Facebook tried to catch escaping members, but to no avail. “Update your own status, Zuckerberg!” was the rallying cry as people dug out their summer gear and ran out to meet the best social networking giant of all: Summer. And the question of who killed Google+ went unanswered, because nobody gave a damn.

The end.

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About the Author

This bio was written by Jo Slade. As you can see she has written about herself in the third person. What normal person would do that? They just wouldn't. Who knows how many other persons might be involved in this thing, a second person? Another third? I worry about it. I - she - we - can't even keep it straight, this paragraph is a damn mess, there are persons all over the place. Round 'em up and shoot 'em. That's what I'd do, and by golly I think that's what Jo Slade would do as well.

Biographic nutshell: Jo has been messing around with words for a long time. Sometimes she'll just say words instead of writing them, it saves on paper.

This column: The columns that will appear here are of a highly serious and scholarly nature, therefore it is advised that you keep a dictionary and ponderous thoughts nearby.

If, after reading the column, you find yourself tossing and turning at night, burning with the need to email me, just do it. I answer to jo@castanet.net

The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet presents its columns "as is" and does not warrant the contents.

For more stories from Jo, please visit the Old as Dirt. Twice as Gritty. archive

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