On how adults have ruined Facebook.

I saw a meme being liked and shared over the weekend that was one of those "Back in my day we didn't have seat belts or the Internet and we licked lead-based paint and our moms smoked four packs a day while she was pregnant with us and that's why we're awesome an all you kids suck!" things we old people are fond of sharing and liking. And suddenly, mid-chuckle, I realized exactly why my kids and nearly every person under 30 have all but abandoned Facebook.

Facebook used to be a very cool place, full of cool kids who would post cool stuff and get cool comments. It was theirs, created by college kids and maintained by creative, energetic youth. It was like a kick-ass college party.

For the longest time adults didn't get it and didn't want to, except for a few early-adopting adults who the kids let in because they were pretty cool. But then more showed up. And more. And more. Not just adults. PARENTS. And aunts and uncles and, holy shit, even grandparents.

But that wasn't a problem in and of itself. Sure, it made the kids more cautious about what they shared, and with whom. But it was still cool.

Until the adults started lecturing. Your music sucks. Your movies suck. Your fashion sucks. Your friends suck. Your life sucks. Things were so much better back in MY day. I actually had to TALK TO PEOPLE! I actually had to GET OUTSIDE AND PLAY! I didn't have the Internet to make me brain-dead! YOU DAMN KIDS BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!

Meanwhile the adults are furiously liking and sharing and posting and commenting and checking every 10 minutes to see if their posts had likes and comments. And the kids? They're with their friends. Sure, they're using SnapChat or Tinder or GroupMe or any other number of apps you've never heard of to coordinate and communicate, but their coordination and communication all lead to them hanging out. Like kids do, and have since the beginning of time, and will continue to.

In other words, all the lecturing and condemnation of the "these kids these days" is not only without merit, it is completely hypocritical. WE'RE the ones addicted to this thing. Facebook is our all-encompassing glass house and we have an endless supply of stones.

It's too late for Facebook. We not only crashed the party, we moved all our stuff into the house and redecorated as all the kids slipped out the back door.

But I suggest that if we start to notice those kids all hanging out somewhere else, we resist the temptation to follow them. Or if we do, let's vow not to fuck it all up for them once again.

ADDENDUM:
On cue, this just got shared on Facebook.

On not posting for a couple years then just reappearing with a post about Super Bowl ads.

Hi. I'm Jeff Kosloski and I'm a terrible blogger. I mean, I'm pretty decent at it when I actually do it, but the quality of my consistency at blogging is about as good as the quality of this year's Super Bowl ads.

Yes, that segue just happened.

This year as I sat writhing during the actual game, watching the Broncos fall apart worse than a Janga game played during an earthquake, I found myself actually more perplexed, even disgusted, by the continual cavalcade of big-budget crap running during the commercial breaks. I swear, saying 95% of the ads were absolutely terrible would be generous.

As I think about it, it seems the quality of the Super Bowl ads has been on a steady decline for the past decade or so, maybe longer. In some ways it parallels the Broncos' performance: So much hype, so much attention, so much money, so little actual execution. 

Bad Super Bowl ads fall into three categories for me:

1. Stupid
2. Manipulative
3. Boring

The vast, vast majority of ads that are trying to be funny are just plain stupid. They're either lowest-common-denominator shit that has nothing to do with the actual product, or they're bizarrely random shit that has nothing to do with the actual product. Either way, they're stupid and forgettable and a big waste of money.

Then there are the manipulative ones. Animals, kids, soldiers, people with disabilities… All designed to make you go, awwwwwww. But they're all bullshit. They are the result of marketers sitting in a room asking, "What can we exploit to make our brand seem like we give a shit about something other than sales?" A company spends money to help bring soldiers home. That's very cool. But then that company spends on advertising 100 times what they spent to get the soldiers home so that you are sure to know they got those soldiers home. That is not generosity. That is exploitation and manipulation. 

Finally, the rest are just plain boring. I swear, someone published a "how to advertise a car during the Super Bowl" manual and everyone followed it like gospel. Celebrity voiceover/featured actor. Dramatic music. Some verbose copy written by a writer who so desperately wants people to call it prose. Then rapid-cut shots of the car hauling ass down the road. This is classic derivative advertising: Everyone trying to recreate Chrysler's ad from a few years ago. Even Chrysler sucked at it this year, using Bob Dylan in a poor copy of the Eminem "Imported from Detroit" ad. All boring and forgettable.

A few were somewhat worthwhile. One of my favorites was the Greek yogurt spot with John Stamos, THOUGH, it should have ended with him dropping the yogurt and her looking down and smiling. END FUCKING SCENE! Bringing in the other two doofuses from Full House took it from clever and fun to… stupid. But still, better than most. 

In the end, the best Super Bowl spot didn't run during the Super Bowl. It was online, and it was hilarious.