Facebook According to DF, Part 4

The Stupidest Facebook Ad Ever

Facebook has always had a perplexing, borderline-obsessive way of reminding you at every turn to invite friends of yours who do not have Facebook to join the network. Now I know that Facebook receives new users every day, but I have to believe that at least 95% of the people who would ever consider having a Facebook already have one. Additionally, I'm pretty sure 103% of people on the internets have heard of the site and know what it is.

It is in light of these (probably pretty accurate) made-up statistics that such tools as Friends You May Know and Add Your Email Contacts cause me to scratch my head. I'm pretty sure that, with hundreds of "friends" on Facebook, I haven't left out anyone I send frequent friendly emails to. I mean I could double check but... nope, they're both there. As far as the former tool goes, Friends You May Know might as well be called "Casual Acquaintances You Have No Intention Of Friending (Now Featuring Fan Pages for Snuggling!)".

This is why I find the following advertisement utterly baffling:

I'll be honest, I have no idea where to start with this one. Holy crap. Seriously, there are so many things wrong with this ad that I fear I will not be able to adequately cover it all.

Let's start with the obvious. Nobody wants their mom on Facebook. Nobody. No matter how cool you might be now with your mother, whether you're in college or beyond, your parents will get up at 9am on a Saturday to check out the latest tagged pictures of Friday night's drunken antics while you're still hung over and sleeping unaware. I really don't have much to hide, but let's be honest. People don't take pictures of you at work or eating breakfast, so the majority of your tagged photos show you out and, vis a vis, drinking copiously. Also, anyone who wants to give their mom full access to their complete wall-to-wall history with their friends is even needier than that kid that updates Twitter four times an hour from his iPhone. You know who you are. Stop it.

Facebook's ad here almost assumes this to be the case, too, which is even more head-scratching. Notice that within a few words of breaching the subject of signing Mum up for Facebook, it reminds you that you can control your privacy options. You know the best way to control what your Mom sees on Facebook? Don't sign her up for it.

Additionally, it's really nice of Facebook to offer itself up as the medium of choice for mothers and children to finally "start connecting". The social network certainly is more connective for moms and kids than, say, child rearing, role modeling, or umbilical cords could ever be. Great job, PR team!

The person who wrote this dumb Facebook ad has an IQ of 32. Can you beat that? Take this fun quiz now and find out!! (sponsored)

Finally, and I think this is the most obvious criticism, giving your mom Facebook for Mother's Day? Smeriously? I can see it now.

Hi Mom. As you know, the economy is bad, and I know you asked me not to spend any money on you this Mother's Day. I know that the best gifts are the gifts from the heart, and this year my gift is a little more homemade. The card? Oh, shoot you know I forgot the card. That's okay, we'll skip right to the gift. Mom, this year I got you the gift of Facebook! That's right, your very own Facebook profile. Well yes, you have to set it up yourself, that's kind of the point, but I got it for you! Okay, well technically, okay I sent you an email inviting you to it, I can't just put you there myself. Yeah it's like the old GMail invites, except, well yeah you don't technically have to be invited to join. But you are invited anyway! Then you can add me and we can... connect?

Great work. Your father will be proud. Either that, or terrified of what you'll get him for Father's Day (Friendster?).

Facebook, our relationship is a bit rocky these days and I think you're going to need to make it up to me. But for Pete's sake, don't update the layout again. I just got caught up.