"I'm gonna tag you in this hideous photo and then unfriend you if you don't stop oversharing and poking me."
If you said this to
someone 10 years ago, they'd look at you like you were speaking Klingon.
Nowadays, you just sound like an active user of social media.
This is how much Facebook
has changed how we talk. In the decade since its birth in February
2004, the social network has introduced numerous terms and phrases to
the language of modern life.
Most are common words
that Facebook refitted with new meanings. Some have stuck, while others
have been forgotten. A few have even been recognized by dictionaries as
official pieces of the 21st century lexicon.
Here are nine of the most memorable.
Until Facebook came
along, nobody used the word "friend" as a verb. Now it's not uncommon to
ask a new acquaintance to spell their name so you can friend them on
Facebook.
Everyone likes to feel
popular. That's why some Facebookers, especially in the site's early
days, hoarded friends like poker chips (never mind that most of these
"friends" were rarely seen co-workers, distant relatives or vaguely
remembered classmates from junior high). Nobody really has 583
"friends."
Facebook's "friend" also
was the precursor to Twitter's "follower," which makes a user's social
contacts sound like members of a cult.
Unfriend
Facebook giveth, and Facebook taketh away. Are you tired of your uncle's political rants? Unfriend him!
By adding an "unfriend"
option, Facebook created new shorthand for aborting a friendship or an
acquaintance. It's a lot easier to say, "I unfriended Bob" than "I'm not
going to be friends with Bob anymore because he annoys me with his
daily musings about his toenails."
Unfriending someone is
considered a more drastic step than simply tweaking your Facebook
settings to block or minimize their posts.
The term was officially welcomed to the digital-age vernacular by the New Oxford English Dictionary, which named "unfriend" its Word of the Year for 2009.
Status update
Years ago, "status" was a
measure of someone's social or professional standing. Then Facebook
began asking users to post updates on their thoughts or activities, and
"updating your status" suddenly meant more than just moving to a better
neighborhood.
To prompt updates,
Facebook first asked users, "What are you doing right now?" When that
produced too many mundane reports -- "Sally is eating toast!" --
Facebook changed the update question in 2009 to the broader, "What's on
your mind?"
Like
Few things have sparked
more debate on Facebook than the "Like" button, which debuted in 2009
and soon spread to partner sites. Suddenly, with a quick click you could
endorse your friends' updates, jokes and cute-kid pictures.
Cynics, lamenting what they saw as Facebook's forced cheerfulness, unsuccessfully asked for a "Dislike" button.
Instagram, Pinterest and
other social networks also adopted the Like model for favoring posts,
although they used a heart symbol instead of a Like thumb. (You Like me right now! You Like me!)
All this made "Like" a
noun as well as a verb, as users began collecting Likes as a measure of
engagement and popularity. As in, "I can't believe my cute picture of
Fluffy in her Easter bonnet got only three Likes."
Poke
The weird Poke feature
was sort of a thing in Facebook's early days. Nobody knew what it was
for, exactly -- even Mark Zuckerberg once said of the Poke, "We thought
it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose."
Some saw it as a flirty
invitation to an online chat or real-world hookup. But the obvious
sexual innuendo made it awkward to use in conversation. "I poked Aunt
Betty" just sounds all kind of wrong.
Amazingly, the Poke function is still active on Facebook. But nobody uses it anymore unless they're being ironic.
Share (and overshare)
Sharing used to be
something we did in school when there weren't enough textbooks to go
around. Then came Facebook, and everyone -- not just the generous --
became sharers. Or over-sharers. Soon it wasn't enough to just
experience a memorable moment in our daily lives: We had to share it
with everyone, RIGHT NOW!
Share buttons popped up all over the Web. Share this! Tweet this! Pin this! Snap this! Sooo much sharing.
The word "share" has
always implied a selfless, charitable act. But the more we share our
every move and thought on social media, the more self-centered we can
tend to sound.
Not me, of course. Other people.
Wall
For years, Facebook
encouraged visitors to a friend's profile to "write on their Wall." It
sounded sort of illicit, like an invitation to scribble graffiti.
The idea of a digital
"wall" seemed odd at a time when other social networks were promoting
pages. Maybe that's why it never really caught on. In 2011, Facebook
replaced the Wall with the current Timeline format, which displays
updates chronologically.
It's complicated
This ambiguous answer to
Facebook's "What's your relationship status?" could apply to almost any
romantic entanglement between "single" and "married" and is more
interesting than either. It's become a common response to the "How's
your love life?" question and even inspired a 2009 romantic comedy with Meryl Streep.
Tag
Tag, you're it! No, you're
it! What was once just a child's game is now a way to get people to
notice your posts, or to embarrass them by flagging them in unflattering
photos. Come to think of it, maybe Tag is the new Poke.
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