Facebook Timeline: A Sinister Transition

I remember a simpler time, a younger time, a more innocent time. A time when at the click of a button you could see recently added albums. A time when chats didn't clog my inbox. A time when Facebook didn't chose what was important for me. Although perhaps I did not embrace every change with open arms, I adapted. Why? Because I love getting notifications, commenting on photos and creeping on acquaintances with cooler lives than my own until wee hours of the night. 

It is evident that Facebook has found the perfect balance of narcissism, curiosity and downright creepiness that lures the human race. But the new timeline feature has taken it to a whole new level. We all remember that moment of shock and awe when pulling up the profile page of your first friend to get Facebook's timeline page. "What the!?" "Wow, that picture is so big" "How do you write on their wall?" Yes, these feelings were natural, yet there was comfort in the shared agony of an ever changing and unpredictable Facebook world. Yet, in a plague-like fashion, timeline took hold of your friends, seducing one after another.  But how did this timeline temptress gain momentum? Two words: Cover Photo. 

Nothing appeals to the narcissistic Facebooker like a widescreen photo that tells the social media world just exactly what you are all about. You have your basic cover photo categories: the artistic landscape photo you stole off the internet that screams, "I love nature", the amateur picture of your dog or cat that declares, "I am an animal lover", the party snapshot of you and your 15 closest  friends dressed to impress that asserts, "I have as many friends in real life as I do on Facebook" and of course there is the person who after scouring all 1,394 of their tagged photos found the one picture where they look the best and mounted to the top of their page to say, "Checkout how good looking I am". 

Yes, the cover photo appeals to people from all walks of life, but what about the other features in the timeline? Since the profile picture has become irrelevant, now is the perfect time to update it to you and your significant other showing uncomfortable amounts of PDA. Below that is where all of your personal information can be found as well as every school you have attended since the womb. Along with the typical tagged photos and friends is a link called "maps" so your friends know exactly where you are every second of the day.

Aside from the new double sided clustered layout with "lol" wall posts and "omg" super cute tagged photos is the actual timeline: the most sinister feature of all. Friends and creepers alike can sift through your life by year all the way to your birth…yes your birth. Did you write a super offensive status in 2008? Yup, I can see it. Incriminating photos from 2006? There they are. Painful memories of days gone by with an ex in 2010? Sure, let's relive it. 

But now that I think about it, a super huge photo of myself spanning across your computer screen does sound pretty cool. Screw it, I'm getting a timeline.