Facebook is Never Land” It shares its DNA of its founder. Like Pet3r Pan, Facebook can never grow up to become an adult.
Commentary by Michael Robinson | Uvalde Hesperian
08-19-26
(Names are changed in the first story)
Back in the mid-1990’s, I worked at as a media sales representative at a classified newspaper in Waco. The internet was still in its infancy. At the time, business communications relied on the landline telephone, fax machine and pager. Email was available but not widely accessible for sales reps like me. The owner of our local publication and sales manager each had a desktop computer with each with an email account. The production manager, Sarah, who had an office upstairs had her own computer with email.
In 1996, our sales manager, Bill and the publisher Charlie liked to email jokes and memes to each other. That was the extent of the company’s use of email. Over time, myself and the other sales reps started hearing from our customers: “Hey, can we just email over our ad material to you?” One day, during our weekly Wednesday afternoon meeting, we asked Bill the sales manager if the company could provide a computer with email so the sales staff could receive emails from our customers. Bill said he’d ask the owner about it.
Several days went by and nothing more was said.
While meeting with the sales manager one day, I asked Bill, “Did you ask Charlie about having a sales computer for the sales staff to communicate with our customers?
Bill said. “I did. But Charles turned the idea down. He said, “Email is just for jokes.”
While email started as a novelty for many, enough people realized the serious business functions for which it could be used.
Facebook Origins:
Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard University, developed a precursor to Facebook called Facemash
Zuckerberg accessed photos of female students and designed a site where users were shown pictures of two college-aged women and prompted to pick which one was better looking.Soon the application became popular on campus and additional colleges and university were added.
Facebook eventually did evolve into something more than an app college guys used to objectify female classmates and into a sophomoric “who’s hottest” contest.
Over the years, Facebook became a global social media platform, and Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire. Yet. if you compare what email is used for in business and the content seen today on Facebook, email clearly went on to get its PhD and Facebook couldn’t help but return to the proverbial Junior High Boys P.E locker-room.
Because of the massive number of users Facebook has, many businesses including City and County governments, public school districts, government officials and law enforcement offices have chosen to make Facebook its primary way of communicating with the public. Press releases once sent directly to television and radio stations as well as traditional newspapers are just posted to Facebook. Now, traditional news outlets have reporters canvassing government Facebook pages looking for hand-me-down press releases. Additionally, some local municipalities live-steam their public meetings to Facebook.
A Degraded Platform
City governments, school districts, sheriff’s departments—they all made the same calculation: It was free, it reached people, and it let them avoid the hard work of maintaining their own platforms, and their own professional standards. They traded institutional dignity for convenience, and now they’re the ones standing in the locker room wondering why the serious people left.
The sad part I don’t think they see the degradation. They think they’re being “accessible” and “modern.” They don’t realize they’ve made themselves indistinguishable from the noise.
Peter Pan built Neverland so he’d never have to grow up. Zuckerberg built Facebook so the entire internet could stay in the dorm room with him. Peter Pan gathered the Lost Boys—kids who never wanted rules, never wanted responsibility, never wanted to face the adult world. Zuckerberg gathered billions of users and told them the same thing: You never have to leave. You never have to mature. You never have to be accountable for what you say,
Facebook still has its own locker room. The toxicity is there, the pile-ons are there, and the current ownership has made it a more volatile space. The difference is the DNA: Facebook was built to rank girls’ photos and never escaped that adolescence.
Brcause of this, the Uvalde Hesperian will be limiting its presence on Facebook in an effort to create a publicly that strives to elevate the level of civic discussion.
Teaders wishing to comment can always submit a letter to the editor which will be considered for future publication.
