Many Facebook Consumers complain that Facebook is just too commercial meaning too many advertisements clutter Facebook pages. There seems to be only one possible way to change this and conceivably even change our commercial culture in the process.
During the 1960’s society’s cultural idealists, even professionals like doctors and lawyers, labeled and ostracized other doctors, lawyers, news broadcasters, music groups, athletes and others as “sell outs” if they took money from advertisers. Today, seemingly and unknowingly, consumers, including the youth of America, wear corporate conglomerate advertiser logos and most do not recall or even have knowledge that at one time it was considered so “un-cool” to promote corporations or even like athletes, music groups, news broadcasters and others who take money from corporate sponsors in return for allowing corporate sponsors to use their names or to advertise on everything from clothing to sports stadiums to music concerts and more.
So could we ever see Facebook become less profit motivated and more socially responsible according to the cultural idealists of the 1960s? Countless numbers of consumers, including the youth of America, are already, from time to time, turning away from Facebook for whatever reasons so only one idea comes to mind to change Facebook for the better and conceivably make this idea into the next big thing in social networking.
For example, a few of the world’s billionaires should come together and re-create Facebook as a free public service with no advertising and an unheard of non-profit motive! Is this unthinkable? There have been rumors of this happening in the name of…social change and the public good.
The goal is not to hurt or hinder advertisers and corporate conglomerates like Facebook and others. The goal is to lessen their concentration on profit motives in favor of at least some social responsibility. Lean toward not so much of having two dimensional personal fun and being socially entertained, which is what Facebook is all about today, but as well as lean toward using Facebook’s two dimensional interaction to organize the silent majority and other interested groups to change America’s culture, including its commercial culture, and even change the world, especially since 80% of Facebook’s users live outside of the U.S.
With a socially responsible facelift Facebook could still be a fun social networking distraction, as it primarily is today, but at the same time also become the beacon or flagship to change and educate the world day after day to social issues and not just gloss over these issues with a four minute or four column news story every so often like the American news media tends to do.
For example, the socially responsible thing to do is for Facebook to assign someone to concentrate day after day on getting America’s unemployed youth back to work since their unemployment rate is 50%. Doing so and Facebook would become a hero to the underdog since American politicians do not lead or even set an example. Or globally, day after day assign someone to concentrate on making the world always aware of the need to educate children in third world countries, especially young girls, who are not being encouraged or even allowed to go to school by threatening religious groups. There are no limits to the amount of good in conjunction with making a profit that could be accomplished via the internet.
No one expects “fat cat” American political leaders to make anything happen. All they seem to manage to do is stay in power and tinker around the edges to win elections without accomplishing any real solutions to the nation’s problems. No one is even trying to organize the silent majority which is constantly being told what is acceptable and normal by smaller groups who have the louder voice and “inside” access to the mainstream American news media.
Will “I have a dream” become a reality? Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…the ones who see things differently. You can intimidate them but you cannot ignore them because they change things…they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as crazy, others see genius because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: THE ECO-IDEALIST COMMENTER 9/6/13 and AL-JAZEERA AMERICA 9/8/13 and STEVE JOBS 1997