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Facebook's Little Red Book

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Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#21

Post by junon »

woodruffw wrote: post #9
projektfu wrote: post #3

Good job with the scan. I started reading the book and began to feel rage so I stopped after about 20 pages. Is it the most self-unaware book or just people trying their hand at PR?

I think in 2012, SV startups (and especially social media startups) were still getting high on their own supply: there was a seemingly genuine groundswell belief that unilaterally connecting the world would be a force for good, rather than a mere reconfiguration of powers. (I don't think Zuckerberg himself is a true believer, but I do think that the people who wrote and read this book in 2012 probably believed it. Th…

Yes, this. I was at Uber in SF around 2016 or so when they did their "pixels and bits" rebrand which felt very similar. It felt very... "we are messiahs"? Most people felt it, only the people with the highest paychecks (or managers) played into it.

After hearing the core values of the company thrown around in regular speech so often most people got kind of numb to anything corporate (e.g. "I really like that you're always hustling so hard but I would love to see you do a bit more toe stepping").

I left SF a year or so after that so I wonder if that whole approach has changed in the bigger offices or not. Being in Europe now most people here (most ..) wouldn't play into it I don't think. Retrospectively feels very American.

---

EDIT: Actually it's kind of hard to find info on the rebrand now. There's the announcement[0] but that only seems to allude to the weird philosophical aspect of it in the description, which leads me to believe they never published it publicly.

> The new Uber brand system is made up of primary and secondary components that tell the story of technology moving the physical world. Today, we're rolling out a new look and feel that celebrates the cities we're in and the technology that brings people what they want, when they want it.

It was more than just "primary and secondary components", they had somehow likened people and pixels together and were trying to create some weird (but similar) narrative of "connecting everything through transport" or whatever. I think the idea was that they wanted to start breaking into more verticals, a la UberEATS and whatnot, but I distinctly remember hearing a lot of "what ifs" about freight, air, etc. that I think were mostly fluff chatter to hype up the rebrand.

Most people, even internally, hated it it, and shortly after that started monthly, then weekly, then at times daily new public scandals about the company or TK, so many people left shortly thereafter.

[0] https://youtu.be/axjXNEordH8?feature=shared

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#22

Post by Klonoar »

ryandrake wrote: post #16
com2kid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was 2012. There was still hope and optimism in the tech space. The Internet had helped overturn powerful regimes and given voice to the disenfranchised. There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Smartphones had exploded just 6 years prior and they were already making inroads into traditionally underserved and neglected communities around the world, helping fa…

I can kind of understand having that kind of optimism back in the Internet of, say, 1998, before we saw how vampiric venture-backed winner-take-most tech companies would be. But by 2012, it would be incredibly naive of tech employees (of any company) to seriously believe they were some kind of force for good.

This take feels very out of touch with how tech was in 2012.

It was evident where the trends were heading, but that optimism that was heavy throughout the tech boom in the late 2000s was definitely still there.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#23

Post by tejohnso »

projektfu wrote: post #3

Good job with the scan. I started reading the book and began to feel rage so I stopped after about 20 pages. Is it the most self-unaware book or just people trying their hand at PR?

What's so enraging? A company puts out some propaganda about how wonderfully world changing it is. Not all that unusual or unexpected.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#24

Post by dgfitz »

rescripting wrote: post #19
dgfitz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Nobody thought this.

Of course they did. It was 2012. The Arab Spring was happening when this was written. People might have been wrong, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a somewhat common belief.

It was common in some circles, sure. It was not a commonly held belief.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#25

Post by ben_w »

ryandrake wrote: post #16
com2kid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was 2012. There was still hope and optimism in the tech space. The Internet had helped overturn powerful regimes and given voice to the disenfranchised. There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Smartphones had exploded just 6 years prior and they were already making inroads into traditionally underserved and neglected communities around the world, helping fa…

I can kind of understand having that kind of optimism back in the Internet of, say, 1998, before we saw how vampiric venture-backed winner-take-most tech companies would be. But by 2012, it would be incredibly naive of tech employees (of any company) to seriously believe they were some kind of force for good.

I was that naïve in 1998, owing to that being roughly when my pocket money first stretched to buying a modem. Almost the first thing I stumbled into was a flame-war.

Yet even today, I see people regard the lack of moderation on certain sites as an unadulterated axiomatic good. Is that blindness really naïveté, or is it just a political stance like all others? If so, I would not call that naïveté even if the effect is the same, for it is a thing all suffer from, it's the blind spot in our thoughts, no matter how experienced and sophisticated and pragmatic we may otherwise be.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#26

Post by notacoward »

dgfitz wrote: post #17
karmajunkie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to break the news to you, but literally millions believed it. There's still more than a (very overprivileged) few who still believe it.

Sorry, nobody “educated” believed this.

That might be the most blatant "no true Scotsman" I've ever seen. Practically out of a textbook. I'm educated. I and hundreds of coworkers at multiple companies still believed it in 2012. You said something that is simply, provably untrue.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#27

Post by com2kid »

dgfitz wrote: post #12
com2kid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was 2012. There was still hope and optimism in the tech space. The Internet had helped overturn powerful regimes and given voice to the disenfranchised. There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Smartphones had exploded just 6 years prior and they were already making inroads into traditionally underserved and neglected communities around the world, helping fa…

> There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Nobody thought this.

Why not? It is mostly correct. One on one most people are reasonable. In large groups, or when posting online with the need to show in-group behavior, or when posting publicly where everyone in one's social group can later judge, people start doing the herd mentality thing, and they also become rude to anyone not in their same social circle.

I have no proof, but I dare say the majority of angry people posting horrible stuff on social media are rather pleasant when around friends and family.

But all of a sudden, when they get up on stage, they feel the need to copy the behaviors of those around them, which means anger and vitrol.

When I first joined the Internet (1995!), there was more of an expectation of civility (IRC being a notable exception), and that is the behavior pattern I picked up upon.

Re: Facebook's Little Red Book

#29

Post by jazzyjackson »

dgfitz wrote: post #12
com2kid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was 2012. There was still hope and optimism in the tech space. The Internet had helped overturn powerful regimes and given voice to the disenfranchised. There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Smartphones had exploded just 6 years prior and they were already making inroads into traditionally underserved and neglected communities around the world, helping fa…

> There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Nobody thought this.

Where were you during the "arab spring" ? I'm not of the opinion that twitter actually made any difference on-the-ground but that didn't stop the mediascape from preening at how hopeful the future was now that individuals could get information in and out of otherwise closed societies.

I thought I'd try and find some evidence from that time period, 2008-2012, and found this article summarizing a metastudy [0] on perception and outcomes of social media on civic engagement.

  Among all of the factors examined, 82% showed a positive relationship between SNS use and some form of civic or political engagement or participation.
[0] https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/soci...
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