I love the new new Facebook!

‘I hate change.’

This from one of my most liberal friends, musing on the new(er) Facebook.

She who switched effortlessly from IE to Firefox and Opera, and even (gasp! the scandalous impropriety of it!) considered a white, Apple-stamped You-Know-What. Democracy, secularism, homosexuality and female suffrage combined have not drawn more outrage from cultural conservatives than has the new new Facebook from its users.

The French transition from monarchy through five republics had been a bloody and messy affair strung over centuries, but its violence pales in comparison to the Third Layout of Facebook. There are African countries where entire coups happen with less of an irked response from the citizenry.

And rightfully so. Facebook is trivial, and the changes made are even more so. It’s the trivial things that annoy one most. Clinton may well have brought eternal peace to Israel/Palestine and still been impeached for a minor transgression. Bush’s war was bad, but his grammar was soul-scorching. Couples who would forgive each other’s infidelity can divorce over toilet seats. Small things are big issues.

I, for one, welcome our new Facebook layout. Call it treason, call it blasphemy, call it typical cockiness, but I am, and this is why.

I have struggled with a Facebook addiction. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say ’struggled’, because that verb only applies when one actually puts up a resistance. Sure, I can limit myself to once or twice a day, but it’s still a temptation, and I have seen friends being drawn into Facebook’s insidious vagina dentata and never return whole again.

It is scary.

But that was when Facebook was a neat, cool, fairly useful site to return to. Since that is no longer the case, and one can not quite use this new format without feeling, erm, tainted, that is no more a fear.

Industrial alcohol is denatured by adding a small amount of the toxic chemical methanol to it, to prevent its consumption. I thank Facebook for ridding us of many, many social hangovers.

As an upstanding geek, I also hope that no company is so perfect that it cannot be beaten. I thought so of Apple, until the truth of their batteries dawned upon me. I feared Firefox would be that Lord of the Pings, until Chrome arrived. Google was genius, until iGoogle’s messy pages.

Facebook was my next fear. I thought Facebook could do no wrong, lead by a visionary management and a philosophy of minimalist graphics that would keep users in. I see I was much mistaken, and Facebook has finally taken the first suicidal steps towards being upended by some current unknown (or underdog). Like actresses far past their prime who cling on to long-gone fame with garish make-up and shock-value, Facebook is showing its senility. In the parlance of social networking, I believe this is called ‘doing a MySpace’. Twitter is too happy for 140 characters or less.

So you see? It isn’t so bad. Now we can all get off Facebook, and lead normal, happy lives. Every time you are tempted, just think back to what your homepage now looks like. You will find that resistance is far from futile.