Sure, I can understand that the estimated 300 million people on Facebook are going to create a hubbub that makes it increasingly difficult to be heard and I'm not going to point fingers at number 299 millionth person (when it was really the 718,543rd one anyway, I'm looking at you, Edith). Nonetheless, the strains of this enormous size have become apparent.

It may be the codeine for my sinusitis talking (mmm, codeine — as close as the average person ever gets to laudanum, that nectar of the Romantic poets), but those crowds of newbies have begun to suck the life out Facebook.

Yes, I'm talking memes. First it was the much debated (even here at BBHQ) bra colour-for-breast-cancer-awareness meme, which all but derailed the "sex fine" meme. Americans in particular seemed terrified to find out the level of fine they might have to "pay" (presumably to Fox News or some other kind of high-moral-ground squatters—I dunno: Joel Osteen?). 

Then it was Doppelgänger week, which apart from having broken the Facebook terms of service requiring you to post only content for which you have the rights, also served to irritate many because too may folks discovered it belatedly then posted it in their status after most of us had already become tired of it (I had already gone through two different phases by the time I got sick).

With instantaneous communication, the lag time of even a day seems insurmountable. The insufferable smugness of telling some earnest person who's just discovered the meme, "We did that last week!" proves too delicious to eschew and of course, too frequent not to become irritating in and of itself as that minute/day/week begins to seem an eternity.

So forgive me if I smell a rat in the latest meme: "Go to UrbanDictionary.com", a 'friend' will tell you with the breathless urgency all Facebook status update directions seem to take on, "and enter your first name into the search. Copy and paste the first entry (no cheating and picking the one you like the most!)."

Well, of course people are going to disobey that direction and take the most flattering one – usually having something to do with sex and/or attractiveness. Two things immediately flagged this for me as fishy: first, why would this lexicon of slang have my name as an entry? I can accept a Flynn or Percy showing up, by why would Kate? Especially when the answer is:

A girl's name for the coolest person you will ever meet.
1. I wish i was Kate.
2. Kate is great.

True enough, sure, but suspiciously feel-good and more important, not in the modern lingo the last I checked. What gave me the Sam Spade even more was the splash page location of the term "Vaguebooking" AKA February 3, 2010 Urban Word of the Day. It apparently means, "An intentionally vague Facebook status update, that prompts friends to ask what's going on, or is possibly a cry for help."

Wow, congratulations, Mattster12345 on getting your very first definition not only accepted, but also highlighted as word of the day. Everything's coming up Millhouse for you!

Or is it? Smells like synergy to me: that vapid process by which conglomerates get together in a cynical attempt to fit in advertising wherever people might be living life without overwhelming thoughts of purchasing. UrbanDictionary just happens to be celebrating its tenth anniversary—how do I know that? Because it's the lead story on their home page that every meme clicker will see and think, wow, I am so hip! I am already using Facebook. I have seen that phenomenon many times.

Although the more perspicacious of those meme followers will also say, "Hmm, I have never used that term, nor heard it used in conversation, even on Facebook. I wonder if this is s cynical attempt to prove the power of Facebook to boost a site's traffic and, therefore, ad revenue?"

Hmmm, call me a Doubting Thomas, but that's just what I'm thinking. So, okay — it wasn't really the crowds that ruined Facebook. It's the calculating attempts to turn those crowds into cash. Inevitable, perhaps, given the capitalist Jonesing that has to be going on behind the scenes at Facebook, but as long as we stay a couple of steps ahead, we get to keep using Facebook for the reason we joined in the first place: fun.

Picture via JitterBuzz