500,000+ Torontonians Addicted to Crack

LOL. Nicely put.

That's amazing. And it started in the U.S. too. Oh, my new fun thing....

[_FACEBORG: Resistance is futile_]

There is such a hideous dogma about the entire, evil Facebook regime. I never knew that it was possible to lose friends, and miss out on important events and gatherings JUST BECAUSE one does not possess a silly account at another tedious online service.

Yesterday I found myself completely out of the loop when my friends called me up and asked me if I was to be showing at the vegan dinner meet-up at vegan-friendly Chinatown establishment, Bo De Duyen. When I voiced my surprise and ignorance of said gathering, I was told that "it's because you don't have facebook". In this sense, it would appear that Facebook is a whole new form of clique-- a cyber-clique. There are those who possess it-- and the others.
Those who do not have a facebook will either assimilate or be destroyed/left behind. It would seem that a whole new era of bullying is afoot.

Damn you and your wily title. Here I thought the jig was totally up for all my crack-addled friends and then it turned out you were just talking about Facecrack.

Fight the Facecrack power, Toronto. Fight it. A year from now it'll just be another one of those fads we tell internet newbies about, like ICQ and Geocities.

I dunno Matt. I resisted, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Facebook was exactly what I expected Myspace to be (and fuck me if Myspace is good for anything aside from finding new music).

"Facecrack" is just a terrible, terrible, horrifying image.

Woohoo! I am not teh suxxor!

(Also, I know a lot of people are still accessing my links through my old site, but they're all up on my new site too!)

"Just when I thought that I was out, THEY PULL ME BACK IN!"

I think Facebook's popularity in Canada versus Myspace is not surprising. Its aesthetic appeals to Canadian sensibility, while Myspace is the epitome of the kind of trash fashion that is gaining in popularity in the UK, for example.

However, I am wary of saying that New York has 19 million people or that Toronto has 5. Having lived in the New York metropolitan area for most of my life, I would still use the Long Island network, not New York.

You see, the New York networks are divided into borough, even though the city proper (which has 8.2 million people btw) is geographically the same size as Toronto proper (~2.7 million) in square miles. Has anybody bothered to add up the Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island networks? "New York, NY" on Facebook refers specifically to Manhattan.

I did say "going by network associations".

I can't actually find any of these other networks. I type in manhattan and it automatically selects manhattan high schools. You can see the available facebook networks in the USA over here: http://www.facebook.com/networks/networks.php

I try typing in Long Island, I can't get a Long Island city network. Queens, Bronx, same thing. Not calling you a liar or anything, I just can't find any of these networks to add up. And it shouldn't be any harder to find a network than typing it in and clicking "search". There are lots of associated networks, like Long Island colleges or whatever, though.

I'm already a member of the blogTO group... and pushing the new crack on unsuspecting friends. I'm on it now for f'sakes.

Ryan,

Good post on the Toronto frenxy to Facebook. In deference to Kevin hanging out in New York, there really is no city that stacks up to Toronto - essentially 1 in 10 are Facebook addicted (the NY stuff is a Red Herring - even if you combine New York and Nassau County, your dealing with significantly less incidence than Toronto).

I came up with my own reasons on why Toronto leads the Facebook world on post eerily similar last week. Check it out...
http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/2007/04/facebook_toront.html

Our light beer is as strong as USA regular beer. Reasoning I do wholly agree with, Sean.

And, lol, Canadian Tire in Quebec is Pneus Expert. Sound that out phonetically and tell me your inner 10 year old doesn't take over.

Perhaps New Yorkers just have better things to do than to hand out inside with a bunch-a geek face-bookers.

Actually, no, they don't have anything better to do.

Lol at that "Why do I Love You" post as well. Guess ya didn't have anything better to do for the 3 hours it took to write that out eh?

The Long Island networks are Nassau County and Suffolk County, each with around 20,000 Facebook users (although Long Island, as a geographical landmass, has 7.5 million inhabitants)

Also, nearly every one of those New Jersey networks is within the New York metro area; the only one that isn't is "South Jersey".

This, while none of the other Ontario networks are within the GTA, so we are comparing slightly different things.

I am confident Toronto's Facebook network is bigger, but I just hate it when cities' populations are measured by their metropolitan area, when most of it isn't urban in character at all!

Looks like there enough comments here to start a Facebook support group. I am soo totally hooked. They don't call it crackbook for nothing.

Funny Amil & I were just talking about it at the end of our last Arts Now blogTO podcast. It must be an epidemic.

Well, I may as well reply to Air'leth here as I did elsewhere already:

I'm not sure why you guys are so uptight about Facebook, it's just a website. It happens to be the only website that has actually accomplished its social networking goals, so everyone uses it to plan everything now and get in touch with everyone. Users know pretty much everyone can be found and later reached through facebook. I don't get the people who obsessively hold out on not joining, but I don't really care either.

They're just deciding not to utilize one of the best networking tools in the entirety of human history. And the result is that they are going to lose out on all the benefits that come with networking. Don't use job search sites and no employers searching there are gonna find your resume... that doesn't qualify as some attack on you, it's your choice not to take advantage of the incredible technology that is being made available these days.

Like people who angrily insist they hate cell phones and will never get one... It's like, okay, that's fine, but don't expect me to be able to get in touch with you. (And while you're at it, stop asking to 'see' my cell phone, people!)

...or another example, 10-15 years ago and barely getting online, you could've been determined to remain a WWW-only user, and refused adamantly to join "this god damned 'e-mail' cult" just to have to get in touch with people when they can perfectly well walk to your house.

...or from e-mail, "this damn icq/msn/aim cult!"

...or from grunting, "this damn speaking in words cult!"

It's not just about messaging people. There's a very performative, public nature to the messages where people know that others will see what they're talking about.

I do like it for the picture albums and events, especially when those two are combined.

Central Jersey, NJ 28,000
Hoboken / Jersey City, NJ 6,000
Jersey Shore, NJ 17,000
Newark, NJ 11,000
North Jersey, NJ 40,000
Trenton / Princeton, NJ 8,000

Equals: 110,000

plus

Nassau County, NY 22,000
Suffolk County, NY 17,000

Equals: 149,000
plus New York's 208,000
equals: Toronto still kicking all their asses combined.

Metro areas versus urban areas or not, a lot of people are choosing to ID themselves as torontonians. Who's to say they aren't?

Chris: I guess the primary difference with a cellphone is that I have to pay to own and operate one. I already pay for a broadband connection, but I need it for many other things aside from Facebook.