Why the Facebook Nation Lacks a Narrative

Renny Gleeson posted an interesting article in which he considers the metaphor of Facebook as a country. He dismisses it arguing that Facebook lacks a narrative or mythology to unite its users like a country unites its citizens. It is worth asking what a narrative looks like in a social network. Where do narratives grow online? What is preventing Facebook from creating that narrative?

First, what does a narrative look like in a social network? While they aren’t perfect, I believe virtual worlds have something of a narrative. How else can you explain a 11.5 million member subscriber base and the level of detail on wowwiki?

In World of Warcraft, there are multiple levels of narrative. There is the surface or game narrative crafted by Blizzard. It is full of conquering demons, racial alliances, seasonal festivals. Believe it or not, it has spawned books. Then there is the meta-narrative: forum debates about changes to the game, in game movies and music videos posted to YouTube and Machinima. Finally there are personal narratives: characters meeting in game and performing quests, friends forming guilds, characters growing in experience (and offline personal lives and health often falling apart).

I don’t have much experience with Second Life, but I imagine it is closer to a nation-building narrative, something of that settler on the digital planes mythos. There is the possibility to meet new people and build new things.

Facebook’s only narrative is meta-narrative with users discussing site redesigns and privacy policies, however, unlike a virtual world, there is no navigation of three-dimensional space, no risk or possibility of encounter. You are consigned to your social circle. You can learn more about a friend by reading their profile and looking at their pictures—but even this is Facebook Stalking and does not build a relationship like speaking to a person would.

In order to have a mythology or narrative, you require characters and conflict. Facebook presents a world with no conflict or challenges internal to itself. Its largest conflict is the challenge of establishing a functional social network—a meta-narrative available to a select few engineers, social media gurus, and facebook afficionados. It is a narrative written on Techcrunch. As for characters, Facebook presents no venue for naturally meeting others, which limits possibility, connection, and enjoyment.

Perhaps the most compelling social network narrative in recent memory is the story of Twitter. Its true naissance occurred this summer when asked by the Department of Defense to suspend network maintenance during the unrest in Iran, so that Iranian stories, 140 characters at a time, could flutter out. Conflict and real characters: Twitter had found its creation story.

Facebook must find its own story and in order to do so it must invite conflict. With its 350 million user-base, it can become the world’s open, social space.