Funny: The Origins of Social Network
Yes you've seen the movie on how Zuck stole the idea from the Winklevoss twins but that's not how social networking sites actually started. Prior to Facebook there were other social networking sites such us myspace, multiply, friendster, etc. who came way before Facebook's inception. Now if you think that that's how it all started then you're dead wrong.
This article is all about how it began. Back in the day when life was simple and the internet wasn't invented yet, kids were already engaged in some type of social networking called the "Slambook". I was born in the 80's so I first stumbled upon this in the 90's when I was in my teens. But based on an article I've read, the early versions of it dates back to the 1920's. Yeah that's right, the 20's, also known as the "The Jazz Age", when people enjoyed economic prosperity and carefree living. The slambook has evolved over the years and when I first learned about it during my high school years it kinda look like a notebook and every page was like a Facebook profile page.
The book has about 100 pages so you had a slot for all your friends. There you can fill your page with information like: your favourite color, your birthday, your dream job and your crush just to name a few. Yes, the slambook has information on who has a crush on who. For the slut-ish type they would actually write down the name of their crush, well, what did you expect. For the conservative type they would use a codename and for the demure ones they would put in there.. JESUS! Talk about playing it safe.
It was very popular among girls and most of the slots were allotted for girls. And it was heavily guarded too because of the delicate information it contained. Imagine it falling into the wrong hands😉. I mean I'd be a hypocrite if I said that we (the boys gang) didn't try to steal one. But all attempts failed. Girls can be really feisty when it comes to protecting their secrets, like a dog protecting its puppies.
By now, you're probably thinking that that's how it all started but unfortunately NO. I did a little more digging and I found out this idea was first conceptualized before the Great Flood. Yes, you heard me right, it goes all the way back to the time of Adam. Let me show you a page from the book of Genesis as proof.
So you can see that they put in the book of Genesis their names, their age, their jobs.. kinda like LinkedIn, right? Amazing ain't it?
But here's a funny story about this chapter in the book of Genesis. They were writing their names, age, jobs,.. right. Someone actually wrote his favourite color... in the Bible,.. the Holy Bible. A book that was intended for the Word of God. And in the next generation of Adam's descendants, another one wrote his favourite food and another one even wrote his crush is Jesus. Hell!, Jesus wasn't even born at that time. Until one of Adam's great-great-great grand kid realize the error of their ways. So he called for a family meeting and with the book in his hand told everybody angrily..
"This has got to stop! This is the Holy Bible, we're supposed to write in here the holy scriptures. Not our favorite food or favorite color or that your crush is Jesus. Who the hell is Jesus anyway? If we're gonna write in this book the things that we like and don't like, we might as well call this the Holy Facebook!!!
And that's the origin of social network.