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This is just a short clip of an entire episode of South Park dedicated to give their take on Facebook. This episode aired on April 7, 2010. You can read the plot summary or watch the full episode.
It addresses the issue of being “forced” to make a profile, the annoyance of parents/grandparents joining Facebook, the addiction of the applications features on Facebook such as Farmville and Cafeworld. They have the angry jealous girlfriend who makes it clear that they need to be “in a relationship” on Facebook to be official. They also show the desire to have more friends than others and the stigma of having zero friends. And finally they depict how troublesome it is to deactivate one’s profile, by having Stan, the character forced to make Facebook profile, sucked into the cyber world of Facebook.
While listening to the class discussion on Facebook earlier in the semester, I thought of this episode. The questions that were asked were answered in this episode in a comical way. However, there are some people out there who do take social networks, cyber relationships, cyber equities seriously. I feel that in this episode, the characters of South Park are showing the viewers how ridiculous we’ve become as our lives are revolving around social networks. (They’ve based one of their earlier episodes on the Internet and how society would fall into chaos if the Internet shuts down. link)