Facebook is taking a page out of Twitter’s book and changing the word “subscribe” to “follow.”
For those who were unaware of what subscribing is, well, it took me forever to figure out what it is too. The feature allows you to follow the statuses of people you are not friends with.
Now called “following” on Facebook, it is essentially what Twitter is, but a lot creepier. Facebook has always been about having a mutual friendship with people; however, that has been lost with the addition of following to Facebook. Facebook should have changed the term to “stalking.” It would be a more apt word to use.
On Twitter, people can follow celebrities who will not follow them back. However, this sort of dynamic was established on Twitter since the beginning. Most of what people share on Twitter is not supposed to be kept private. Celebrities tweet for their fans and other celebrities to see. On Facebook, while it is silly to think what you post is private, there is still more of a sense of security knowing that there must be a mutual friendship to read what you post. However, the follow feature has been around for little more than a year. It is just that the word “subscribe” confused some of us Facebook users about what it was.
It is actually a good move for Facebook to use the word “follow” because Twitter has been able to create a meaning behind it that aligns better with the feature than the word “subscribe.”
Twitter really messed up by not trademarking the word and suing the pants off of Facebook for trying to use it. However, follow, like, post, tweet, subscribe – the list goes on – have just become part of the lingo of social media. We all understand their meanings. It is just applying them in the right ways.
Chasen Doerr is a senior journalism major and the opinions editor for the Daily 49er.
