What fresh hell is this, San Francisco?

Facebook skin at Montgomery BART

You are entering… Emoji Reaction Land. Tread carefully lest ye be streamed!

Facebook reaction emoji at Montgomery BART

glitched-out Facebook reaction emoji

I don’t actually object to Facebook Live, but the Luddite in me finds this corporate skin of a local train station somewhat unsettling. It’s not a new form factor in terms of advertising, but Facebook as a company is a little different from a department store, no? Stepping into Macy’s involves subjecting myself to surveillance, yes, but they don’t try to subsume every moment of my day.

The Facebook-ified corridor felt like a satirical theme park. But all those “omg!” and “lol!” faces were completely earnest. Facebook is papering San Francisco with this campaign outside the train stations as well, and it’s borderline /r/FellowKids-worthy.

Facebook, you’re old. Stop trying to copy Snapchat. It’s giving me secondhand embarrassment. Make do with being the identity system for a large chunk of the world and indexing copious information about our relationships. Yeesh.