obviously facebook is a festering hellmouth, but i do sometimes wonder if people remember how much different it was like 15 years ago. it was much less sterile and INSANELY customizable. for a little while Facebook profiles were composed of independently published widgets, and the day support was revoked for them was the day facebook stopped being fun to use for me.
anyway the pictures above are "pieces of flair" (a chougie-ass facebook widget in which you could easily create and display button pins on a cork board, a super fun idea but probably a moderation nightmare) and cartoon orbit (a similar concept on the cartoon network website, in which you would earn stickers and backgrounds through interactions that could be arranged on your profile according to your preferences). early social media was rife with experimental concepts like this and i think it actually really blows that everything online evolved to be so clinical. cohost is the only website left that seems to be thinking about what possibilities exist in online social spaces beyond writing text and uploading pictures.
flairs were so fun
