Opinion Ello there
Is the age of the anti-Facebook finally upon us?
Game’s over, Facebook. No more will unsuspecting users fall prey to your tasteful cobalt blue and your e.e. cummings-esque lower case “f”. No more will people longing for news of their friends have to wade through your customised advertisements and your doctored newsfeed. You with your “likes” and your smileys and that insinuating question, what’s on your mind? You’re done. Say hello to Ello, the anti-Facebook, the social network with a manifesto, ideals, principles. Everyone wants to be part of an invite-only platform that starts off by telling the user, “You are not a product”.
Rigged out in cultic black, Ello has a smiley with no eyes for a logo. As you scroll down the page, the tagline on the side reminds you it is “Simple, beautiful & ad-free”. Apart from being commercially uncompromised, Ello gives users that most radical internet freedom — anonymity. The recent surge of interest in it came after members of the LGBTQ community struggled against Facebook’s “real-name” policy. On Ello, you can use an ironic pseudonym and cover your face with said cultic black smiley. Also, Ello is hip. So far, it has been a circle of aesthetically evolved individuals who say little but post pictures of interesting objects in black and white. It’s like a cross between dining at a Scandinavian restaurant and visiting the Tate Modern.
Yet the alternative soon becomes mainstream in the world of social networks. Remember a select, invite-only network that was meant just for Harvard students? It was niche, it was elite and sophisticated. It was Facebook just 10 years ago, an alternative to the fevered landscapes of MySpace and Orkut. Every social network has its day and Facebook’s might be done. If Ello is the next fad, it will come with its own expiry date. So in a few years or even months from now, black could be the new cobalt blue. Watch this space.
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