Dearly beloved, friends, followers, former schoolmates, distant relatives, and complete strangers who somehow found their way onto my Facebook friends list…

We are gathered here today, in this solemn corner of the internet, to mourn the passing of a once-beloved institution called social media. Or Facebook as it’s known to its friends.

Please switch your phones to silent, refrain from taking photographs of the deceased, and resist the temptation to livestream the following proceedings. The family has requested privacy, although Meta has already sold the guest list to seventeen major advertising agencies.

The coffin before us contains what little remains of a once-thriving social network. It was once a modest affair, constructed entirely from recycled community guidelines, broken promises, and the shattered dreams of people who thought their collective friends might actually get to see their posts.

The floral arrangements for today's event have been generously sponsored by a new partner in crime for Facebook, namely Temu. And as is per standard practice, they have arrived looking nothing like the pictures on the sales page, but we're assured a full refund can be made available if we return them to a warehouse in outer Mongolia, somewhere within the next hour.

Attendance today is disappointingly low for a social network. Although 2,847 people previously indicated they were interested in attending, only six have actually turned up. Three are bots, one is trying to sell cryptocurrency, and another is a suspiciously attractive young woman who would like to know whether I am lonely and only lives less than two kilometres away.

The officiating minister for today’s service has been replaced by an AI-generated version of himself, and the organist has been informed that playing copyrighted music may result in the entire funeral soundtrack being muted in certain geographical regions.

We had hoped to invite Facebook's closest friends to say a few words, but unfortunately, it seems that none of them have received the notification. Which is, under the circumstances, a fairly fitting farewell, for Facebook was not always like this.

There was a time when it was a place of genuine human connection. A place where friends shared photographs, families kept in touch, and people enthusiastically documented their evening meals as though historians might one day require evidence of what they'd ordered at the local Chinese restaurant.

We knew who our friends were. We knew what they were doing. We knew what they were eating, where they were eating it, and occasionally, thanks to an unfortunate photograph or two, what it looked like several hours later.

There was community. There was conversation. There was the comforting knowledge that somewhere, an aunt was typing entirely in capital letters because she hadn't yet discovered how to turn them off.

But somewhere along the way, something has changed. Our friends have slowly disappeared. Not physically, of course. They're still out there, presumably still living highly fulfilling lives. We just don't get to see them anymore.

In their place came sponsored advertisements, suggested pages, motivational quotations attributed to people who never said them, and videos of strangers renovating houses using nothing but toothpaste, baking soda and an inexplicable amount of hot glue guns.

Then came the influencers. People who, despite possessing no discernible qualifications, began offering life advice from the front seats of expensive cars they may or may not own.

Then came artificial intelligence. Now half the photographs (my profile pic excluded) feature elderly women celebrating their 117th birthdays beside cakes the size of agricultural machinery, while the comments overflow with thousands of people wishing them well.

Occasionally, the elderly woman even has seven fingers. But nobody seems particularly concerned.

And let us not forget the good old Facebook algorithm. That mysterious, all-knowing digital deity which decides what we may see, who may see us, and whether the thoughtful article we spent two or three hours writing, deserves an audience larger than our immediate family and a suspicious account called Jennifer Loves Happiness.

Apparently, it doesn't. Unless, of course, we pay for the privilege.

Facebook has now become the world's largest social gathering in which nobody can hear anybody else unless they purchase a microphone from the venue. The same venue that keeps interrupting to sell us garden furniture.

Yet perhaps the greatest tragedy is what happened to conversation. Once, people exchanged ideas. Now they exchange insults beneath headlines they haven't read, about articles they haven't opened, concerning subjects they don't fully understand. The comments section has become a retirement village for common sense, except nobody appears to be supervising the residents anymore.

And then, of course, there is the non-stop advertising. That magnificent technological achievement whereby Facebook has somehow managed to develop the ability to know absolutely everything about us while simultaneously understanding absolutely nothing.

I once looked at a garden shed. Once. I did not purchase a garden shed. I did not express a desire to purchase a garden shed. I merely looked at one, in much the same way that I might look at a passing giraffe without immediately wishing to establish a private zoo.

Nevertheless, you concluded that my entire future happiness depended upon acquiring outdoor storage facilities. For weeks now, I have been pursued by sheds. You know, you make the innocent mistake of looking at a garden shed. Not because you want a garden shed, you understand. Perhaps you were merely curious about the price or size of garden sheds. Perhaps you wondered how they were constructed. Perhaps you accidentally brushed the screen while attempting to remove a biscuit crumb.

It doesn't matter. You are now, according to Facebook, a man whose entire existence revolves around garden sheds. Within seconds, your feed is awash with them. Wooden sheds. Metal sheds. Plastic sheds. Sheds with windows. Sheds without windows. Sheds that fold, sheds that expand, sheds that apparently possess more sophisticated climate-control systems than your own home.

Thirty-seven different manufacturers are suddenly competing for your attention, each apparently convinced that your failure to purchase a garden shed within the next eleven minutes will result in the complete and irreversible collapse of civilisation.

ONLY THREE LEFT! SALE ENDS TONIGHT! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THIS MAN DISCOVERED ABOUT GARDEN SHEDS!

And then comes the psychological warfare. Apparently, thousands of people in your area have already purchased this particular shed. Your neighbours are buying them. Your friends are buying them. Entire communities are experiencing life-changing transformations through the ownership of modest outdoor storage facilities.

Meanwhile, you’re now a shed-less embarrassment to humanity, continuing to recklessly gamble with your future. A countdown timer appears. You have just seven minutes left to save 80%... Six minutes… Five.

You close Facebook, return three days later, and discover that the sale, miraculously, still has seven minutes remaining. But perhaps the most extraordinary part of this relentless commercial assault is that actually purchasing the bloody thing doesn't stop it. Oh no.

Having finally surrendered and bought myself a garden shed, Facebook interprets this not as the conclusion of your shed-buying journey, but as incontrovertible evidence that you are now the world's foremost enthusiast for garden sheds and you’ve now become a collector.

The advertisements double. Because, apparently, having recently just purchased one shed, you are now statistically likely to require another seventeen. And should you dare even look at a lawnmower, the entire process begins again.

This is not targeted advertising. This is digital stalking conducted by an exceptionally persistent door-to-door salesman who has mistaken mild curiosity for a legally binding commitment to purchase. A salesman who now follows you home, peers through your windows, interrupts your conversations, and screams increasingly desperate promotional offers through the letterbox.

And Facebook calls this personalisation. Personally, I'd call it harassment with a shopping cart.

The really impressive achievement is that a company capable of tracking our every click, pause, preference and passing interest still hasn't worked out the most elementary principle of human behaviour.

Just because I looked at something doesn't mean I want to buy it. And even if I did want to buy it, showing it to me forty-three times a day is considerably more likely to make me develop a lifelong hatred of the product than an irresistible desire to own one.

Still, we must admire the ingenuity. Facebook has managed to single-handedly turn window-shopping into a hostage situation. But never fear, the budget friendly ransom remains payable in three easy instalments.

And while we're discussing the increasingly desperate attempts of Facebook to separate us from our money on behalf of its advertisers, we must also spare a thought for the news organisations. Those once-respected guardians of public information who have apparently decided that journalism is no longer about telling people what happened, but about telling us that something has happened and subsequently charging us to find out what.

Their arrival on Facebook has introduced an entirely new form of psychological torture. The clickbait headline.

"LOCAL MAN MAKES SHOCKING DISCOVERY IN HIS OWN BACKYARD!"

Good heavens. What discovery? A buried treasure? A missing relative? The remains of an ancient civilisation? Naturally, curiosity gets the better of you. You click. And there it is.

"SUBSCRIBE NOW TO CONTINUE READING."

Apparently, the shocking discovery was that journalism now comes with an admission fee.

Or perhaps it's:

"POPULAR SUPERMARKET PRODUCT RECALLED — CHECK IF YOU'RE AFFECTED!"

Well, that sounds rather important. You may have purchased the offending product. You may even have eaten it. You could, at this very moment, be digesting something that ought to have remained in a laboratory and will have you dead by bedtime. But before you can discover whether your breakfast is attempting to kill you, you'll need to subscribe for $4 a week.

Billed annually of course!

Because nothing says public interest journalism quite like withholding potentially important information until the public provides its credit card details.

And then there's the local newspaper.

"BELOVED LOCAL BUSINESS TO CLOSE AFTER 40 YEARS!"

Which business? The bakery? The butcher? The little family-run shop you've been visiting since childhood? Nobody knows. Certainly not without subscribing. The article might concern a shop three suburbs away that you've never even heard of, but that's not the point. The point is to manufacture just enough anxiety, curiosity or outrage to make you click. The headline poses the question. The paywall holds the answer hostage. And somewhere in a corporate office, a marketing executive calls this reader engagement. I’d call it selling tickets to a mystery and then charging extra to reveal who committed the murder.

Of course, the news organisations will explain that quality journalism costs money. And they're right. It does. Journalists deserve to be paid. Investigative reporting deserves to be funded. Independent newsrooms deserve to survive.

But there is a rather substantial difference between charging for quality journalism and deliberately withholding the most basic facts of a story behind a headline engineered to provoke panic. One is a business model. The other is a ransom note with a photograph of the victim.

And the really insulting part? You relent to subscribe, pay your money, finally gain access to the article, and discover that the shocking revelation is further buried beneath seventeen extra shed advertisements, three auto-playing shed videos, two shed newsletter invitations, and a pop-up asking whether you'd like to subscribe again.

I ALREADY BLOODY HAVE DONE!

And by the time you've navigated that obstacle course, you've forgotten what you originally wanted to know. Which, on reflection, is probably for the best, because the local man's shocking backyard discovery turned out to be nothing more than a particularly large zucchini. And the beloved local business closing after forty years? A newsagent in another state.

But still, congratulations to the modern media industry. You've managed to combine the intellectual integrity of a carnival sideshow with the customer service philosophy of a parking infringement office. And Facebook, naturally, is delighted to be the one providing the platform. After all, nothing complements an endless stream of advertisements for things we don't want quite like an endless stream of answers we're not allowed to see.

We used to buy newspapers to find out what was happening in the world. Now we read the headlines to find out what we're not being told. Progress, apparently.

So...

After much careful consideration, several years of declining enthusiasm, and approximately 14,000 advertisements for sheds I never wanted. Please accept this final post of mine as formal notice of my resignation from your platform, effective immediately, or whenever your algorithm eventually decides to acknowledge it.

It is with a heavy heart, a weary scrolling finger, and a profound sense of digital exhaustion that I announce my departure from what was once a rather pleasant place to spend a few minutes catching up with friends.

I joined Facebook under the impression that it was a social network. An understandable mistake, given that this was precisely how you advertised it.

There was a time when I could log in and discover what my friends were doing, where they'd been for their jollies, what they'd eaten, and whether their children had achieved something sufficiently remarkable to warrant forty-seven second rate photographs. I rather enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, you appear to have misplaced the social aspect of social media. My friends have now been replaced by strangers. My conversations have been replaced by advertisements. And my news feed has become a commercially sponsored psychological endurance test, interrupted occasionally by an elderly woman celebrating her 119th birthday with a cake that appears to have been constructed by NASA. Yes, her again. I understand she has been celebrating this birthday every Thursday since March. And now, apparently, she has eight fingers. But I digress.

Facebook, that magnificent, mysterious electronic overlord that knows what I looked at three Tuesdays ago, what I nearly purchased last Christmas, and what colour underpants I might be considering in 2028. Yet somehow, despite this extraordinary surveillance capability it has at its disposal, it cannot manage to show me a photograph posted yesterday by someone I've known for over forty years.

Apparently, my friends are less relevant to my interests than a man in Pakistan demonstrating how to repair a washing machine with nothing more than a spin cycle and a brick. I don't own that particular washing machine. I don't intend to. But I have now watched him repair it six times. Cue the onslaught of adverts.

And so, we finally arrive at the matter of communication. I have written posts. I have shared thoughts. I have attempted humour, conversation, observation and the occasional carefully constructed piece of prose. Your response has been to distribute these efforts to approximately seven people, three of whom appear to be deceased, while still enthusiastically promoting a photograph of a potato that supposedly resembles Jesus.

Naturally, I could pay to reach more people. You’d love that wouldn’t you?

Which brings me to the central absurdity of our relationship here. You invited me to build a network of friends, encouraged me to share my life with them, collected an extraordinary amount of information about all of us, and then decided that if I wanted those friends to see what I shared, I should pay you for the privilege.

It's rather like inviting everyone to a party, locking them in separate rooms, and charging admission every time somebody wants to say hello. Except the rooms are filled with advertisements for garden sheds. And the catering is sponsored by Temu.

I must also express my disappointment with the comments sections of the day, which have evolved from a place of gentle conversation into an international championship for people determined to misunderstand one another. A perfectly innocent observation about the weather can now generate seventy-three replies, two accusations of political extremism, a conspiracy theory involving Bill Gates, and a gentleman called Darren threatening to expose the truth about cloud formation.

Nobody asked Darren. But Darren has done his research. Apparently, over on YouTube.

And so, Facebook, the time has come for us to part company. I shall miss the birthdays, the photographs, the old friendships, the unexpected reunions and the occasional genuinely funny observation from someone I actually know.

I shall not miss being stalked by advertisements, manipulated by clickbait, lectured by so called influencers, or informed that I am one of only three people in Australia who have not yet purchased a revolutionary cordless vegetable slicer for my new shed.

I shall particularly not miss being told that I can improve my reach by paying you to show my own words to my own friends. After all, if I wanted to pay for the privilege of being ignored, I could go back and re-marry my exes.

I leave you with no bitterness. Well, perhaps a little. Enough to fill a modest garden shed maybe.

But I wish you every success in your future endeavours, whatever they may be, although I suspect they will involve further monetisation of human loneliness, increasingly aggressive advertising, and the eventual introduction of a subscription service allowing people to see photographs of their own grandchildren.

Please do not attempt to retain me with personalised offers. Please do not send me any notifications informing me that seventeen people are missing me. And please, for the love of everything decent, do not interpret this resignation as an indication that I am interested in purchasing any kind of funeral services.

And so, as we lower the old Facebook into its metaphorical grave, let us remember it fondly. Remember the friendships we have made. Remember the laughter we have had. Remember the birthday notifications that allowed us to maintain relationships with people we hadn't spoken to since 1998. And remember that, once upon a time, social media was actually social rather than financial.

Rest in peace, you old bastard Facebook. You brought the world together, then charged it admission to see itself.

And I have herewith now attended your funeral. I have delivered you your eulogy. And now I am leaving the cemetery.

Yours sincerely… A Formerly Social Media User. Feel free to keep and use all of my earlier posts and data to be training your AI on, I guess it’ll help go towards the cost of hosting said content for the rest of eternity.

P.S. Yes, I do appreciate the irony of announcing my departure from Facebook here on Facebook. Unfortunately, it's the only place, other than page two of Google, where I can be reasonably certain that nobody will ever see it.

P.P.S. Should anybody actually get to read this (especially over on Facebook), please feel free to leave a comment. I understand engagement is important for gigs like that, although I suspect the algorithm will interpret your participation as little more than evidence that you too, are interested in purchasing a garden shed.

P.P.P.S. I have just received yet another advertisement for a garden shed. Amazingly, there are only three left. And guess what, the sale ends in seven minutes…

Over and out… Fuck your mess Zuckerberg… And Amen.

And a huge cheers, to all those I'll be leaving behind.