Was My Facebook Marketing Article Ageist?
Some thought so.
A couple months ago I wrote an article titled, Facebook’s Old People Problem That Won’t Die. It is one of my most popular articles. It is also my most controversial. Although I did not intend it to be.
Despite the fact that Facebook was the subject of the article, and the fact its fastest growing age demographic is senior citizens, some readers took personal offense. They read their own personal mortality into the point I made about Facebook’s impending demise.
Some found “old people” pejorative. One person called me a “moron” and “idiot” before Medium took her comment down. And she has thousands of followers on the platform. Another person—also with thousands of followers—said the article amounted to “hate speech”, “encourages violence”, and “dehumanizes old people.”
Others thought I was needlessly separating “old people” from “young people”, even though the article was a business and marketing piece where such separation is the very nature of the profession. Facebook, like other companies, assesses marketing data through demographics, whether by age, sex, etc. Companies do this primarily to understand their customers. The growing age divide on Facebook (where new older users are outpacing new younger ones) was the most significant (from my perspective) based on the data and leaked whistleblower documents, which the Wall Street Journal reported on extensively.
Nevertheless, I want to make sure my thought process and analysis were sound and not ageist. I certainly did not intend to discriminate against or dehumanize “old people”, but did the article have that effect?
In the months since my article, Facebook (now Meta) has realized even bigger problems beyond its inability to attract new, younger users. My goal for this article is to assess—as objectively as possible—whether I have bigger problems (or blindspots) too. The following will address the chief concerns from the comments section of my original article. You be the judge whether I get it right.
Ageist
First, we should agree on terms. If someone wants to lodge an “ist” or “ism” allegation, they should be clear on the definition and how the actions meet it. Here is the dictionary.com definition, which I think is representative of the term:
[R]elating to, involving, or fostering discrimination against persons of a certain age group.
[S]howing or suggesting a belief that older people are debilitated, unworthy of attention, or unsuitable for employment.
The initial issue is whether my original article was ageist. From my perspective, highlighting a data-driven and supported fact, which Facebook worried about internally, is simply reporting the news. The use of demographic data—and separating groups between old and young, men and women, etc.—is crucial for any company’s marketing efforts.
It is what companies and marketers use to understand you, the customer. Whether the practice always operates in a non-discriminatory manner is debatable and probably the topic for another article. But by and large, companies and marketers don’t want to discriminate against you. They want your business.
The fact that Facebook has mainly become a platform for “old people” is not inherently bad in and of itself. Highlighting the fact that senior citizens are the fastest growing age demographic on the platform does not discriminate against them. It shouldn’t imply there is anything wrong with the demographic either. The fact “is what it is”, as they say.
What it does highlight is a business risk to Facebook, in addition to marketing intelligence for any company considering whether and how to run advertising on the platform. Older people may have more money, but from a marketing perspective, younger people have influence and they’re more impressionable. They are more likely to push (and succeed at pushing) products on their friends and family.
Which is why Facebook has been focused on attracting new and younger users (I did not make that up). They have largely failed, as illustrated in their most recent earnings report ($232 billion in lost value), where reported user volumes decreased for the first time.
These points about the age of Facebook’s users are therefore tied directly to Facebook’s long term viability as a profitable company, not ageism.
“Old People” - Is It Pejorative?
It became increasingly clear in the comments that those over a certain age did not want to be called “old people.” I get it. Maybe “senior citizens” would have been better? The only reason I used this particular moniker is because Facebook did. The company’s researchers consistently heard from “young people” that Facebook was a platform for “old people.”
Nobody wants to be called “old.” Having recently turned 34 and nearing the outer limits of the 18-34 marketing demographic, I feel anything but young. But with that said, we cannot inject our own personal mortality into an analysis that was objectively based on data and marketing research. This was about Facebook’s viability as a business, not your personal viability.
Yet people could not help themselves from making the article about them. One commenter who received a couple hundred claps stated the following:
Intended or not, you neglected to mention the importance and commitment of your parents and grandparents
Letting “old people” know that they are still vital is important.
That would be true if the article was entirely about “old people.” I respect and revere those who came before me, and I hope to be lucky enough to reach those golden years myself. But that was not relevant here. The article was about Facebook’s mortality, not the mortality of a user demographic.
Another person wrote, “We old people are going to be around a lot longer than you are calculating for.” In fairness, I did state that “within the next decade” if Facebook’s “old people problem won’t die”, it will “likely lead to the death of the platform.”
Admittedly, I could have stated this better, but again, the statement is focused on Facebook’s mortality. If the company continues failing to attract new, younger users, it will likely lead to its slow demise. Given recent earnings, however, I may have actually been too generous in my “decade” estimate. Facebook’s downfall could arrive much sooner, especially if their metaverse plans do not pan out quickly.
Separating Old People from Young People
I received many different versions of this type of comment:
I always get a little chuckle when young people so confidently and self righteously separate themselves from “old people”, as if they will magically avoid this very label themselves.
As mentioned earlier, I was not separating “old people” from “young people.” Facebook’s marketing and data-driven research did that for me. It is crucial for marketers to break down demographics to understand customers. It was not a ploy to avoid a label, or discriminate or dehumanize a class of people.
TikTok Will Eventually Have an Old People Problem
Possibly. But not a single commenter who stated this—and many did—backed it up with evidence. Who’s to say TikTok won’t continue to innovate and be a viable social media platform or something bigger decades from now? Most companies have a shelf life, but many others have sustained success for many years. I certainly would not bet against TikTok today as they only continue to increase their social media dominance.
Article Lacked Logic Because “Young People Disappear Too, By Getting Older”
This comment missed the key point. It’s the same point that keeps Facebook executives up at night: if the company does not attract users while they are young, they will likely lose them forever. Those users will grow up on a different social media platform like TikTok or Snapchat. What evidence is there that they will magically jump to Facebook once they reach a certain age?
As part of Facebook’s research (which was part of the whistleblower leak), younger users reportedly stated numerous times that Facebook is an “old person’s platform.” They’ve also stated this separately on blogs and elsewhere on the internet.
How many users switched to MySpace when they got older?
Young people “disappearing by getting older” is not relevant if they never use Facebook and there’s no evidence to suggest they ever will as they age.
It Was Never About Ageism, But An Existential Threat To Facebook
We are seeing the existential threat of Facebook’s declining core user base play out in real time, just two months after I wrote the original article. While many of the comments were critical, there was a lot of positive feedback too. Perhaps Facebook is just one of the topics that inspires strong opinions.
While I do think the ageist allegations were baseless, as described above, I understand how someone could interpret it the wrong way. Drawing conclusions based on demographic data, however, is something companies and marketers do everyday. The overarching goal is not to discriminate, but to be objective, inform advertising, and service customers. Sometimes demographic data reveals trends and themes that arguably suggest something bigger and more existential, as in the case with Facebook here.
There is a big difference between trying to identify problem areas through demographic data and discriminating against a class of people. We should not take the former personally.