06 Aug 2025

What Facebook Used to Be

by Kim Kelly

I was checking Instagram one last time before going offline last night, and a stray post from someone I don’t really talk to anymore alerted me that a man I once loved is dead. It was a cold way to learn such a thing. The news was already three days old by the time it filtered onto my feed, which made it feel even worse. There are reports that it was heart failure that got him. He was only 42, and while I still don’t know what happened, I can make a decent guess. Like many of the friends and lovers who have brightened my life over the past few decades, he had an on-and-off relationship with drink and drugs. There was a certain darkness living within him. I hope his departure was easy, but regardless, he is gone and now I will never see him again or even get to send that “hey, it’s been too long, how the hell are you?” text I’ve had in my mental drafts for years.

At least I will be able to hear his voice whenever I want, because, again, like so many other men I’ve cared for, he was a musician, and left a half dozen albums’ worth of his songs behind. As I write this, I’m listening to his first solo-ish effort, from 2010; he’s singing to me in his twangy Colorado burr about death and whiskey and love, his sepia-tinted face staring out at me from the album cover. God, but he was beautiful. He wasn't pretty, in the way that some of them are; his features were strong and he was stocky, with broad shoulders and dancing eyes and boyish cheeks and the kind of mischievous grin that makes you bite your lip. He could pick you—me—up like it was nothing, down whiskey like it was water, make you feel fascinating and delicate, toss you a wink and actually make it sexy before breaking into a belly laugh at himself. He was masculine, manly, in a way that would sound gauche if you didn’t know him. I drank him in like the bourbon he kept at his bedside.

When’s the last time you actually tried to use Facebook? I don’t mean logging on to take a quick worried peek at the latest conspiracies your worst uncles and that one girl from third period Bio are ranting about this week, or indulging in a brief semi-ironic stroll through your once-lively timeline to soak up its haunted mall vibes before fleeing for more hospitable e-pastures. That’s light work. No, I’m talking about spelunking its dark depths, really getting in there.