The Facebook crash: Is social media going the way of blogging? (Remember blogging?)

It’s an uncanny bummer to see that Facebook “f” perched hopefully atop an article called “Facebook's stock continues decline after rocky IPO.”

But there it is.

You can read all about the demise of Facebook—and then share that bleak news with your friends ... on Facebook!

Facebook is dead; long live Facebook.

Really, Facebook will survive. It’s dug in. Yes, maybe it’ll shift shapes, metamorphose into something less romantic than a social network. Without explanation, we’ll see it become a roving, hydra-like ad exchange or a mere backend to apps like Spotify and Instagram. But Facebook is a sturdy set of protocols that enjoys, with good reason, a privileged place on the Internet that it won’t soon yield.

At the same time, online media in the aggregate are having a turbulent hour. As the Facebook stock has turned leaden, so has the atmosphere around all social media. It’s an election year, just when the Web should be crackling with news and rumor and “fact-based” analysis, as the acid-toned forensics on political blogs used to be called.  The Internet has grown metastatically since 2008. And yet where, this time around, are the viral macaca videos? Where are the “Yes We Can” recuts? Where are the Wonkettes and FiveThirtyEights and Googling monkeys of The Note?

In fact, if you even know what Googling monkeys are, you maybe have been following digital elections for too long. No blogger in 2012 has anywhere near the authority or following of Paul Krugman or David Brooks of The New York Times. The original gangster political bloggers—Mickey Kaus, Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall—seem like old bluesmen now, playing before small audiences for love if not “hits.” As “love” used to be called.