--- title: Facebook Parody Commercial Imagines Social Networking in 1995: Video description: A hilarious and accurate spoof of an actual AOL commercial canonical: https://time.com/3678276/facebook-parody-commercial-1995/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-22T15:52:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:08.702Z og:title: This Hilarious Parody Ad Imagines What Facebook Would Be Like in 1995 og:description: A weirdly accurate parody of an actual AOL commercial og:url: https://time.com/3678276/facebook-parody-commercial-1995/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49d1d6d97dd9c3fc/69877b455f570f47eeb14d98/screen-shot-2015-01-22-at-10-28-24-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1230 og:image:height: 692 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2015-01-22 at 10.28.24 AM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Hilarious Parody Ad Imagines What Facebook Would Be Like in 1995 twitter:description: A weirdly accurate parody of an actual AOL commercial twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49d1d6d97dd9c3fc/69877b455f570f47eeb14d98/screen-shot-2015-01-22-at-10-28-24-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Hilarious Parody Ad Imagines What Facebook Would Be Like in 1995 > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=bcb3555b-cb4b-4dab-a230-0cbf35752cf2&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Jan 22, 2015 3:52 PM UTC  by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Jan 22, 2015 3:52 PM UTC Take a quick trip down memory lane, back to the days of the mid-90s Internet era, with this fake commercial that imagines how Facebook would have been marketed in 1995. As you might remember from watching _The Social Network_, the site was originally called The Facebook, until Napster cofounder Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake, you go Justin Timberlake) told Mark Zuckerberg to drop the “The” and just call it “Facebook” because it would be cleaner. Well, in 1995, we’d definitely still be calling it _The_ Facebook. If the video seems at all familiar, that’s because it’s a direct parody of a real AOL commercial from 1995: ### This Is What Your Facebook Profile Looked Like Over the Last 11 Years  The Original Facebook Group Page, 2004\. Before people realized how awesome pictures are. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2005\. Back when Facebook looked a little bit like MySpace. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page Facelift, 2005\. The "the" is finally dropped. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2006\. You no longer need to be reminded "this is you" at the top of your profile page. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2007\. Every profile update still had to begin with "is," forcing you to talk about yourself in the third person. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2008\. The wall. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2009\. It only took five years for Facebook to create easy-to-find privacy settings. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2010\. Facebook starts to get pretty. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2011\. Zuckerberg realizes that people love pictures, usually of animals. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2012\. The timeline allows you (or your parents) to trace your life from birth to death. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2013-2014\. Facebook introduced a new app, Paper, on Monday. Courtesy of Facebook  Facebook Profile Page, 2014-2015\. Facebook updated both the newsfeed algorithm and the privacy settings. 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