When did we all stop throwing sheep?

I remember it like it was yesterday. Perhaps I haven't lived enough since, but anyway, I was sat as a shy, badly groomed teenager on a computer big enough to fill half of the room it was in when suddenly Joanna Lumley's voice sounded to let me know I had an email. After getting over the terror that her voice always filled me with, especially when she quoted, 'You have company,' I opened my inbox to discover a message from a strange and alien source.

The source was Facebook.
The email was telling me that someone had given me a dinosaur egg as a present.

You've got email, darling.

Lovely. I'd always wanted a dinosaur egg. Having a virtual one would surely be a lot more practical than a real one, this was very thoughtful. I clicked on the link in the email and it took me to what now I would describe as a clunky, clustered blue and white screen without any aesthetically pleasing values. However at the time it looked amaaaaazziiinnggggg. A little window popped up telling me to log in to receive my gift. Okay! Why the hell wouldn't I? I'd got a dinosaur egg!

And then it had me.
Clever.

The dinosaur egg hatched and the resulting baby liked me for a little while but then as with everything got bored of me and went off with someone more attractive. Prick.

At the time I remember thinking that this site probably couldn't survive on the premise of offering users eggs as presents and the ability to throw cyber sheep at other people. Alright, I probably didn't think that, I probably thought that cyber sheep were the future. Why didn't all sites have cyber sheep? But Facebook certainly did realise that it had to be more than that, and now virtual animals and hatching gifts are nowhere to be seen unless you search long and hard through the maze of online apps. The site evolved, we all got taken along with it.

Now we spend our time online getting bitter about our friend's status updates about going somewhere with someone else and not inviting you, searching through recent pictures to discover that when they said they were ill they were actually having a really good time and you weren't included and hoping that someone liking your status is a sure fire sign they do want to become your wife.

Oh God, why am I friends with these people? Bring back the sheep, bring back the eggs, they offered a simpler time. They offered hope.