Girl Geeks and Boy Kings

Facebook was, in its early days, powered by women—or rather, by photographs of women, and by the unceasing clicks of men and of women seeking out photos of women.

These were the years long before Facebook hired any women at the executive level, before a woman served on its board, which, until early 2012, was all male. This was the era when Facebook, like the college culture that birthed it, was driven by users contributing to an all-day, all-night party fueled by their updates, a party that anyone could slip into and observe, just by creating a profile.

But the frat party never ended, even if the cups have been cleared away. Though the site has long since shed this particular image and now caters to a far broader range of users, it still permeates Facebook’s culture, and—whether we ever were part of that buzzy time or any of the photos that captured it—it remains at the core of the site, still shaping our experience.