South Park's Facebook Satire: Dated?

When South Park takes on Facebook and its involved farm game, you expect the devastation to be absolute. But the animated satire's recent takedown of the social networking site and Farmville played to surprisingly mixed reviews. Though bloggers generally enjoyed the episode, their posts were replete with "finally," and "South Park may be a little late to the game." A good episode is no excuse for social commentary many feel is a touch too gentle and a year too late.

• That Was... Gentle?  "South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone poked gentle fun at the reigning king of the social media world," reports a surprised Matthew Shaer at Christian Science Monitor. "Emphasis on gentle: Compared to the attacks the cartoon has dished out in the past, South Park Facebook episode took it relatively easy."

• A Dated Takedown  Put off by the "dated" social media references, MTV's Adam Rosenberg asks "where was Twitter?" Despite Facebook's growing popularity, Rosenberg views the episode as stale and questions the judgment of the show's masterminds.
  

What's odd to me is that many of the jokes could have easily been tweaked to apply to Twitter instead. So why did [Trey] Parker and [Matt] Stone spare the micro-blogging network and instead rain their unique brand of relevant, irreverent humor down on a service that many see as yesterday's news?

• Late, but Still Good  Though Mashable's Brenna Ehrlich chuckles at most of the episode, even her praise comes with caveats. "Last night, Facebook finally got the South Park treatment — and although it seems a bit late in the game for a good lampooning, the cartoon kids mocked the world’s favorite social networking site to perfection," she writes.