Vladimir Nabokov explained how he came to write Lolita; that his "shiver of inspiration" was "prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: This sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage."
Reading the monsoon of text about Facebook's new look (a little bit Twitter, a little bit same old) this week, on the site itself and everywhere else, makes me wonder if we "social networkers" are quite a lot like this ape.