Happenings

I remember when I first heard of happenings. I was in a film class and we were discussing art of the 50's and 60's when someone brought up this strange art form. This intrigued me for all the reasons you would expect, but it never occurred to me that this sort of breaking down of barriers between audience and artist was setting a tone for much of New Media. Now, thinking in this way, and understanding the connection between New Media and the Happenings of the 60's, I have to ask- is facebook a happening? Facebook's creators have set up a scenario which the audience much interact with and respond to, much like Allan Kaprow. A main difference, however, is that instead of reading of this happening in the papers or seeing film clips of it in theaters, one finds the final audience of facebook being marketing firms using it as a way of collecting data. Does this capitalistic function of facebook prevent it from joining the art hierarchy of happenings? I would say no.