Facebook, Instagram briefly go down; Twitter freaks out

Facebook, Instagram briefly go down; Twitter freaks out

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(CNN) -- For about an hour this morning, humans across the world were briefly forced to interact with each other in person.

Shortly after 12:10 a.m. ET, Facebook and Instagram went down, leaving millions of users around the world briefly unable to post selfies or humblebrag.

Visitors were greeted with a message that said, "Sorry, something went wrong." For others, the page wouldn't load.

The moment when you realize our life revolves around Facebook #facebookdownpic.twitter.com/D0qz7ApwVj — Ali Dahmash علي دهمش (@AliDahmash) January 27, 2015

The outage affected a large portion of the United States, according to downdetector.com. Users across Asia, Australia and New Zealand also reported having trouble logging on.

Map shows extent of Facebook outage. Looks like a big chunk of U.S. affected #facebookdownpic.twitter.com/dxz5F8K0tY — Saeed Ahmed (@saeed_ahmed) January 27, 2015

"We're aware that many people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram," Facebook spokeswoman Charlene Chian told CNN. "We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."

But an hour is an eternity! Without Facebook, how are you supposed to know which friends are having birthdays? Without Instagram, are you supposed to just describe your dinner?

People quickly took to Twitter. And the outage quickly spawned a hashtag, #facebookdown.

I don't always go on @twitter, but when I do it's to check if @facebook is down. #facebookdownpic.twitter.com/LgvP0OEkRp — Nick Chandler (@nickchandlerrr) January 27, 2015

It ran the gamut of emotions.

Some were funny:

Someone is getting fired #facebookdown#memepic.twitter.com/DnxIkBYu9i — Payton H. Peterson (@PaytonPeterson) January 27, 2015

Some were serious:

Facebook is down. Start living in the real World. :P #FacebookDown — Sanam Baloch (@SanamBalochfans) January 27, 2015

Some went old school:

Manual Facebook Update Protocols Engaged: #FacebookDownpic.twitter.com/vxxgC6CMYf — King Podge (@kingpodge) January 27, 2015

Some made the most of it:

Facebook and Instagram have been down for 30 mns. Just read 4 books. — Chris D'Elia (@chrisdelia) January 27, 2015

Some offered survival tips:

How to survive Facebook going down: #facebookdownpic.twitter.com/5EYwEFGkWi — Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) January 27, 2015

Some were ready for come-what-may:

INSTAGRAM IS DEAD TOO BASICALLY THIS IS THE APOCALYPSE THANK GOD I HAVE CANNED PEACHES AND A SLINGSHOT IN THE HOUSE. — Felicia Day (@feliciaday) January 27, 2015

And some got really creative, really fast:

Check out I survived #facebookdown! Available for the next 7 days via @Teespring: http://t.co/3KIJv59CAu — Alex Buchner (@AlexBuchner) January 27, 2015

About 52 minutes later, both sites were up and running. Facebook said the outage wasn't a third party attack but "instead occurred after we introduced a change that affected our configuration systems."

And all was right with the world!

We shall speak of this day in history class someday. We survived. We all survived. #facebookdown — Molly McIsaac (@MollyMcIsaac) January 27, 2015

*The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2015 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.*

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