My take on Facebook
// JRad // August 9th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Angry Rants, Jrad's Blog
Ok, so I’m an avid user of ye olde FB. I definitely spend more time on it than is necessary, even checking it on my iphone throughout the day whenever I’m bored. It’s great for keeping a presence in your friend’s lives, maintaining contact with people that you don’t see on a regular basis, seeing and posting cool pictures, stalking people, and helping to organise your social life.
With all this in mind, there are some things I despise about Facebook, or more so the ways in which people use it. At the risk of drawing some heavy criticism, here goes…
*****RANT WARNING*****
I’m gonna bullet point these. The bullet points are a metaphor for the bullets that I would like to spray in rapid fire into the people who partake in the following behaviours. Oh, I may have done some of the things below at some stage… but hey, enlightenment is a long winding journey :p
• Posting cryptic/obscure status updates. Eg 1) Bob Jones cannot believe it!!! Eg 2) Polly McGee That was too difficult. These updates are pointless because most or all of the people who read them don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and after a quick feeling of confusion they lose interest. It’s an attention seeking behaviour, prompting people to enquire further as to why you aren’t happy or what the deal is. Some may respond to humour you, or because they’re so bored they must live vicariously through your dramas. Here’s an idea, just fucking write something explicit in your original status or keep it to yourself if it’s so secret you have to tip-toe around the subject. For fuck’s sake, it’s Facebook, not Guessbook.
• Using Facebook when drunk. This is pretty self-explanatory. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve read someone’s drunken, emotionally over the top, embarrassing status update from 3am the night before, which they usually then delete the next day when they realise what a giant douche they have been, I’d be as rich as Mark Zuckerberg.
• Posting boring, pointless updates that no one gives a shit about. Eg. Danny Jenkins is at work. … Danny, who gives a fuck mate. Unless your pointless update is FUNNY or somehow entertaining, then don’t post it.
• Playing games on FB. Every time you do something, it gets posted in people’s news feed, creating unnecessary spam until they have to go to the effort of changing their news feed settings or removing you from their friend list. I shouldn’t have to expend any effort to block out your Bejewelled updates. If you want a real game, go play Robot Unicorn Attack.
• Posting updates about how awesome your new boyfriend/girlfriend is and how in love you are, then as everyone predicts, two weeks later having a break-up, posting about it, changing your single/relationship status AGAIN, posting pointless updates about how you love single life, then getting a new boyfriend/girlfriend and posting about how awesome they are. Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. Ok, new rule. No comment about your relationship/partner until you’re at least six months in and it’s going well.
• You’re going to hate me for this one… Wishing your friends happy birthday over Facebook. C’mon surely your friend is worth a little more effort than that… perhaps a text? Or private email :p. Here’s the thing, if a good friend of mine wished happy birthday to me via a wall post, I would be pissed they were so impersonal (I would prefer they don’t wish me one at all, or simply just don’t know when my birthday is, then it doesn’t matter when I forget their birthday: Win win baby). And if someone I wasn’t close with wished me happy birthday on my FB wall, it would mean nothing as a) it seems insincere and b) I would have been perfectly happy whether they had done it or not. This isn’t to say I don’t like the person, I just don’t expect it and it can therefore come off as fake. Would you send your friend a blank card and on the inside simply write “happy birthday”? No. Why? Cause it’s LAME. Pick up the phone and call them or go and see them. If you feel awkward doing this, then they are not worth wishing a happy birthday in the first place. Hey look what a good friend I am, I “remembered” your birthday… pfft.
• After receiving token insignificant birthday wishes spammed across your wall, posting your status update as: Thanks everyone for all your kind birthday wishes, I had a great day. Oh… my… fucking… god… why does everyone post this or a close equivalent? Just for once I’d like to see a post birthday status update as: Wasn’t on my computer yesterday so thanks for all the belated birthday wishes you lazy insincere pricks.
• Updating your status every hour. This relates to the above note about boring/pointless posts. I have deleted people from my friend’s list because I was so sick of seeing their multiple and pointless updates littering my news feed. Seriously.
• Having a photo of your baby as your profile picture. Wow. I honestly cannot believe people do this. It’s so LAME. SO LAME. Hey, do you remember before you had a child, how you didn’t really care about other people’s kids… well guess what… no one cares about yours. While we’re on the topic, no one want to hear constant updates about everything your baby or toddler does. This is even worse than constant updates about everything you do. I’ve actually noticed the general degradation of new mums’ status updates. I guess they can’t help not having a life now that they have a kid. But they can help what they write on Facebook…
Now I’m sure there are plenty of other Facebook sins out there… please add to the list… it feels good to get these things of your chest.
