I had a more incensed post about Facebook planned earlier today, but Live Writer is a genius. It ate the whole thing when I tried fixing its HTML code. Bravo Windows Live Writer. You are made of 100% win. And by win, I mean you fail. In life. Terribly. Like Macaulay Culkin.
Anyway. I was on Facebook earlier today—one of the few times I’m on the service—and I notice how there are only three kinds of posts:
- People trying to be cool.
- People trying to be witty.
- People trying to hide the fact that they can’t stand some things about their friends so they’re attacking them from the side without their knowledge. Because they can’t stand confronting the friend, so they think this is a smarter move. Because time changes everything, time heals all wounds, and if they don’t do anything about it, then it might fix itself like a miracle. And pigs might fly.
People have way too much access to online social media. And half of these people have no idea of what to do while they’re there. Hell, some of these people don’t even know how to act while they’re on social media.
Let’s use me (and my friends; say hi to my friends) as an example.
If I post something about a song on Facebook, then that’s me trying to be cool. That’s me trying to say, hey, I think this song is cool. You should, too. Listen to it! Also, I’m a douchebag know-it-all! (I really am, in real life; this is a good example of art imitating life).
If I post something relatively smart on Facebook, that’s me trying to be witty. Note that I’m not really very witty; I’m just a windbag with a lot of things to say, and the vocabulary and English acumen to say it.
And I tend to flake on my friends whenever there’s a party. This makes me a very big target for #3, because since I’m their friend, they won’t confront me about being a flake directly, and just poke fun at me indirectly by calling me things like the Great Flaker, or posting items that can indirectly be attributed to me, but are vague enough that if I bite, they can say “why so defensive?”, and laugh in their secretive little corners thinking “MISSION SUCCESS!”
This is why I seldom sign into Facebook itself. I’m online via Facebook Messenger all the time, through Pidgin Chat, or the Facebook Messenger app on Blackberry. I don’t check Facebook that often, because I find that I become pig swill, and am mostly surrounded by pig swill, whenever I’m on it.
If you’re cool, then you don’t need to work too hard to flaunt it. Coolness will manifest itself in how you act. Showing you like cool things does not make you cool. Anybody can like cool things. ANYBODY. Even losers. Like you.
If you’re witty, then the same applies; stop trying so hard. If you’re not witty, then find out what other skill you have to flaunt. Trying hard to be witty only makes you look like a sad, sad little man, and I want to bring you to that hug cafe in Japan so that you can get the hugs you so desire. Because I’m not hugging you, since I’m a jerk.
And if you’ve got a problem with a friend, then either you talk to that friend, or you forget that he your friend, even. If you can’t make the time and the effort to deal with that friend’s problem, then why do you even consider yourselves buddies in the first place, when obviously you’re not concerned about him, but more concerned about how you’ll have to bother yourself with him? If I’ve a problem with you, then I will tell you that I think you’re an asshat, for example.
And Facebook birthdays. Goddamn how I hate it that people only greet you on your birthday because Facebook told them it’s your birthday. I should change my birth date to 1801 and see how people react when my birthday comes around.
(To some of my friends’ credit, they did try to talk to me about being a flaker. It changes nothing. I will still flake when I can.)
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| And now, on a totally unrelated note, cheese rolling. From ESPN. |
80% of my friends unfriended me after reading this post. Or I suppose they did. I don’t know. I don’t check Facebook that often.