Facebook is an excellent medium for discovering the lunch menu of people you worked with twenty years ago. It’s also quite good for cat photos. But there are many frustrations to avoid or overcome. Here are some of them:
The trite quotation.
I can’t begin to describe how much this motivates me. Here’s another life-changing thought:
Fucking genius. I am reminded of the wise sayings of the Sphinx in Mystery Men which offer similar levels of insight.
It is astonishing how many people share this sort of crap on their Facebook page; has it made a difference to their lives? If it has I feel almost sorry for them.
The “intelligence” test.
ArseholE. Two seconds; I am brilliant, allegedly.
These are fun:
Becky is of course quoting a WHO funded study which proved scientifically that 80% of the 300,000 people who wasted their time looking at this jumble of letters chose the same word. This proves absolutely nothing. Still, you don’t want to be part of the 80%, so insert a randomly made-up word of your choice; I usually offer “spunkbandit”.
The magic trick.
Enter a number or a word and something amazing will happen. And the amazing thing is that millions of people succumb to this nonsense. And what does happen? No idea, I refuse to be involved.
The motivational story
Inevitably, these are contrived bollocks, often dressed up as “true stories”. The moral of the story is either that god is great, or that you should shake off any soil that lands on your head, or that anyone who shares stories like this is mentally deficient.
Hard to believe that more than one million people believed someone would send them $5,000 dollars. Still, if they will believe that, they might believe this:
The guilt trip You must share these or else you are a bad person; just like the wanker who published the image in the first place in a desperate attempt at attention (look at me, I got 455,000 “likes”).
The pity plea This is the sickest of all. Merely in the search for hits for some pathetic page, photos of sick children are stuck on Facebook with moronic claims such as “every like will generate a prayer”, or nonsense like this:
Pity the poor parents if they chance upon the photo; shame on the idiots who perpetuate this sad vanity by sharing it.
All of this crap appears to be thrown onto Facebook merely to gain attention and increase “likes” for the originator. It’s sad that people feel the need to publish this nonsense, even sadder that so many people seem to absorb it and regurgitate it; saddest of all that there is not an option alongside “like” where you can choose “detest” or “I despair for the future of the human race”.
Comments 🔗
2013-05-19| genuinej saysVery interesting. You’ve certainly put some time into research for this post and I suspect the Bill Gates endorsement cost a pretty penny.
2013-05-19| Spike saysBill is an old friend; although he wasn’t very happy when I switched to Mac.
2013-05-19| Kevin Moore saysPerhaps if you paid his invoice for the sponsorship then he’d be able to send my $5,000 as I’ve been waiting a while now.
2013-05-20| genuinej saysMe too, but hope springs eternal, so I’m told.
2013-05-20| anonymous saysYou missed a few, though this is a darned good start!
People making vague references to “The Game” and cheering on their favourite team. Wasting time on watching sports is the next closest thing to not having a brain at all.
People reporting their own timings, mileages, or any other stupid statistic about how much they exerted that day. I don’t care about this or your sexual proclivities.
People blessing each other and sending God’s messages, oblivious to the fact that there is no God, their entire life is based on a deadly delusion and, even if these facts were not true, God likely does not have a Facebook account.
This post will have to be anonymous since I have relatives who fall into these categories. Otherwise I’d delete them and never be bothered by such crap.
2013-05-20| Camberley saysThere used to be a Dislike button, but FB must have got fed up with me clicking it.
2013-05-20| ChristianPFC saysYou forgot to mention all the invitations to play online games, like farmville.
Apart from that, there is some funny stuff on facebook.
2013-05-20| Richard H saysThere’s a word for this stuff: glurge. (Warning: TV Tropes link may waste hours of your time…)
2013-05-20| Clive saysDisclaimer: I work in the general field of IT Risk Management in an industry where IT security is not just important, it’s a legal requirement…
As always, Spike’s sharp observations are spot on… So with the above disclaimer, two quick thoughts:-
In any public forum, conversations find equilibrium at the “lowest common denominator”, i.e. in a conversation between a nuclear physicist and a bricklayer, the conversation has to be at the level of a bricklayer or there’s no conversation. In Facebook terms, this means that contents are going to be dragged down to the “lowest” level of those contributing. It’s a bit like “open mic” night at a comedy store… the scene is set not by the funniest comedian, but by the one telling the dirtiest jokes.
Facebook are Evil, pure and simple. Daily they perform the digital equivalent of selling their own mothers. I work with “Big Data” in my job, and I know that their ability to perform “data mining” and harvest information about you is absolutely scary. The simplest way of managing Facebook is to not have an account. [ Works for me … ]
2nd Disclaimer: some people maintain that an FB account is handy for keeping in touch with all those old friends you’ve lost track of over the years. My contention is that you’re supposed to lose track of “old friends” who don’t enrich your lives. Those who do enrich your life are the type of friend you will keep in touch with come what may - you don’t need FB to help with that.
Story short: the perfect solution is - don’t get a Facebook Account! Whoo!
With sermon over, I shall run for cover before Spike starts throwing some of that recently-purchased fruit in my direction. Some of it looked pretty soft, but a strike from one of those carrots might do some damage!!!
2013-05-22| Andrew saysGod doesn’t do Facebook - he only has time for Twitter : https://twitter.com/TheTweetOfGod
2013-06-01| Spike saysThis explains a lot: http://garymoyers.com/what-really-happens-when-you-like/