This is a genuine status that I read in the past week on Facebook, by a man a consider a nice guy:
think my sister finally thinks I'm cool after driving her home with rap music pumping and the roof down in the BMW 6 series convertible !
Asides from the lazy overuse of the word 'think' and the lack of capital letters, it made me want to punch something. Who writes this shit? Answer: many many people. Facebook has become the most tragic of all places: the bar where the drunks have staggered in and are pontificating on the rights of the world. Where all those freaks who sat in the corner by themselves at school and collected spiders, have been unleashed unto the masses and at last have a VOICE!
Plus my Mum has joined it. Gawd bless her. If there was ever a sign that the cool factor has gone out the window - that indeed is the one.
At the beginning I loved Facebook - hooking up with old mates, seeing photos of peoples' lives, joining stupid groups like 'I like the cold side of the pillow at night.' Then, well then I got more 'friends' - then I axed a 100 (my threshold: do I care if I ever see this person again? Sweet as that runner was on a show I worked on in back in 2004, I haven't seen nor spoken to him since, therefore are we really 'mates'?) then another 100. Then, it got a bit awkward - folk you politically HAVE to accept as mates - because they are distant relatives or know someone who you know well... People you feel obliged to accept.
We all remember my Facebook rant of last year - where I kind of boiled over with all the nauseating humble brags that Facebook sports so frequently. The 'How can I be losing weight when I eat dairy milk every day?!' type.
People, I don't care about your dinner. Or that you feel tired today (who doesn't?). I do love a good holiday snap, to see friends' kids growing up or to hear that someone got a promotion, or to see some viral video of strangers kissing.
But it just has lost it's appeal of those early years - that even a 'your Facebook video' can't quite re-create. Like some last ditched attempt to save the relationship. One colleague declared to me that he loathed most peoples' status updates - he actually ranted for a good few minutes about the inane vacuousness that people spouted - yet, like I guess we all do - he is still friends with the very people he was slagging off.
So why be mates? Why sign up at all? Do we think if we don't pop on there we are missing out? Aren't the same old 20 people liking your photo - and the last one you put up - and the one before? How many of them do you meet for coffee? Send an Xmas card to? Meet for a beer? A third - if even - I'm guessing. And by gathering 'likes' does it make us feel better, more popular, more accepted?
But we put ourselves through all this shenanigans at school, at Uni - so why bother with it all again? We are doing ok - we don't need the validation surely? What did we do before Facebook existed? we picked up phones, sent emails, wrote a paragraph on Friends Reunited, actually contacted folk. For the record, I'm now more into Twitter - with all the great articles I can read and the updates from all kinds of interesting - yes interesting! - sources.
Facebook has it's place, I'm just not sure where that is anymore, or how much I want to be involved. Naturally I have some friends on there - some from days of old, that I don't see but I do care about - and some I genuinely love - and acquaintances and old colleagues etc - that I do like to hear about... But then they post the above and I wonder why I ever thought they had any humanity at all....
The irony of this here blog post is that I will obviously, link it to Facebook. And count the likes. So I guess I'm just as tragic as the BMW twat at the top....
think my sister finally thinks I'm cool after driving her home with rap music pumping and the roof down in the BMW 6 series convertible !
Asides from the lazy overuse of the word 'think' and the lack of capital letters, it made me want to punch something. Who writes this shit? Answer: many many people. Facebook has become the most tragic of all places: the bar where the drunks have staggered in and are pontificating on the rights of the world. Where all those freaks who sat in the corner by themselves at school and collected spiders, have been unleashed unto the masses and at last have a VOICE!
Plus my Mum has joined it. Gawd bless her. If there was ever a sign that the cool factor has gone out the window - that indeed is the one.
At the beginning I loved Facebook - hooking up with old mates, seeing photos of peoples' lives, joining stupid groups like 'I like the cold side of the pillow at night.' Then, well then I got more 'friends' - then I axed a 100 (my threshold: do I care if I ever see this person again? Sweet as that runner was on a show I worked on in back in 2004, I haven't seen nor spoken to him since, therefore are we really 'mates'?) then another 100. Then, it got a bit awkward - folk you politically HAVE to accept as mates - because they are distant relatives or know someone who you know well... People you feel obliged to accept.
We all remember my Facebook rant of last year - where I kind of boiled over with all the nauseating humble brags that Facebook sports so frequently. The 'How can I be losing weight when I eat dairy milk every day?!' type.
People, I don't care about your dinner. Or that you feel tired today (who doesn't?). I do love a good holiday snap, to see friends' kids growing up or to hear that someone got a promotion, or to see some viral video of strangers kissing.
But it just has lost it's appeal of those early years - that even a 'your Facebook video' can't quite re-create. Like some last ditched attempt to save the relationship. One colleague declared to me that he loathed most peoples' status updates - he actually ranted for a good few minutes about the inane vacuousness that people spouted - yet, like I guess we all do - he is still friends with the very people he was slagging off.
So why be mates? Why sign up at all? Do we think if we don't pop on there we are missing out? Aren't the same old 20 people liking your photo - and the last one you put up - and the one before? How many of them do you meet for coffee? Send an Xmas card to? Meet for a beer? A third - if even - I'm guessing. And by gathering 'likes' does it make us feel better, more popular, more accepted?
But we put ourselves through all this shenanigans at school, at Uni - so why bother with it all again? We are doing ok - we don't need the validation surely? What did we do before Facebook existed? we picked up phones, sent emails, wrote a paragraph on Friends Reunited, actually contacted folk. For the record, I'm now more into Twitter - with all the great articles I can read and the updates from all kinds of interesting - yes interesting! - sources.
Facebook has it's place, I'm just not sure where that is anymore, or how much I want to be involved. Naturally I have some friends on there - some from days of old, that I don't see but I do care about - and some I genuinely love - and acquaintances and old colleagues etc - that I do like to hear about... But then they post the above and I wonder why I ever thought they had any humanity at all....
The irony of this here blog post is that I will obviously, link it to Facebook. And count the likes. So I guess I'm just as tragic as the BMW twat at the top....
2 comments:
True. FB is our frenemy. Us freelancers need it for getting work or we'd never pay our mortgage.
Ugh. The inane status updates plus the ever continuing security issues has changed the way I use FB. I have 20 friends, all of whom have exceptionally tight security settings and I've removed it from my phone (I don't want it accessing my text messages). I'm tired of humble brags for the most mundane of activities. I'm sick of food porn. I'm quite tired of it all, but there's a handful of people I like being connected to.
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