Cardinal sins of Facebook

This isn't directed at anyone (okay, it kind of is, but I'm not into direct confrontation, so I'll just leave the names out of it). This is just a post of what annoys me (what else is new?)

1) Status updates that try to guilt/dare/bully/cajole/pressure you into copying and pasting by lumping you into a statistic. I tried to come up with one, but it sounded really lame and the real ones people post illustrate what I mean so much better. The generic format is: Righteous comment with possibly exaggerated or false information that may have some shock value. Random percentage of people who are too lame/lazy/cynical/selfish/thoughtless to re-post comes next. If you are not one of those losers, copy and re-post.

Here goes:

One day a father gets home angry & drunk. He takes out his gun & kills his wife, & then he shoots himself. His daughter was sitting behind the couch crying. When the police came they took the girl & gives her to her new family. The first day she attended church & notices a picture of Jesus Christ on the cross. She then asks her teacher "how did that man get down from the cross?" The teacher respon...ded "he's never gotten down!" Then the girl said: Yes he has because the day my parents died, he was with me behind the couch telling me everything was going to be alright. 66% of you won't re-post this. But remember that in the Bible it says "Deny me in front of your friends & i will deny you in front of my father." Post if your not embarrassed.

I'm embarrassed. Embarrassed that among all the repostings and whatnot, someone could not edit it to say "you're" instead of "your." Let's not even get into that ran...dom ellipsis.

And also, I want to know who comes up with the percentages. It's usually not a fraction, but a percentage. This one is odd because it uses 66%. Usually the percentage is in the high 90's. I want to reply and ask for the documentation to confirm these results. Did someone do a study on this? Are they using EVERYONE on Facebook, or only those who have friends that post this kind of thing? I want the details.

2) Giveaways. The latest: Steve Jobs died and Apple is giving away 1000 iPads! Just click this innocent li'l linky-poo and you could be a winner.

Do I have to say it? "If it seems too good to be true..."

I have one friend who posted it and I replied with a link and "It's probably too good to be true." Poof, he deleted it without even saying "Thanks for the heads up." Hmph.

3) Self promotion. I violated this one the other day. My friend Micki read "Coldest Winter Ever." I thought, Ooo, oo! I read it too. I posted a blog link in the comments. Then I felt icky and deleted it. I did not want to pimp my blog on someone's status update. It seems really tacky to me. I barely even pimp my own blog on my page. I do not want to bombard people with my two cents. Do I look like Andy Rooney to you? If they find their way to my blog, cool, if not, it's okay. I have read the book though, and here's what I thought. I obviously have no problem pimping my blog on my blog.

4) Inane (mis)quotations

“The thing about quotes from the internet is that it’s hard to verify their authenticity.” – Abraham Lincoln

2 months later...

I am now thinking about going back to work. I feel a little like Marsha the mannequin from the Twilight Zone episode "The After Hours." Maybe the Monday I'm supposed to go back I'll "forget" and someone will give me a phone call to clue me in.

I am *almost* ready to return. I guess what I don't like is that it's not on my terms, but what is allowed by law. If I stay out longer, my company has the right to can me. It's not really the best motivator, but it'll do.

Then there is the issue on pumping. I am returning with faith that the people who manage the office space have found a spot for me that is not a bathroom, and not a place where people will barge in while I'm topless. I made this need known in April, so I'm assuming that was plenty of time. That's six months of warning. Almost seven.

I bought work clothes yesterday (groan). I am two sizes away (okay, let's be honest...three sizes. But I will settle for two) from where I want to be and the heaviest I have ever been. I don't know why I expect the 9 months of pregnancy and the extra I was carrying around before the 9 months is automatically supposed to fall off. It's not. It will with some work, but I had this unrealistic expectation that nursing would burn off the excess. While the kid is eating around the clock and she has nearly doubled her weight in two months (Li'l Miss Colossus is in the 98th percentile), it's not enough. I have been walking, I have been sort of doing the "Tupler Technique" I have to give myself more time. I guess with things like Facebook, I feel even more inadequate. I have a college classmate who had her baby a week after I had mine and she posted a photo of herself in a bikini and her husband holding the baby (proof that this is not some old photo) and she looks amazing. I have another college classmate who has 6 children and also sported a bikini photo over the summer. You would never guess that toned up midsection ever harbored a human being, never mind SIX.

But it's Facebook. People only post the flattering photos. You're not going to see everyone who's let themselves go, or who is now sporting cottage cheese on the thigh region, or who has stretch marks. Facebook reflects only the best side of everyone's lives which can make life seem even more unfair than it really is.

Revelations from Facebook

1) Some people will send you multiple friend requests despite multiple rejections. Conversely, your feelings might be a little hurt when you send a request and don't get any response. "But I know that guy!" you think, "and he knows me!" You also know it's not that deep, but it still hurts a tiny bit.

2) Certain people will use this strictly to brag about the latest vacation, workout, kickass home made meal, kids, school, etc. You will never hear about a loss at the blackjack tables, a food poisoning episode, a missed flight or a flat tire from these people. It’s all awesomeness squared, all the time. Their lives are golden.

3) You will also hear about parenting. Some of these stories will make for good birth control.

4) Friday is a big deal people! TGIF!

5) And stemming from #4, we can all agree that Mondays suck. And weekends go way too fast.

6) Apparently Facebook serves as some kind of free advertising platform for some people. There’s a reason Facebook puts the advertisements along the margin. People don’t go to Facebook to read a sales pitch.

7) Sometimes it’s a political soapbox and I have to ask: is this really effective? All I see is that people either comment in agreement or get pissed off. Can't we all just get along?

8) People have a lot of time for games, quizzes, throwing things, passing out drinks, giving out poker chips, and so on.

9) High school didn't end with graduation.

10) You wonder if wishing someone a happy birthday really counts because you had the reminder on your page of said person’s birthday. You also wonder if you should wish the people you consider more acquaintances than friends a happy birthday, or if that would be entirely too phony.

11) You feel a momentary sense of dread when you get a notification that someone tagged you in a photo.

12) “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey” are popular for status updates.

13) You censor yourself. Someone might say, “Wow, this is a great photo. I wonder where that guy is now.” “Oh,” you think, “you mean the same guy you said looked like he had been hit in the face with a sack of nickels? That guy? Hm. No idea where he is.” Yeah, don’t post that.

14) 10-25% of the people on your list are logged on regularly. The rest know how to log out and live life offline.

15) Sometimes you want to comment on a post or a photo, but if it's one of your more popular friends, you skip it because you don't want receive the eleventy million notifications about other people that comment after you.

16) The pencil treatment is a useful tool. You can hide people’s posts without them suspecting a thing. “Unfriending” someone is also a-okay. Blocking is another handy dandy option if you find the person intolerable.

17) It’s not so easy to conduct the actions mentioned in #16 in real life.

It's Complicated

When you complete your Facebook profile, there are certain categories you can fill in, either by typing, or selecting the options from a drop down menu. I totally get why someone who is single would want to put “in a relationship” to throw off people sniffing around the internet for a relationship (*cough* change your security settings *cough*). If you don’t use that option, there are plenty of others, including “Married, single, in an open relationship (this is a new one, must have been added in the recent upgrades) and so on. All of these are okay. It’s a diverse world with diverse people and diverse relationship options. That being said, nothing make me say “Whaaaaa...?” like when someone selects “in a relationship and it’s complicated.”

1) Isn’t every relationship complicated? Or should there be an “in a relationship and it’s really pretty basic” option on the menu as well?

2) Does anyone else agree that this offers a little too much information? When someone’s status changes to this option, it means they did it on purpose. Is it a cry for help? I am dying to ask the details because I’m nosy, but also--I can’t help but feel like selecting “it’s complicated” means the person WANTS you to ask because they are openly advertising it.

I don’t ask. I would never ask unless I talk to that person enough outside of Facebook world to have a clue of what’s going on in the real world.

What I also don’t understand is why people fill out every little thing in their profiles. Just because there’s a blank space or a drop down menu doesn’t mean that you have to put something. A little mystery can be welcome, even if it makes you seem, well, complicated.

Selectively Yours

Friends, acquaintances, relatives, crushes of years gone by, classmates (high school and college), the ladies I met through a wedding planning website, people who knew me from 7th grade and earlier and last but not least, my dear husband—
Lend me your ears. Or, rather, your eyes.

Let’s talk about Facebook.

I know, I know. I was born in the ‘70’s, the era of bad hair, bad car designs and mostly bad music. Given the site's original purpose of having college-aged members, I have no business there. Facebook is where you broadcast your most miniscule thoughts, post the most obscure photos from your meager existence or sign up to be a fan of Duran Duran simply by clicking the link on their page. What respectable 30 something does that? Okay, I do that here too, but Facebook lets you gather all of that information from looking at just a few pages. As much of your life that you want out there is available for the world or just your “friends” to see, neatly catalogued in a series of tabbed pages.

“What’s the point of those ‘networking’ sites anyway?”

This was asked of me by my husband, who, within a few short months easily surpassed me in the number of “friends” in his account. It’s not surprising—even at my own reunion, more people remembered him than me. That's just the kind of guy he is. ♥

“I never got into the Facebook thing,” said my sister. In other words, “I’m too cool for that bullshit.” “Hm. I didn’t know you were on there,” I replied, “’Friend’ me!”

Days later, she had reconnected with her best friend from junior high school. Junior high! Now it’s not uncommon to find my sister lurking there when I’m on as well. Too cool, indeed.

I have no idea what spurred me to get an account. Curiosity, I guess? I wanted to know what was the big deal about Facebook. I had already seen MySpace and was none too impressed. The bad wallpaper, the musical loops some people attached to their craptastic pages—unless there’s some reason that I find myself in need of raising my blood pressure, testing my retinas or inducing a seizure, I say good day and no thank you to all of that.

Then there’s Facebook—relatively bland in comparison, with its blue border and white pages. Fine, I told myself, let’s give it a whirl.

Now here comes the weird part—if you arrive uninvited, you get tempted to do searches. “Let’s see if so-and-so’s on here?” You think.

Then you do the search. Then you sift through all of the people with the same or similar names until you land on who you presume is the right person. The thought that follows is this:

“If I send out a friend request, the person will know I searched for them.”

And therefore:

“…this person will think I’m a stalker.”

I have a tough time with those friend requests because I’m overly concerned about what the recipient is going to think of me.

Is it going to be:

“Heh-heh-heh, I knew she would never forget me.”

Or:

“Is this the same person I knew from school/work/the Army/(and so on)?”

Or, simply, a harmless but kind of mortifying:

“Who?”

I have a pretty recognizable name, but just because I think it’s recognizable is no guarantee that everyone else will remember.

I have to get over this, I know. I have gotten a few requests that were complete shockers, taking me back two decades to the days when life was so much simpler (even though I didn’t know it at the time). Never have I thought of someone as a stalker even if they obviously went through the task of typing my name into the search engine.

Once in awhile I have gotten a request and thought, “Who?” but it’s rare, I promise. If I forgot you, let me say in my defense that the memory is the first to go. Did I already mention I was 33?

So what about these "friends?" Some friends are closer to the true meaning of the word than others, but here they all carry equal standing, and they're all a mouse click away, neatly arranged in an alphabetized list.

After you sign up you get to the business of setting up your profile. This includes schools you attended, places you work, where you live and of course, the part where you talk about you, yourself and a few of your favorite things. At first I had all kinds of stuff about favorite movies, TV shows and quotations. Then I looked at it and thought, “So what?” So I deleted it. But to those following my saga, I am halfway through my definitive collection of the Twilight Zone, my TV watching is spotty these days and I have a couple of quotations, but they're both from Stephen King. What does that say about me?

Then there's the photo. What face do you want to present to the rest of the world? This is kind of nice because you can choose one where you have on a cute outfit or where your hair looks good. You have the benefit of choosing one of your better days versus the hand you were dealt when you woke up that morning. You can look bored, maniacal, happy or furious. Why not add in the kid(s), the pet, or the significant other? You can be portrayed in an artistic black and white headshot or standing at a distance, at a creative angle. Or be edgy and represent yourself in a "Where's Waldo" fashion as a face in a crowd, or better yet as an image of some other random person, place or thing. Those who truly know you won't have to ask; they'll get the joke. And if you don’t like the photo, no worries, you can change it anytime.

Back to the original question: what's the point? You get to show summarize your life to everyone else, but you show only what you choose to display. And so does everyone else.

Deep, right? (okay, not really, but work with me, I had to wrap up this up eventually)