Facebook idiocy: please stop
Listen to this articleI have a confession to make: I really don’t like Facebook.
Another confession: The reason I don’t like Facebook is mainly because my eyeballs have to look at stupid status updates.
When it was 8 degrees the other day in Maryland, about 70 percent of my “friends” (the quotation marks are because I have some people on my FB whom I haven’t spoken with in years) commented about it. My apologies if you were one of the commentators – I don’t want to insult you – but if I see/hear someone comment about how “Damn, it’s cold out there!” one more time I am going to lose it. No shit it’s cold. It’s eight degrees outside!
Why do people feel the need to make comments about the most obvious things? Most of the time you wouldn’t dare say the stuff you put on FB out loud because people would think you were an idiot. For example, would you say “Pretty Little Liars, I’ve been waiting for you” to your television? Or exclaim, “I just heard my trashcan blow over and roll down the street!” to a person sitting right next to you who also heard it? I hope not.
But the stuff that really gets to me is the ever popular relationship status. No, I’m not talking about choosing “In a relationship” or “It’s complicated” or “Who knows?!” What I’m referring to are actual status updates about your relationship.
I might sound like a broken record because I have written about FB before – to remind people that sharing too much about your relationship is not a good idea. Apparently no one read that blog or at least, decided to ignore that advice because people are still posting stupid shit on the internet. I realize that we never will completely eliminate stupid things from the internet, but damn it if I’m not going to keep trying.
What really blows my mind is when people who clearly have terrible relationships continue to post things on FB to make other people think their relationship is amazing. I’m certainly not naming names but the culprits know who they are. Another one of my faves is when recently engaged people find a way to make every status about their upcoming wedding. We get it, you are excited. The only people who care about what venue you rented are yourself, your mom and your future mother-in-law. And they were probably with you when you picked it out.
I guess I’m just being a nasty bitch. Obviously I could “unsubscribe” from these people’s news feeds, or I could cancel my Facebook all together and avoid my frustration. But why should I have to be the one to make a change? My status updates are about two things: my dog and my grandmother. Because they both do hilarious things that are unbelievable. Occasionally I may post something about food/drinks (last Friday I took a picture of my peach martini because it was served with olives – um, ew!) but that’s it. I know there are others out there who agree with my point of view.
Maybe I can start a Facebook “event” called “Take Back Facebook” and send it to all users and plead with them to stop posting painfully obvious and/or painfully boring facts (“Didn’t sleep last night…this is gonna be a long day”) on their Facebooks.
Or maybe I’ll just unsubscribe from people who say things like “If anyone has extra blankets bring them here – it’s cold!”
(This blog was first posted on the Baltimore Post-Examiner)
Emily Campbell is a perpetually single, 20-something girl-around-town who loves Shakespeare, old movies, Natty Boh, and of course, long walks on the beach. A sales manager by day and freelance writer by night, she was recently forced into a life of involuntary celibacy when her last relationship fizzled out over a text message. She’s tired of settling for second – or tenth – best, and she’s ready to find Mr. Right. Or, Mr. Nearly Right. No one’s perfect…which she has learned the hard (but hilarious) way.