Neal Sheeran

Rants, Raves, and Geekery

I'm Not Good... But Neither Are You.

Permalink

If you write a blog post for a blog no one reads, does it make a sound? So it has been a few weeks since my last post here…been busy…had another baby…whatever. One small contributor was Facebook, a internet phenomenon I had previously scoffed.

After almost a year of using it, I think I was right the first time. Facebook is at best boring and most of the time, irritating as hell. Maybe I shouldn’t say Facebook. Facebook as a web application is pretty well done in terms of ease of use and presentation. My ‘friends’ however, are the irritating ones. This article in Macworld nails it:

There’s a growing sense among Facebook users that the amount of time a person spends on Facebook may be inversey proportionate to how much is going on in the person’s (offline) life. Perhaps unfairly, you may get the impression that only bored and boring people have time to tell their friends that they love the new pita bread at Trader Joe’s.

I have a new rule: one more FB post that consists of nothing more than “I’m eating” or “I love my kids” - you’re done.

Meanwhile, as your rediscovered friends update you about their everyday goings-on, they offer you a multiple opportunities to recall the reasons you lost contact with them in the first place. Examples: “Don” was always a nonsensical rambler back in college—and lo and behold, his rants take up half of your news feed now…Facebook has recently started allowing users to “hide” their friends, and you may be inclined to “hide” almost all of them.

And thank God for that little Hide widget. If I have 144 friends on Facebook, but end up hiding almost all of them as punishment for publishing worthless crap, what’s the point?

First you filled out a long list of interests, hobbies, favorite movies, books, and music; posted album after album of the hottest pictures of yourself; and wrote endless updates about what you were up to. Then, a few months ago, the 25 Things note burst onto the Facebook scene, inviting you to achieve new levels of narcissism by laboring over a creative autobiographical fact sheet and posting it to your profile. Responding to that challenge, you were more candid, literary, and elaborate than ever, but now there’s nowhere to go but down. Illustrating this depressing fact is the recent, hideous Facebook trend of using quiz results as status updates. “Which kind of partier are you?” Result: “The hot girl throwing up in the bathroom!” … “Which kind of animal noise are you?” Result: “Ribbit, Ribbit!” Facebookers are clearly wiped out of material. There is nothing more to say.

For the love of all things holy, enough with the retarded quizzes. I. Do. Not. Care. Current scientific technology does not provide a mechanism that can accurately measure how much I don’t care. You’re a redwood tree and my last shred of diginity goes on a siesta and I find that I’m supposedly a potted plant. Awesome. Can I have the last five minutes of my life back? I’d rather spend it anxiously awaiting status updates about the weather in your city.

I’m about thisclose to taking a blowtorch to my friend list and defriending (is that even a word) just about everyone. And I’m done being polite with the Confirm and Ignore buttons. Yes, I know you went to school with my brother and we talked once at a football game, but sorry dude. I’ll manage to get by without having to read about your cute kitty. I don’t even like my own cat.

One issue the Macworld article brings up is the defection of FB users to Twitter. Don’t even get me started. If I ever end up on Twitter, you can take a blowtorch to me.

Comments