I love Facebook probably more than your average Jane; I check my phone every five minutes as long as I’m not engaged in a task that A) is more important, and B) cannot be accomplished while simultaneously staring at my phone.
As such, I’ve noticed some irritating behavior on Facebook which I feel it is my solemn duty to point out – behavior that ranges from thoughtless or moronic to downright offensive.
And here they are, my Top Ten Things You Shouldn’t Do on Facebook:
1) Like your own posts and comments: this is the Facebook equivalent of high-fiving yourself. Unless you would give yourself a high-five in public, you should steer clear of this odd self-congratulatory behavior.
2) Constantly complain about how horrible your life is: Everyone has a bad day now and then. And it’s okay if you need a little vent session sometimes; everyone does. But do keep in mind that when you complain about your life via Facebook, it’s the same as climbing to the roof of a building and shouting down to the people in the street below: “I hate my life! I can’t believe she left me! I screwed up big-time! I wish I could rewind and take it all back!”
The only difference is that with Facebook, the people in the street aren’t strangers. Your grandmother, your aunt, all your high-school friends, possibly a few exes, are all standing there in the street shifting awkwardly in response to your creepy outburst of very personal information. Nobody feels sorry for your situation. They just feel sorry for YOU, like, as a person. The desperate act of publicly airing your dirty laundry is vastly more pathetic than the actual subject of your disclosure.
3) Constantly brag about how wonderful your life is: Along with the bad days, we get some good. And of course your friends want to share in your joy. But if all you post, all the time, is a never-ending stream of how freaking wonderful your husband, kids, house, job, car, and grocery store are? First of all, that shit is annoying. Second, you’re not fooling anyone; all your friends are rolling their eyes at you so hard that they’re severing blood-vessels in their eye-balls, inhibiting essential blood flow to their corneas and causing themselves to go blind. Don’t make your friends go blind by bragging.
4) Use Facebook as a shop for the stuff you sell: If the primary reason you have a Facebook account is to hawk your wares, you got some thinkin’ to do. People can go blind from this, re: number 3, above.
5) Post twenty-five updates during a sporting event: Everyone else in the world is NOT watching the same sporting event as you. Shocking, isn’t it?
6) Be stingy with the love: Some people post about five times per day on Facebook, but you can see that they don’t take any time during the day to scroll through their newsfeed to see what’s going on with their “friends.” These are the same peoplewho, in real life, Bogart entire conversations and forget to ask how you’re doing. Don’t be one of those people. And when you get birthday alerts, say Happy Birthday, for Pete’s sake! It brings someone joy and is really so easy to do! Don’t be a big lazy twat-waffle and not say Happy Birthday; it’s bad juju.
7) Bad-mouth people:It’s gossiping, albeit way more public than the old-timey version. But just like in the olden days, when you talk shit about someone, you’re the one who looks like a jerk. Not everybody knows the back-story to your snide, passive-aggressive remark about your mother-in-law, so no matter how justified your complaint may be; you still look like an ass.
8) Post too much about your significant other who is the most amazing person who ever existed in the history of humanity: ‘My schoopsy-woopsy is the most amazingest mushy-gushy wuver!’: Your husband got you an extravagant bouquet of flowers for your anniversary? Okay, that’s an event. Go ahead and post a picture if you must. But if your husband is more or less an amalgam of, I dunno, the Dalai Lama and Christian Grey, nobody wants to hear about that shit.
Our husbands are just fine thank you, but if you incessantly post about your heaving sex-beast of a man, we average folk start to look over at ol’ regular-pants over there sniveling with a man-cold on the couch with a more scrutinous eyeball, and now we’ve opened up a can of nag-worms that needn’t have ever been opened: “So-and-so’s husband runs five miles every morning before work, honey.” “So-and-so’s husband makes her lunch for her every day, honey.” “So-and-so’s husband sent her to the spa the other day and stayed home with their four kids and didn’t even need to order pizza because he actually cooked dinner, honey.”
Let’s just not, m’kay?
9) Post pictures of your food: People. YOUMUSTSTOPDOINGTHIS. Unless it is truly a culinary masterpiece or you grew or slaughtered the food yourself, there is really no reason to share with everyone what your food looks like. Seriously, no one cares.
10) Post poorly-researched controversial memes:If you share something that you’re all gung-ho about, re: politics, religion, anti-religion, and NO ONE likes or comments on it, that means that either no one agrees with you, or your funny little meme is pathetically, obviously, incorrect. At least research something like that before you share it so you don’t make yourself look stupid!
It’s simple, right? Just like in real life, on Facebook we should treat others the way we want to be treated.
Anything you wanna add?
Oh and hey speaking of Facebook, if you think your friends would like this post, share it! (see the little Facebook icon right below the post?) Thanks for reading!
51 Comments
I only read this to make sure I wasn’t doing anything that was annoying you. That being said, My llife might not be perfect, but I AM blessed with the most wonderful happy baby on the planet. AND my husband is an angry pain-in-the-ass. I never need to post this because he portrays himself perfectly on his own FB page. That is all. 🙂
I can never get too many pics of that sweet baby!
The only addition I have is when people threaten to clean out their friends. I have unfriended more than one person for this. And also, twat waffle is way underused these days.
Yeah or the “share this or I’m unfriending you.” Really? How ’bout I just take care of that for you?
Yes to all of this! Especially #6, which is also very true for Twitter. These forums are called “social” media for reason. There should be give a take. All so well said!
Thanks, Nina. Yeah I still need to get better at twitter. I think I’m following a bunch of twitterers (twats?) that I should probably not be following because it clogs up the feed and I just give up on scrolling…
But does anyone really care if you grew or slaughtered it either? JK Miss Organic-Garden-Pants. Lol. I used to work with a couple of people who took selfies of themselves in the bathrooms at work…”ummm, you do know your friends work with you and know what you’re doing, right?”
Oh selfies in the bathroom mirror, regardless of bathroom location… just NO.
I hate food posts! No one cares what you’re eating.
I would add don’t post about your child’s bathroom habits, especially pictures. I don’t care how gross the diaper was. I don’t care you’re potty training an certainly don’t need to see your two year on the potty. I have my own to look at. And also someday that poor kid is going to see that.
OMG I’ve soooooo wanted to post a pic of my kid’s poop before. It was shockingly, unbelievable, epically, ENORMOUS. Guinness Book material. But I’m not a moron and I correctly surmised that most of my friends would not have the same appreciation for the girth of my son’s poop that I do. But seriously it was super-impressive.
As the mother of a brick-laying shit-holder, I’d totally look at that.
Did I really just admit that here??
Here’s my few cents:
Food posts…ugh. ..wtf. I hated them before and now that I’m pregnant I just get angry when people post shit that looks good that I’m not eating. Jerks.
As someone above mentioned the “I’m cleaning my friends list” or even worse, the “I’m deleting my fb” SHUT UP ALREADY. NOBODY CARES! If you were going to do it, fine, but why advertise?
Lastly, along the lines of the poorly researched is the missing kids/amber alerts. What can be a very useful tool is grossly misused when people don’t check facts. Like posting an old Amber alert for kids that were found safe weeks ago. Or posting the “this is a local girl, be on the lookout” but it’s for a town in another state (with the same name as yours.) Interstate posts can save kids…but let’s not go on an “our town” crusade when it’s not our town or state even.
-hormonal woman now ending rant, carry on folks 😉
Well yeah that’s the other problem with the food posts is that it makes me hungry. I’m not preggers or anything; I just really like food.
Hope your pregnancy is going smoothly! =)
It’s my first pregnancy & It’s going better than I’d anticipated it would but I don’t really have anything to compare it to! 😉
And now I feel like the world’s biggest twat waffle because I missed wishing you a Happy Birthday! In my defense, much of my facebooking is done via my phone. I have a shitty Android and it doesn’t show birthdays on there 🙁
My least favorite facebook thing (besides most of the ones you mentioned) are the passive aggressive status updates: “Middle aged acne affects 8 out of 10 women. Please put this as your status today, won’t you? I’m pretty sure I know who will follow these directions, the rest of you are callous, unfeeling assholes and should be ashamed of your clear-skinned selves.” Or something like that.
P.S. I kind of dig the food pictures. Because I have food issues. It’s porn to me.
It only counts as twat-wafflish if you saw the alert and ignored it. You get a pass if you were too busy to be messing with Facebook.
Related to your least-favorite: the ones that say you hate Jesus if you don’t share this. That kind of thing does NOT inspire me to piety.
I no longer have fb and other than missing my extended family’s news, I totally don’t care. But here is what bothered me….the vague “my life is so awful….” But no details. Seriously? You want people to beg for more information? Get over yourself! Oh, and the people who list what they have done that day. “I did 5 loads of laundry, walked the dogs 3 miles and have dinner in the crock pot…and it’s only 8 am! Off to the grocery store and then I’ll clean the house!” Shut up.
Yeah I guess that goes along with bragging about how awesome your life is, except worse; bragging about how awesome YOU are. Yes, please do shut it. 😉
YES!!! Like that time when it was this chick’s birthday and I congratulated her a day late because I was too busy picking my nose. Also, you used the word “Bogart”. # swoon
LOL – it really is okay if you simply missed the alert! It’s the ignoring of the alert that is twat-waffly. =) <3
Thank God!! I had to read this to make sure I wasn’t doing any of this! Whew! Those are definitely annoyances of mine. Along with selfies…all day long. When you get to be my age, as well as over and under…close up selfies help no one!! And BTW…I also love “twat-waffle” and must find a use for it, ASAP!
It just replaces boring old nomenclature such as jerk and asshole. Pretty easy to work it in! 😉
I haven’t been on FB for more than a year. I wonder how many people un-friended me…
I have a friend who only recently got back on FB, mainly because I begged her to, for communication purposes. 🙂 She was the last hold-out that I knew of… 😉
I have one friend who puts up a new profile picture like everyday. She’s very good looking and single. We’re in our 40’s and she looks great for her age, but enough already!! We all know how great you look and you don’t need to hear it daily, get over YOURSELF and stop it. I’m embarrassed for her.
I just think that looks like insecurity, like she’s desperately seeking validation…
ooohhh!!! I have a few:
The “Wow! The barfing our brains out stomach bug has now hit (insert #) of us. This is the most disgusting shit and puke fest ever!” post. Don’t be a twat waffle. Some of us get sympathy nausea just hearing about it.
The “I’m out with my friends having the Best. Night. Ever.” posts. Every goddamn night / weekend.
The “here I am with all my besties” pictures that have you in the leaning forward with heaving cleavage exposed pics. We get it. You desperately want to be a stripper but don’t have the nads to actually do it.
Vaguebooking. Seriously … it’s the worst kind of fishing.
Yeah the boob ones… like we don’t know you strategically positioned the camera so that we would get maximum boob-visual.
Yep, agree with all of these! Hilarious. Funnily enough I wrote about my own love-hate relationship with Facebook last year and came up with a few other ideas. Not wishing to be all self-promoting or anything (I’m British, after all), but take a look if you like: http://hometruthsfromabroad.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/my-love-hate-relationship-with-facebook/
I went and checked it out. Yup. We agree. 😉
Guilty of a few of these…also I have a slew of my own pet peeves (how about everyone complaining via their status what everyone else is updating their status with…ie…”we know it’s snowing, chill on the updates” or “I don’t care about politics so stop with the updates”), because at the end of the day, it is OUR facebook and you (you in general, not you personally) don’t have to be our facebook friend. Or at least you don’t have to see our updates, hide ’em! I don’t say happy birthday to anyone unless I would know it was their birthday without facebook prompts lol
BTW hope this didn’t sound snarky…it was absolutely not supposed to sound snarky!
Please. I’m your FB friend and you totally never annoy me. You update about things that are a big deal or out-of-the-ordinary adorable. It’s the *extreme* of these things that gets annoying. You are far from it.
As far as the birthdays, I am HORRIBLE for remembering birth dates. If it weren’t for FB, I would never say happy birthday to anyone! I love that I can wish old friends from HS happy birthday even though we’re not joined at the hip anymore. I might not remember their birthday, but I do still really care that they have a happy one. <3
And re: snarky? Girrrrl, you know I always love me a little debate! xoxo
Ol’ Regular Pants? That’s the first time I laughed today! 🙂
Making people laugh is MY FAVORITE. <3
I agree with all of these! The first one though is the strangest to me. It’s like these people are their own “yes men/women.” I never thought of it as high fiving yourself before, but will from now on – that is the perfect description.
Glad I could be of service. =)
I went and checked out your blog – love the name!
And vaguebooking. The ‘Things are so bad, but I just can’t talk about it but I want you to fee sorry for me’ posts.
And worse…the Repost this or it means you hate Jesus, America and babies and you boil puppies.
“boil puppies” – I just almost shot coffee out of my nose. Thank you.
Okay #8 is seriously my favorite/the worst thing to ever happen on the internet. There was one girl in particular who I had to constantly fight the impulse not to defriend because she was SO obnoxious about this– it was literally every five seconds about how “amazing” her guy was and he just sneezed or walked in a room or said hi or something else equally amazing. It’s like there was some drinking game going on that I didn’t know about.
That would actually be a great drinking game. Everyone get out their phones and scroll down their FB feeds – first person to find an obnoxious “significant other” post gets to make everyone else drink. That is GENIUS.
I totally agree with your list! I’m having trouble with the birthday wishes. Since we’re a day ahead in Australia and most of my friends are in the US, I get a reminder the day before their actual birthday. I don’t want to be the weird person leaving a happy birthday a day early so I always wait for the following day…and that’s the problem…there’s no reminder the following day and I forget. Then I feel super awful and end up being the person who wished them a happy birthday the day after their actual birthday.
I would probably be saying something like, “If you lived here in Australia it would be your birthday – so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
😉
Does Grant have an accent yet?
Funny, I’ve said that exact thing before, but I stopped because I didn’t know if people would think I was mentioning Australia too much.
No, Grant doesn’t have an accent yet, but he uses many Australian phrases/words, so he’ll be sufficiently mixed up when we move back to the states. We’re down to the last ten months of our contract here, but I believe we’ve finally made our minds up to extend our time an additional two years after the end of the initial contract. Perhaps he’ll have a bit of an accent after living here for five years?
Hey, that’s more time for people to come and visit…hint, hint!
Oh I SO would if it didn’t cost 8 billion dollars!
Yes, but no hotel costs and we’re less than an hour from downtown Sydney. Or you could just hold out and visit us when we move back to Hawaii in 2 years and 10 months. Can’t go wrong, either way! :o) Next December we’ll be back in the states for a month or so and are planning to take Grant to Disney. We should try to meet up then.
HA! I AM THE LAST FB HOLDOUT!! I do not have a page and am so happy I didn’t jump on the bandwagon! For all the good aspects there seem to be 50 annoying ones. I need not more annoyances!!!
As for the birthday wishes, use my tactic, I just randomly wish people happy birthday, regardless of the day, or month. Just happy birthday everyone. well not everyone, some people don’t really deserve one.
Oh see I actually really LOVE FB. There are so many old friends with whom I’ve reconnected and I’m so happy to have not lost them forever, as would have been case 20-30 years ago. Life gets busy… we don’t always have time to maintain every single relationship in person. I love that I can stay in touch with FB.
But yeah. People get hellsa annoying. 😉
selfies in the bed room(bathroom) are reserved for teenagers lol
#1. Facebook pet peve…disguising bragging as a blessing. I’m so blessed to have a baby who slept through the night since the day she came home…so greatful that God has provided us with the blessings to buy a new car…so blessed to be spending our family vacation in Paris…so blessed to be leavingf the hospital at 5 pounds from my pre baby weight…my husband got me this gorgeous diamond ring. I’m so blessed to be his wife. You get the picture. I cannot stand this!!
Yeah… that goes right along with number 3 above. =)