Dear Facebook:

by Veronica on January 12, 2010

in Headfuck, Soapbox

Dear People of Facebook:

If all your photos are of you (topless) with your mates (also topless) I’m going to start to wonder if you’ve become a male stripper. Please, stop my wondering and fill out the Work part of your profile. I don’t care if you’re working for Manpower, I just need to know whether or not to avoid Manpower shows.

Also you? Yes, you. Your breasts are lovely. I’m not offended, although I didn’t really need to see them. I’ve got photos of my breasts up too, of course, my breasts had a baby attached to them, but whatever. You know what made me want to stab my eyes out? The terrible photoshopping job that was done on your ‘model’ pictures. Please, have a look at your legs and then look at the way the reflection is sitting. The angle is all wrong and it’s making me stabby. Ask your photographer to either a) photoshop well or b) don’t photoshop a reflection in. The photos are of you, a bad job of them looks bad for your portfolio. And makes me want to stab things.

You there! Group creator! Stop using the word ‘retard’ as an insult. It is offensive and it makes me cringe inside. Stop it, or I’ll start flagging you as offensive. Actually, I’m going to do that anyway.

Right, now, the one who writes EvErYtHiNg LiKe ThIs, doesn’t it take 10 times as long to type a simple sentence? It makes your words indecipherable, not cool or smart. You don’t look awesome for doing it. You look like a fucking jackass who doesn’t know how to use a shift key. You could be talking french for all I know and it would still shit me. Stop it.

Stop Capitalising Every Word Of Your Status Updates. It’s not a giant long fucking title, it’s a status update. Type it like a regular sentence.

You! I went to high school with you. I KNOW you know basic grammar and spelling, use it. Apostrophes are your friend. So are commas and full stops.

Text speak is for TEXTS. Not for status updates. I’m pretty sure you’ve got a qwerty keyboard in front of you (and if you’re updating FB from your phone, I will forgive you. a little) so USE IT. I’m not trying to learn another language, I’m trying to read through my timeline. If I friended you, likely I care about what you’re up to. Make it easy for me, please? Plus, it makes you look stupid, when everything lks lik dis, lolz epic fail /jk.

Photos!!! Learn a basic fucking edit. If the photo is blurry, delete it. Sure your kid might be cute, but I can’t tell when it’s the doorway 4 metres behind him that’s in focus. On the same rant, if you’ve got 20 photos of the same thing, maybe you ought to only upload one? I don’t care that in this one you’ve got one eye squinted and in that one you’re looking to the left. EDIT. DELETE. UPLOAD ONE. I’ll care more if I’m not wading through 10 photos of you with your eyes crossed.

For people with kids, I want to see the photo updates. I don’t want to click on an album and find 200 photos in it. My cousins wife has the right idea, she uploads photos in 1-2 month albums. It means that each album gets 20-30 photos and I actually look at them and CARE. (It helps that their son is a little younger than Isaac, actual family and rather cute.)

Phew!

I think I feel better now. Of course, feel free to add to my rather venty list.

***

Disclaimer: Cos I need one otherwise people will whine at me about this: If you think this is about you, it isn’t. I know most of the FB friends who read here (they’ve either emailed or commented before) and they don’t annoy me. I will forgive a typo, I make them all the time. I will forgive a slight grammatical slip, although if you’re confusing your and you’re or their, there and they’re, I might get stabby. Fuck, I will forgive most things. Just please, at least pretend that you know how to craft a sentence? I’m pretty sure you can speak well enough, why can’t you write it too?

Sigh.

Ali January 12, 2010 at 9:38 pm

Hehehe. Sorry but facebook is arse.

Brenda January 12, 2010 at 10:11 pm

I am LOLZing over here Veronica. Mwahahaha…

Francesca January 12, 2010 at 10:14 pm

I love facebook (& Twitter but for different reasons) but your post has some great points and made me laugh – thanks!!

Renee January 12, 2010 at 10:16 pm

See.. Now I’m thinking you’re talking about me! Disclaimer or not.. I was waiting for – The chick that uses too many full stops.. Cause then I know you’re talking about me!
I don’t think I do any of those things listed above.. But there is always a possibility..
And I may upload too many cutesy kids photos but I’m just a proud Mumma!! And I don’t think any of them are blurry.. However, you have me so worked up now I’m going to go check!

Oh, and that your/ you’re, there/ their/ they’re – pisses me the fuck off! Oh and the his/ he’s.. Ugh!

Mrs. C January 12, 2010 at 11:08 pm

All my status updates are about how I obtained NEW LEVELS in YoVille. It drives my friends nuts! I see all their cafeworld updates.

I haven’t seen any topless photos, so your friends must be… interesting people. I get lots of ALL CAPS INVITATIONS TO TELL OBAMA WE ARE A CHRISTIAN NATION and that sort of thing. I’m thinking that if three million people join that group, Obama will repent (not).

I also get lots of SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY and WHAT DOES GOD WANT TO TELL YOU TODAY stuff in my box, the latter of which is oddly reminiscent of fortune-telling. I also get lots of hearts, snowflakes, flying chocolates and other odd things that I leave in my request box. I don’t want to ignore them, but I don’t want to respond to them. So I have a gazoodle of ’em.

ccinmotion January 12, 2010 at 11:10 pm

so funny and so right!

Leah January 13, 2010 at 12:33 am

Haha I Have A Habit Of Doing This.. My Bad Veronica Hehehe!

Joyce-Anne January 13, 2010 at 1:35 am

I can’t agree with you more on this. Argh! I hate text speak. Seriously, people can’t spell and texting makes it worse.

NessWorld Magazine January 13, 2010 at 1:36 am

DITTO!!

Agreed – enough with the 50 bagillion photos of the same thing, and the bad edits!!

Jenni January 13, 2010 at 1:56 am

okthxbai!

Kidding – that shit drives me batty.

Kari January 13, 2010 at 2:01 am

I’m going to de-lurk and say AMEN!

I also hate status updates from the youngun’s that go like this: Johnny Smith is Fu@K . Really? You are in the process of getting a college degree? Do you really want your Great Aunt Martha to read your poorly worded, kind of offensive update? Not sure if you are drunk or stupid, but hey, rock on little cousin!

I have my photos set up in an album with everyday photos of my kids going into it, but they are listed with the most recent at the top/beginning when you click on it and the oldest at the end. If there is a huge amount of photos from a certain activity it gets its own album. I also list the date the photo was taken on – I hate when people have photos all willy-nilly together and out of order years mixed up together and no date listed.

Kristin January 13, 2010 at 3:11 am

How come none of my Facebook friends are topless?

Laura January 13, 2010 at 4:12 am

Could I copy and paste this to my FB friends! It is beyond me how many people publish blurry pics or pics of someones elbow!! Makes want to defriend them immediately – purely cos I dont want the world to know I have twit friends!

Sonya January 13, 2010 at 4:24 am

I despise the updates like “making dinner for the family” or “heading to bed” – who cares about the minutia of your daily routine?

Rachael January 13, 2010 at 5:17 am

My favorites are the friend invites from pornographers. I so enjoy that.

Miss Ash January 13, 2010 at 6:14 am

HA!!!!!!! So eloquently articulated!!!

Gina January 13, 2010 at 7:07 am

LOL, today is anti FB day…
Check out Richards’ post – http://www.richardcoote.co.za/my-rants/another-rant/
I so agree with you on everything here!

Richard January 13, 2010 at 7:15 am

Absolutely loved reading this! I agree with EVERYTHING! I had a similar rant a few months ago, covering almost everything you said here! And tonight, just wrote out another rant about Facebook!
http://www.richardcoote.co.za/my-rants/another-rant/comment-page-1/#comment-7901

Added to my blog roll! ?

Richard January 13, 2010 at 7:16 am

Hmm, the ? was supposed to be a heart!

<3

Marylin January 13, 2010 at 8:05 am

LOL thank you for that!! Great giggle, and I agree with every single thing there. 😉

kthxbai xx 😛

frogpondsrock January 13, 2010 at 9:12 am

This is what shits me. David wrote this:-

Devastated, The ADY GIL, a $1.5 million anti whaling vessel has been sunk in Antarctic waters by the much larger SHONAN MARU no.2 in a deliberate attack on the protest ship. if you watch the video you will notice that by the maritime laws of 1986, the Shonan Maru’s captain is clearly in the wrong, he turned to ram the stationary ADY GIL severing 2.5m off the bow

and the response of one his peers was this:-

wtf is diz shit?

And another response was this:-

haha lolz kwl well not kewl ha ha but ya kno wat i mean

AAARRGGHH!!!

Kendra January 13, 2010 at 10:45 am

Amen and thank you! I wish EVERYONE on Facebook would read this. I look through my updates and I just want to poke my eyes out.

Ree January 13, 2010 at 1:45 pm

Well, I know you’re not talking about me. 😉 I’m DONE with FB.

river January 13, 2010 at 4:01 pm

Text speak, spelling and grammatical errors annoy the heck out of me too, (does that make me heckless?) and I totally agree with Sonya^. Who cares about how many times someone blue their nose or scratched their chin? These are a few of the reasons I never go to facebook, even though I have several relatives on there.

river January 13, 2010 at 4:02 pm

D’OH!! “blew” not “blue”

Tanya January 13, 2010 at 5:52 pm

Mine ends up being like a conversation with myself;

Tanya: Emily is getting a toothy-peg!

20 minutes later;

Tanya: Wishes Emily would stop screaming

20 minutes after that;

Tanya: Is relieved Emily has gone down for a nap

It ends up being like a diary!

lisah January 13, 2010 at 6:07 pm

great post!! wouldn’t some FB police be nice? it’d be a great job to do from home too….they could give you a huge big virtual red pen, ooh and surely the technology can now allow a ‘minor’ electric shock to be sent via the offender’s keyboard…mmmm, liking this!!!

Alet January 13, 2010 at 7:46 pm

My colleagues started looking at me funny, it is kind of odd to find a person laughing hysterically behind the computer, all of the sudden!

Donna January 13, 2010 at 8:22 pm

Excellent post. I deleted my FB account over a year and a half ago. I really don’t care if you’re ‘having lunch’ at lunchtime or ‘stuck in traffic’ during peak hr. Take some time during those periods for yourself guys! It’s ok, we won’t forget about you if we don’t hear from you every 10 minutes!

Last straw was an acquaintance who was like a grandfather figure ‘poking’ me and when I checked he was feeling ‘horny’…too much information and eww.

FB used to be good, before it became popular and all those tacky MySpace-like users jumped onboard.

The only site I use for photos is flickr. People can use it like a blog with the 365 project (1 photo a day for a year, each depicting your day). A good exercise in restraint. Granted you need to pay for a full flickr account but the interface is so clean, there are no ads and in my experience very little spam. Also you get to look at some wonderful photos from people who deserve the attention. There’s rubbish and low brow stuff of course but you just choose what you want to see. (I have no affiliation to yahoo or flickr).

Barbara January 13, 2010 at 9:08 pm

I’ve just worked out how to turn off notifications for all those cafe and aquarium things. That has made life slightly less stabby of late.

Jeanette January 13, 2010 at 9:15 pm

LOL you have the same gripes as me.
I’ve started removing some people from my news feed because their status irritated me so much!

lceel January 14, 2010 at 10:13 am

A little testy are we?

Kathy January 14, 2010 at 10:37 am

You’d probably enjoy this blog, then:
http://failbooking.com/

Seriously though, it’s Facebook. Not an entry for the Nobel Prize. Anyone can use it … and does … for whatever purpose seems good to them. I also get faintly irritated by poor grammar and l33t speak but as for the content, well, it’s a wide world, and who am I to judge what’s important for someone else to post to their own FB page?

(Besides, if they get annoying enough, I just unfriend them 😉

Marita January 14, 2010 at 6:45 pm

The ‘retard’ thing drives me crazy.

So do all the status updates about various causes saying X% of people wont repost… well no I’m not going to put spam in my status update.

I was much happier now I’ve tightened up my privacy settings and set all my inlaws to ‘hide’. 🙂

Hyphen Mama January 15, 2010 at 4:02 am

I love this post! Has everybody gone STUPID? What kills me about FB is that it seems to be a big dog and pony show. LOOK HOW RICH I AM!! LOOK AT MY HUUUUUGE HOUSE!! LOOK AT MY AWESOME BODY THAT HASN’T SAGGED ONE IOTA SINCE HAVING 17 KIDS!!! LOOK AT MY REALLY HOT SPOUSE!!! WE TAKE 13 REALLY EXPENSIVE VACATIONS A YEAR… LOOK WHERE WE’VE BEEN!!!

I’m starting to hate FB and all the people I used to like.

Or maybe it’s just sour grapes for me. Hey at least I’m honest.

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