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Facebook: Pointers and Commentry for The Social Networking Generation

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Stick to one name or title

Yes! You know what I’m about to say…stick to your real name! To be fair, it is a social network and if not here where would you want to let your hair down and relax? (your living room)

Okay so you want to go for something really cool and outlandish like jacob the surferdudesupreme but it just gets stupid when you have silly ones like john thor, god of thunder and babes supreme Bassildon two words for you bro: not cool. I mean what happens when i want to try finding that on facebook search? I end up forgetting what part of your ridiculous name comes first only to get a text from you, telling me you’ve changed it.

Simplicity ladies and gentlemen is bliss, but hey, whatever rocks your boat.

Status updates with no real depth

Contrary to popular belief, when you update you status saying the following:

I just ate my toe nails – they really are cheesy!

The online community of facebook don’t think it’s cool, they find it stupid.

Having said that, there is that saying that goes : show me your friends and I’ll tell you what type of person you are. Your silly friends just might like what you put up. Oh yeah, that’s why they’re your friends. Its time to lay off the status’ until you have something worth sharing, if you fall into the category of short and snappy updates.

Then again, there is always twitter, but having said that, the twitter community is even more witty and the dimwits who update status’ that cant fit within the word count because of their lack of poetic prowess or grammatical agility will find themselves in the no-man’s land of hi5.

Why so many friends?

It may sound like an idiotic question but seriously – how many of those 500,000,000 friends do you actually speak to anyway? If you are counting your fingers at this moment then down grade your friend’s list now!

“Facebook is for friends though!” I hear you protest. This is true, but facebook is for people who can manage those friends or who actually have that many admirers like all those film stars.

Having said that, the queen joined facebook not long ago and I’ll say the same thing as I did when I first heard it : “What?!” Seriously? What if I wanted to speak to her via chat will I have to say “Your Majesty” at the end of every sentence?

No thanks, I have enough friends on facebook I don’t talk to. Start deleting today, to make room for the people in your life that actually matter, instead of making another facebook profile just to accommodate the influx of randomers like some weird personal immigration problem you have.

TMI

TMI is the abbreviation for ‘too much information’. What I’m going to do is give you an example of some status’ and you’ll see what’s wrong with them…

I just took a dump, flushed and the turd looks like David Cameron!

I just had sex.

Why the hell do I have to work today?! I wanna stay at home!

Oh! so you slept with Tracy? Its okay you son of a….(after much profanity) we are done! we are over!

Yes, that’s right. All of these are just a little on the exposing side. Many an argument has aired on facebook like some sort of web version of jerry Springer live! Heck, I’ve even been involved in a few myself. Bottom line is this: if you thought stripping naked at a bus stop and singing sex bomb by tom jones was bad than you’re wrong, airing your public life on facebook is about twice as detrimental.

Here is why:

1. It’s your private (like proper private) life, and

2. It’s online. If ten people plus a couple of randomers at a bus stop saw you singing sex bomb imagine what a video would do? The key word here is viral. If it’s an argument on a comment of some sort or a retarded status then the downside is that randomers whom you added can join in like some sort of tag team wrestling match and all of a sudden you have some sort of cyber online war of words with sides trying to get the better of each other all in the name of siding with you or insulting you. And the joke is, you probably don’t even know them.

Groups of zero relevance

How many times have you made a group that you forced your poor friends to join? Tons of times, no doubt, all in the name of making up numbers. I’ll make this quick – if the people you are adding have no relevance whatsoever to the cause you are forcing them to join, leave them out. They actually might stop detesting you for causing cyber traffic in their notifications lane.

Scary friend requests

It may not be scary to you, but it sure is scary for me, when I get people who add me out of the blue! No cyber etiquette whatsoever! Not even a message to tell me why they are adding me! If you have added someone you thought was awesome but did not have the courtesy to even tell them, please tell them!

Poke wars

Poke. Poke back. Poke. Poke back. Poke. Poke back. Poke. Poke back. Poke. Its soooo exhausting! Its a different ball game if you have some sort of poke treaty between you and them but if not, it’s just annoying, really.

It’s like a virtual session of Wimbledon and the two of you pokers in question are keeping up this rally of pokes, in an act of pure defiance against logic which says you should ignore it, just so you can win this invisible match point. Then again, if you haven’t seen a good friend for a while and they’ve forgotten you – poke them.

Facebook games

When it comes to facebook games, I cant complain, its good fun, and I can brag to my friends who play the game too and I fund facebook by buying points, coins and items of virtually no value whatsoever. Money well spent. That is fine.

What’s a little annoying is when Bob tries sending me a request to play the game. I didn’t ask for an update of your ridiculously fake game entitled flowers vs aliens mr president of lame!

Keep that crap on your wall and stop sending me requests, I’m not a flower vs aliens type of guy I’m a 1000 bleeding ninjas vs kung fu master legend 4000 sort of guy. It’s safe to say we actually cant do much in the way of stopping our computer gaming geeky friends from playing these games because apart from advertising, it is one of the main ways facebook gets paid.

We can however, adamantly refuse to care when our friends tell us they’ve gained 40% health after beating the boss at level 240.

Fluctuating relationship status’

There comes a time in a facebook user’s life when they hook up with someone. Now usually, depending on thier level of facebook usage, they’ll update their status on the info page to say ‘in a relationship’.

On the discovery of this function some people go loopy and change it as often as their underwear. Having said that, some people’s relationship status hinges on the dropping of their panties, but that’s not the point.

The point is this – if you aren’t Jenifer Aniston (the one from friends) and have an amazingly interesting love life worth bothering to read about, then don’t bother updating your status like a dripping tap because we just don’t care enough to comment.

Likerphiles

Likerphiles derived from the word pedophiles – meaning to like what is socially unnacceptable or crude in nature. You know who you are, and it’s not cool, it’s just creepy. You need to get out more.

Laughalots

You announce that you just got fired and he does this “hahahahahhahahah!”. You have to resit a paper in university and he comments saying this “Hahhahahaha!”. You got divorced and he does this “hahahahhahaha”. You complain about his inapropiate laughter and he says this – You get where I’m going with this. It’s very annoying. In all honesty I do laugh on people’s status and lol even, but I do know my limits.

Commentators

These are the people like me. Those rare gems of society who comment socially on all the injustices that take place in the sovereign isles of Facebook. Long live social networking!

Even though I really do love facebook, there is nothing like a good face-to-face chat now, don’t you think?

Kingsley Olaleye Reuben is an author who writes scripts, prose, poetry, and plays, journalistic stories and interviews, manages two blogs and is currently studying for a masters at Roehampton University, and working on his next book.You can contact Kingsley (also known as “The Bard”) by email koreuben@hotmail.co.uk or through NewsBlaze.

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