Tuesday, August 27, 2013

My Own Facebook Foibles

In sharing my FB pet peeves, I realize that I might have come off as a self righteous hypocrite. So, to balance the scales, let me follow up with some of the annoying ways I contribute to FB's lowest common denominator:

  • I post about my kid way too much. The people in my newsfeed (assuming they haven't blocked me) will be treated to a nearly daily dose of how ridiculously clever and adorable my offspring is.  Did you need to see 30 pictures (from every angle) of his recent hip-hop dance recital? Ummm...yeah. Because he was wearing gold chains, a sideways baseball cap and posing like a straight up thug. And he's the whitest kid alive. IMHO, it was high-larious.
  • On that note, I'm hilarious! Or at least I think I am. So, most of my updates are either of my kid or me trying to take a stab at standup comedy by way of social media.  Looking back, I probably miss the mark most of the time. Sorry for that.
  • In my efforts to be the next greatest FB comedian, I probably post too many ecards.
  • And my dog. Have you seen my dog? She's almost as adorable as the kid, so it stands to reason that she gets nearly as much screen time. Remember when I said that I unfriend almost no one? Well, that's not completely true. If you diss my dog, you're out. A previous coworker once posted about how she was tired of seeing pictures of everyone's pets. My unfriending finger got a good workout that day.
  • And finally, I post way too often. Period. While I'm not one of those people who announces when they're going to bed or what they had for dinner (unless it was epic, although I do draw the line on food pics), I'll admit I am pretty boring. Why do I post so often? Maybe I missed my chance to be on stage and am reclaiming it in a very indirect way. I won't lie. I might be a closet attention whore.

I'm probably violating someone else's 'Facebook' rules, but unless you avoid posting altogether, I think it's impossible not to, so I say this: do whatever the heck you want on Facebook. If people (like me) have a problem with it, then we know where the block or unfriend button is. And most of us (who are not me) aren't afraid to use it.

4 comments:

S said...

Ah, Facebook. I, too, have a love/hate relationship with that site. I love it because I have found no fewer than 20 people through that site who I probably never would've reconnected with any other way. (For real: I've lived a lot of different places during my adulthood, and I also attended a few out-of-state camps in my teens.) Also, I enjoy seeing people's photos of their trips and their children and pets and hearing what they are up to, especially these days when I am generally way too busy to actually take the time to contact many of my friends.

But on the other hand, I also hate it, for many of the reasons you have written about in your posts. The games, the vaguebooking, the oversharers, the drama. But I use the "hide" function liberally, have been known to un-friend when necessary, and unplug entirely when necessary.

Actually, after reading this post, I'm thinking I should add you as a friend on Facebook. Email me if that interests you. ;-)

AnotherDreamer said...

I definitely have my own FB moments. I often feel like I should just step away actually. That said I definitely believe in the "don't like it, ignore it"- I have quite a few people hidden. Very few unfriended. And a few blocked.

Ann said...

Catching up with this and your last post. I found myself automatically checking FB on my phone for no reason other than a bad habit. I took the app off my phone awhile back and now I am pretty much on hiatus and only checking in when I need to contact someone or I get a notification in my email. I haven't even logged in this week. It is liberating as that place drives me more mad than it does make me feel connected to people. It's a compare your own dumpy backyard to everyone else's perfectly manicured front yard kind of place, ya know? They all have a backyard too, but they just don't share it there.

Oh, and I want to add another pet peeve...those who use it as their own personal bookmark/Pinterest by sharing random crafts, cleaning techniques, and recipes so they won't lose a bunch of stuff they will never use anyway. Screen shot it and stop cluttering up my wall with your mindless crap. ;) It really was time for me to remove the app from my phone, huh? LOL.

Hope I haven't missed too much. ;)

Jonathan Boldt said...

I just wrote an ebook called "Shooting Blanks: a husbands perspective on missing the mark and dealing with infertility" and was wondering if you would be interested in reviewing it for your blog or if you would like me to write a guest post. Either way I'd be happy to send you a free copy to read.