Facebook II, Son of Facebook

So the facebook post was a big hit. It makes me somewhat proud, like my parents probably felt when they realized their kids weren't complete screw ups. I thought I'd follow up that goodwill with a part 2. It's come to my attention that some important people are missing from the hall of shame that was assembled in the last post. But just in case you for some reason didn't read part I (and are, indeed, too lazy to just scroll on down there right now), here are the first standard bearers of douchebaggery: 1. The Hunny Bunny, 2. The Itinerary, 3. The Spelling Champ, 4. The Soapbox, 5. The App, 6. The Creep. These deplorable citizens of the cybercommunity all serve as reminders that just because the experience of being a person on planet earth can largely be transferred to the digital realm, the fact that 90+% of humanity is utterly obnoxious can never be removed. But that list was by no means an exhaustive one, so I've come back with a sequel. Facebook is one of those things that pretty much everyone has.. and given that everyone has it, and what people do is more or less public (which people obviously don't realize), it gives you a glimpse into how people actually ARE in a way that you wouldn't have any clue with the vast majority of casual acquaintances in actual life. There's something wonderful and soul-crushing about that. So, yeah. Thinking about all of this made me feel like Daniel Plainview and kind of had me down in the dumps.. so I let this one sit on the shelf for a while. But time has taken the edge off of the blade that is my realization that I hate almost everyone, so I've returned to the realm of the anti-social, delusional, narcissistic, vain and downright stupid to bring you part two of the most obnoxious people on Facebook.


1.) The Chronicler - This founding member of the goof troop thinks that every detail of his or her life is worthy of posting in a public forum. Very similar to "the itinerary", this one somehow manages to be even worse. Where "the itinerary" is just boring.. "the Chronicler" assumes that the everyday happenstance of their existence is worthy of documentation in a very public forum. Let's just keep this simple... it isn't. Sure, I understand that to you, this ______________ (insert vacation, job, whatever) is extremely exciting. Know what it is to everyone else? Dull, boring, narcissistic? All of the above? If you're doing something cool, by all means, throw a witty status out there or something. What we don't need is a damn play-by-play. Are you even there or are you just trying to make everyone jealous while you miss your entire trip buried in your iphone? Trust me, anyone who cares enough about your life experiences to want to get all up in there will probably just ask you the next time you see them. Casual acquaintances give less than a shit and a half. If you feel the need to share minute details of your life with people you hardly know, met while drunk, sat by Freshman year in geology, or friended because they dated your friend and you met at a wedding in 2007, your life is NO where near as awesome as you're trying to make it appear. I don't even care about what I'm eating, not really.. and believe me, no one is impressed by the details of your life. If your life is cool enough that people WOULD be impressed by it, then parading it about is just bragging. So either way, keep it to yourself.

a.) The Walter Iooss - not content to describe their life through words alone, this person feels the need to overwhelm the interwebs with album after album containing pictures of every place, meal, person, sunset and so on they've ever been, seen, met, eaten or happened across. Not that there's anything wrong with pictures in and of themselves.. that's clearly one of the purposes that facebook has in mind. But, come on now, let's be reasonable. Why are you taking 250 pictures of anything, let alone taking the time to upload all 250 pictures? I think I've taken a grand total of 45-50 pictures in my life.. and probably 19 of those were completely obscured by a finger/thumb. Granted, I may be more incompetent with a camera than most, but the point remains.. what are you doing taking so many pictures? Probably more importantly, what are you doing sharing ALL of these pictures with the world? By all means, if you've got some cool pictures, throw 'em up. Met Obama? Awesome. Post it. Saw the Eiffel tower? Sweet. Deserving of the public domain. But random meals and drinks and minutiae? I'd say a good rule to follow would be: would I want to see this if someone else posted it? If the answer is "no", don't post it. Is that so crazy? You know how boring it is when people show you stuff/tell you stories about things you don't care about? Well why are you sharing it with quasi-strangers? Granted, there's always the argument "you don't have to look at them". No, I don't, and I don't have to look at the car accident in the other lane either, but I will... and that perverse part of me can't help but be caught up in morbid curiosity at why someone would post 300 pictures in one album. Like... is there something awesome in there? Did they party with Dave Chappelle and Raekwon? Blew Joachim Phoenix? Make out with someone from the Real World? Nope. Just 743 pictures of ________ and boyfriend showing the internet how "happy" they are. Burns me every time.

2.) Super Parent - This is basically the same concept as "the chronicler". We get it, to you, your kid(s) is/are the most important thing to you. Kudos, that's how it should be. You aren't a deadbeat... congrats on that point. But do you know how little 99.95% of your facebook friends care about your little snotnoser? How many friends do you have? 300? 400? Then it's a safe bet that less than 10 people, basically no one but family and/or super good friends really cares what little Jimmy said. I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret: little kids suck. I mean, sure, they're cute, but that's an evolutionary tactic to trick adults into not neglecting them into oblivion. How would we treat an adult who acted like a 5 year old? They're selfish, loud, oblivious to social tact and custom, corny and not very smart. Now that's of no fault of their own, I fully recognize that their developing minds have not yet acquired the necessary experience, knowledge and nuance to be a fully functional member of society, but that's why no one likes someone else's kids. The relationship between parents and kids is (and should be) a deeply private one.. both because they should be cherished moments that are seminal in the creation of a fully fledged human being, and because no one else gives a shit and a half about a near stranger's child. The amount that anyone cares about random classmates'/coworkers'/party partners from last decade's kids can be measured in millimeters. Anyone who cares will ask, I assure you. In fact... there's only one thing more annoying than 24/7 running commentary of the antics of a snotnosed twerp...

a.) The Super Pet Owner - at least a child is, in fact, a human being and thus deserving of at least some attention, pets on the other hand are animals kept loyal by food and used to replicate human companionship. By my approximation, living beings on earth have two biological urges: survival and reproduction. Now for the modern American pet, they're almost all spayed/neutered, and they live with comforts that put 99.9999% of all the humans who have ever lived on planet earth's living conditions to shame, so their "survival" urges consist basically of stuffing their fatass faces. Not only are Americans fat as hell, our PETS are fat as hell. But I digress, as I said, at least children are (or will be) human beings, pets are animals. If no one cares about children, imagine how little everyone cares about dogs and cats. Now I get it. People (women) really like their pets. That's fine, you spend a lot of time around them, I understand. But seriously, why/how would you believe that anyone else gives a hell? The constant status updates, photo albums and etc. pertaining to the creature that you feed to bribe it into being affectionate are the very definition of antisocial behavior. It's just like everything else. Fine in moderation, like all things.. but just ask yourself: does anyone care? If the answer is or probably is "no", just keep it to yourself. Thanks.

3.) The running (wo)man. In the similar narcissistic vein to basically everyone else, this person assumes that their shit is worthy of publication to pretty much everyone they know. Working out/running sucks. I hate that I have to do it, and it's pretty much the most boring, masturbatory activity one can partake in. Tyler Durden said it best: "self improvement is masturbation. now self destruction?" Less than no one cares about your exercise habits. At least kids/pets/vacations are noteworthy life events. Working out? Really? Do you really think anyone cares? I don't even care about MY OWN exercise habits, let alone someone else's. This blog has previously derided the unfortunate state of affairs that has rendered human existance so meaningless that we must set arbitrary goals to meet as some measure of "achievement" and barometer of personal self-worth, but of all the reasons to set out to run an arbitrary distance, make the approval of internet acquaintances second to last, please. (last should be to put one of those "13.1" or "26.2" stickers on your Hybrid/Subaru) Most annoying of all is that Nike+ iphone app that syncs your runs.. jesus christ. "________ ran 7.2 miles in 57 minutes with Nike+ from iphone". I can't tell who this makes me want to kill more... Zuckerberg for unleashing this tidal wave of self centered delusion or the committing party for being so goddamn vain that they think a single other person on earth gives such information anything other than the most hateful of glances and the very least of concerns.

4.) The exhibitionist - This is quite possibly the single most painful type of individual on the internet. For some reason they feel that basically everyone they know (and a lot of people they don't know) need to be brought into intensely personal stuff and/or drama going on with them. You know how it goes... statuses that say things to the effect of "Kno u cant trust nobody" (of course the spelling is often atrocious, these antisocial individuals tend to fit into multiple categories) or "some people are just pieces of shit" like the appropriate place to air conflicts/fights/issues with people is on a public website. Let's talk about what facebook actually is. It's sort of like an online cafeteria for the "high school" that is attended by "everyone you know". You wouldn't scream to the whole cafeteria that your boyfriend cheated on you or that you had a big fight with your friend, right? So why are you announcing it for all to read on a website where literally everyone you've added can see it? Isn't that uncomfortable for you? Some of these cringe-worthy posts are so uncomfortable for me that they, more than anything else, lead to instant blocking or de-friending. Even worse than intense words (always horribly misspelled) are intense relationship status changes. You know how it goes. ____________ is in a relationship with _____________ turns into ____________ is in a relationship, turns into ______________ is single, turns into _____________ is in a relationship, turns into ________________ is in a relationship with ______________. Look, I understand how it goes, believe me.. people are crazy enough without emotions involved, throw in emotions? Coocoo for life. But that doesn't mean your drama needs to be embarrassingly displayed for all the world to see. This sort of public forum behavior leads me to believe that these people are either oblivious to the fact that everything you do on facebook is displayed to everyone you're connected to on facebook (and thus, very dumb), or they get a perverse pleasure from conducting extremely personal affairs in the public domain (and thus, very creepy). Either way, I'm uncomfortable, and you're blocked.

5.) The Mitch Albom. You know who Mitch Albom is. He's one of the corny assholes on "The Sports Reporters" who maligns the fact that sports aren't as magical as they were when he was 6 and watching Mickey Mantle like he's completely oblivious to the fact that as you become older and accumulate life experience and cynicism, NOTHING is a joyous or meaningful as early childhood experiences. Well, he applied this same cornball naivete to writing several extremely popular "Oprah's Book Club" type corny inspirational books. He's one of the leading cornball pseudo-spiritual secular types who are leading to the downfall of society. Well anyway, everything he writes is pervaded with a mind-numbing sentimentality and false carpe diem "inspiration". Well, the last (for today) obnoxious facebook citizen is the one responsible for putting cornball sentimental or falsely inspirational and/or pseudo-religious "spiritual" quotes in an effort to...? No one knows what the purpose of these things are. Is it to "inspire" other people? Isn't inspiration a personal thing? If it inspires you, great, throw it on a coffee mug, read it to yourself. For some reason people really like posting quotes as statuses... and I can't figure out why. Is it to get validation that a quote they like is a quote worth liking? (I hope not) Is it to "share" said quote? Didn't the original author already do that? Whatever the reason, Mitch Albom is an asshole, and so are all his little immitators, whatever and whoever their audiences may be. Keep your cornball shit out of my newsfeed.

The Most Annoying People on Facebook.

So a lot has happened since last we spoke. "Game of Thrones" premiered and was awesome, Donald Trump sold his soul for even more money as if he didn't have enough, an earthquake/tsunami combo decided it wasn't necessary for Japan to be a place where people felt comfortable anymore, Bin Laden got capped in a badass real-life version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, it apparently became the rainy version of the apocalypse where all it does is fucking rain until everyone kills each other and then themselves, etc. Another thing that happened (well, this has been happening, but I notice it more and more every day) is every single person on earth joined facebook. I can seriously think of like 5 people under 60 and over 10 who don't have it. Now with this many people wandering around the cybersphere.. where there is even less social convention than there is in real life (and that's saying something in a world where pajama pants are approved public garb), there's bound to be some obnoxious shit going on... considering I'd say roughly 60% of humanity give or take is generally obnoxious. I'm going to walk you through the worst of the worst. If Zuckerberg wasn't such a goddamn greedy dweeb he'd do well to ban these folks from ruining the fun for everyone else. Feel free to disagree.. but deep down, you know I'm probably right. So without further ado and in no particular order, here we go with the most annoying people on the most annoying thing on the planet:

1.) "The Hunny Bunny": to this noxious denizen of the interwebs it's not enough that they actually tricked someone into getting into a relationship with them, they have to overcompensate for whatever happiness may or may not actually exist by ensuring that everyone knows that they are 1/2 of the greatest fucking romantic coupling that ever came to be. You know how it goes.. cutesy exchanges back and forth on the comment section of wall posts and statuses, excessive wall posts exclaiming "love" and protestations of absence, obnoxious pictures where the comment section is a blithe back and forth. Bleh. The worst. If you've ever captioned a picture "Me and my baby!" or put up a status about how "lucky" you are (or, even worse, put up one of those emoticon <3s)... then yeah, you're on my facebook shit list. If you're in a long-distance relationship.. please recognize that facebook is not real life. A text is infinitely more personal than a facebook post.. and significantly less vain as well. If you have to post how "happy" you are on effing facebook, you aren't that happy. (Note: Wedding and/or other countdowns are the worst of the worst. Why are you posting how long until ________? Isn't that something that should be shared between you and your significant other? Are we just going to be doing everything in public view of each other in 5 years like dogs?)


2.) "The itinerary": this individual thinks an appropriate contribution to the world is just listing everything they are doing in an effort to elicit god knows what from people who care what you're eating or how work is going or that you have to drive 45 minutes to somewhere or whatever else boring nonsense you think is appropriate to share with the entire world. How needy and vain are you that you think your daily calendar is worthy of sharing with the public at large? Anyone who actually cared what you were up to would probably ask you.. otherwise, your life is just as boring as everyone else's.. deal with it. I can definitively say that I have never once cared about someone's test or lunch or appointment or any other such mundane shit. If you have ever posted: "Bed then work, ugh". Think about what you're doing.. and stop. If your day is boring to you, how do you think it is to everyone else? I'll give you a hint... extra boring. This is a trend that needs to be snuffed out RIGHT NOW. If you don't have anything worthwhile or at least moderately interesting to say... don't say it.

• 2a.) 2a is an especially annoying subspecies of "the itinerary".. and this is "the sympathy bug". This person complains about their itinerary in an effort to elicit sympathetic comments from their "friends" who for some reason don't recognize blatant desperate attention-seeking nonsense. If you are posting it on facebook.. something that was invented to waste time.. you aren't that busy. If you have more than 20 or so friends, you probably shouldn't be posting things like "3 papers and an exam to go"... because the guy who you randomly friended because you kind of met him once doesn't give two shits. No one held a gun to your head and told you to schedule paper classes, go to law school, etc. Don't complain about shit that was entirely voluntary at your part... unless you're going to at least ATTEMPT to be funny about it.


3.) "The Spelling champ". This person entirely ignores the fact that pretty much every phone and web browser automatically includes spell checking and it's usually auto-correct now and just types basically illegible nonsense in an effort to make sure the world knows how utterly ignorant they are. Is typing "see" instead of "c" really that difficult? Look at your keyboard and notice how close together "s" and "e" are.. it takes literally no effort. How lazy are you? If you've ever typed "wut" instead of "what" you should seriously ponder what in the hell went wrong in your life. Facebook is a text-based medium. Spell-check is a pretty basic computer function. If you honestly can't spell.. I question why you're using a service that requires an inordinate amount of typing to use, but it's a pretty simple computer function to address the issue. Otherwise you're just lazy.. and lazy + dumb is an awful, awful combination. I understand that broadcasting ignorance is par for the course among a decent-sized chunk of the population, but seriously... such pisspoor spelling just makes you look like a dolt. If you've ever typed something about how people are "dumb" and then gone on to mix up "there" and "their" or "your" and "you're"... I suggest you consider ending it, because I fail to see your worth to anyone. At least look into castration to spare future generations of dealing with the results of what you're up to.


4.) "The Soapbox". This person thinks that having a facebook account and access to an rss feed and the copy/paste function makes them an authority of all things under the sun. They might be the very cream of the obnoxious facebook crop. There's a reason politics was a forbidden topic in the French salons... you aren't going to convert anyone, ever. No one has ever read a Huffington Post article and said "wow, you're right" and then switched who they're voting for. If you're using the 'book for politicking purposes, take a look back through your feed. Is everything you post from either HuffPo or Fox News/Wall St Journal? If so, you're completely one-sided and everyone has tuned you out months ago. You have no credibility as a source if you're just regurgitating what's being force-fed you by people with an agenda. Politics doesn't have a "right answer", if it did, any one of the thousands of brilliant people who've attempted over the last few hundred years would have figured them out by now. We're talking about governing large groups of infinitely complex individuals. It's not like there's an equation that can optimize life for every single one of them through a democratically elected system. Both sides are extremely stupid about certain things but also have valid points.. that's why they are followed by roughly 50% of the population. Well, that and people being too afraid to think critically. Having a computer and a keyboard isn't license to pontificate on whatever hot-button issue you see fit. Think about what you're posting before you do so. If you're going to be commenting on things other people are up to, think before you jump in being obnoxious. You wouldn't run up to some dude you overheard on the street and get in their face because they said something you didn't agree with (unless you're a psycho..), so why would you act any differently just because you're on the computer? I mean, if you want to talk like you're an adult and have a productive conversation that's one thing.. but if you're just going to regurgitate talking points and generally be a pawn... seriously, kill yourself.


5.) "The App" - These people are constantly blowing up everything with this or that app they are playing and as a result are probably blocked by 85% of the people they are "friends" with. You do realize that when you click "publish" on your farm or some bullshit "quiz" or whatever, it publishes to every single person you're friends with, right? Congratulations, you're the digital equivalent of the scientologists handing out pamphlets outside of Reds games. I mean, how obnoxious are you? Participating is one thing.. but broadcasting it to every single person? And if you're dumb enough to click on one of those "Miley Cyrus nude video" or "Bin Laden death video" which then gives your computer/facebook a virus that results in you obnoxiously posting on everyone's wall with that same post.. look into taking a warm bath and opening a vein or three. Did you just learn about the internet and the various scams that are abounding on there? Do you often take "Nigerian princes" up on their offers of vast wealth? If so, just stay clear of a computer... you clearly can't handle the responsibility.


6.) "The Creep" - this dude makes me squeamish. He's up to stuff like "liking" pictures of girls in bikinis or (even worse) "commenting" things like "damn girl". Maybe the worst move of all is "liking" when someone is single. Yikes. Way to ruin it for everyone else that just enjoys being creepy in silence, dude. Facebook is a creepy thing, inherently, but when you're just up in everyone's face about the aggressiveness of your particular brand of creep you're doing nothing but branding yourself as a possible date-rape suspect and making everyone uncomfortable. This particular individual completely ignores the fact that online interactions are in fact interactions with living, breathing humans. Treating actual girls like you're at a strip club? Um, yeah. I wish Ed Hardy and "affliction" tshirts secretly contained sarin gas that would be simultaneously released at a UFC fight or swim up bar party or something similar and do some serious and much needed cleansing of our gene pool.


So seriously, Zuckerberg, I know your invention was pretty cool and all and you got a cool movie made about it that made you look like kind of a twitchy spastic badass, but can we get some basic social restrictions in place? Folks are out of control and what not. I don't think that's too much to ask. And if you, loyal reader, find yourself posting questionable shit on the 'book.. just follow these simple instructions... think before you post.