Facebook's greatest fallacies

I love facebook. And yet, I hate it.

There is much about facebook that is useful and good and just plain awesome. We can socialise across the world, stay in contact with friends, and even talk to people that we went to junior school with- people whom we would normally never hear from again until a reunion fifty years later where we discover that they in fact died eight years previously. Facebook also opens up your world to an endless world of possibilities and ideas that we never would have come across. I must admit that it was through facebook that I discovered my love for experimental hiphop and dubstep, and was able to find new artists to listen to. In a nutshell, facebook is what we would refer to in internet culture as win.

However, there is so much about facebook that makes me rage with pure, unadulterated and unfiltered frustration. I will break these down into their simplest, rage-inducing points. They range from giving me a slight niggling feeling of annoyance followed by a facepalm, to full on rage, with a long “FFFFFUUUUUUU” and wild gestures aimed at the world of today in general (some so bad I feel like becoming an hero).

First of all, Friend adds. Yes, everyone has friends. However, let us just be honest with ourselves. Who, in all seriousness, has 883 friends? It seems that the world is trying desperately to force the Oxford English dictionary to change the definition of “friend” from “a person you know well and regard with affection and trust” to “someone I met randomly, I think we said hi to one another in that club a couple of weeks ago.” Oh, and adding friends as siblings: not cool.

Next: Personal Information. This is such a useful tool: it tells us basically who you are, where you are from, and generally what you are interested in. However, many see this as an opportunity to be quirky and random, and do things that transcend the boundaries or idiocy. Instead of posting something true or meaningful, people take the opportunity to write something false and usually arrogant. Some even go so far as to put a lame inside joke as their middle name or nickname. My sister put hers as “Wingnut” for reasons still unknown to me; another friend lists his middle name as “Still Procrastinating” and I almost clicked ‘unfriend’.

Stupid info I have come across:

• Religious views: Basketball is my religion and Steve Nash is my God!!!
• Religious views: Dassiesm- power of the dassie!!!
• Political views: Screw Authority!!!

Which brings us onto the point of Privacy. I cannot tell you how many times the abovementioned individuals with said plethora of friends have complained that they have friends they don’t even know, or that random individuals comment on their activity. Firstly, if there isn’t someone you want reading or commenting, you shouldn’t have accepted their friend request in the first place, or better yet just REMOVE THEM. At the very least, change your privacy settings to “Friends only”, so that only people you know can view or comment on your activity.

Extending on this last point, is the sometimes idiocy of having family members on facebook. Sure, it is nice (at maybe one time in your life) to have your parents on facebook, but let us be honest with ourselves: having them acting as a watchdog over our profiles just restricts the freedom that the internet is supposed to give you. Put in simple terms: you don’t have your parents reading your SMS, instant message and real life conversations with your friends because that is just plain stupid. Many a time I have had a comment or post of mine deleted followed by a message to the effect of “my mom will see this”. I usually reply “tell your mom 'tits or GTFO'”. In rare cases it might be in the best interest of parents so see what their children are up to online (maybe if their children are 4 years old and therefore should not even be anywhere near the internet), but in this particular example it is just silly and unnecessary.

Next on the rack: Statuses. These are usually inane, random and meaningless, and, for the vast majority, in English so bad it looks like the person had an epileptic fit on his keyboard.

Top Dumb status genres

• Song Lyrics.
• Vague statuses posted with the intent of talking about someone or stressing (in a passive way) one’s frustration/unhappiness/disappointment at someone
• Statuses directed at significant others without the use of the addressing @sign
• “Memorable” and “inspiring” quotes from generic sports or feel-good movies
•  Anything with “omg” or “lol”, no matter how much of a Valley Girl you are.
• Anything with a “quirky” sign like <3, or any form of Textese.
• Any status containing more than one smiley, or more than one exclamation mark in a row.
• Any status that is ‘Liked’ by the person who posted it. That is kinda like masturbating to your reflection in the mirror.
• Any status is ALL CAPS. It is not, contrary to popular belief, cruise control for cool.
• Any status with a mixture of uppercase and lowercase characters.
• Anything related to how awesome the upcoming weekend will be. These statuses come EVERY seven day cycle, and are therefore redundant
• Anything related to how much you hate your boss/a subject at school/exams/life in general
• Statuses pretending to hold great depth, insight and profundity: this is facebook, people, not a self-help forum.
• Anything pertaining to Twilight.
• Statuses written in a language you don’t speak. Any tool can use Google translate.
• Etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Bad status genres are too numerous to mention.

It is actually rather amusing that the abovementioned statuses are usually posted by the same individuals over and over again.

The most awesome brainless examples I can think of:

• Girl wat u don understand Is i'd catch a GRENADE 4 u..Throw ma hand on a BLADE 4 u..I'd jump infront of a TRAIN 4 u..Yeah i'd do ANYTHIN 4 ya..C i wud go thru all this PAIN..Take a bullet straight through ma BRAIN.. Yes i wud DIE 4 u baby..BUT YOU WON'T DO THE SAME...!!!
• I'm that STAR up in e sky.. I'm that mountain PEAK up high.. Hey i made It.. I'm e WORLDS GREATEST..!! I'm that lil bit of HOPE.. When ma backs up against e ropes, hey i made It.. Yeah i'm e WORLDS GREATEST...!!! :-)

Note the use of the lowercase ‘i’? *Author facepalms so hard that the back of his head aches*.

This brings us to the next frustrating point: Comments. Secretly, we all want everyone of our friends to like and comment on our statuses. To feel loved, accepted. To be cool. But after reading some comments on facebook I want to cut out my own eyes with a fork and die in a pool of my own blood. The worst are comments that have a serious message or meaning, which are then suddenly covered up or made meaningless by the inclusion of a smiley or false  “ahahahahaha!” or even , God forbid, a ‘lol’. For example: “OMG gurl you are such a hoe slut you got no idea lol hahahahahha luvz ya J”. Best example (again, by the same individuals over and over again):

• NO RAUF I WANT 2 MARRY AMY DHA hahahahahahaha and Only mad bcoz u dnt understand dat AMY is WAY out of ur league and will neva say yes to goin out wit u bcoz of who u R DDDDHHHAAAAA when will u get that and u just make urself luk stupid by replyin my comment SO take my advice and shut the hell up hahahahahahahahahahaha and yes take dat from a form 1 cos u r so smart ...isnt dat rite

Now Grammar. Now, let us be clear: I love English. Being editor of the Opinion section of the campus newpaper (the better one), and a bit of an obsessive compulsive when it comes to grammar and simple spelling that a four year (the one that isn’t on facebook because he/she is not old enough), merely being on facebook is enough to make me depressed. 4chan might be where the internet goes to die (or the intRwebz, as I like to call them), but facebook is where English finds its final resting place. Facebook was invented as a convenience and time-saver for you. It isn’t like an SMS or Tweet on Twitter (God, THAT is subject for another day) that is limited to a certain number of characters and therefore necessitates the use of text slang, cutting out all vowels, and other such methods that shorten what one is trying to say. But the whole point of facebook is that it has already saved you all the time and money that you need to communicate accurately and comprehensively. Also, you are online for FFFFFUUUUUU!-sakes: if you don’t know the meaning or spelling of a word (and even I sometimes don’t) just open a new tab and look it up! At the very least you will learn something or avoid looking like a total retard with your post being on Failbook or Lamebook.

Next up on the chopping block: Advocacy. No don’t get me wrong: I think huge social issues and drives should be supported, and many merit the use of as many communication portals as possible to gain support and attention. However, the use of silly memes (“I like it on the...”, anyone?) and posts put up with the sole intention of guilting you into following their cause have no place on me wall (hence why I click the little blue ‘X’ and say ‘Hide’; possible Rage averted). I think the worst are the kind that say something along the lines of “everyone has 10 000 wishes; Cancer victims have only one: to get better. 93% won’t post this as their status”. First of all, I personally am not that greedy when it comes to wishes. Secondly: 93%? Exactly? Because that doesn’t sound at all like a bullshit, made-up statistic aimed at evoking feelings of guilt. And woe betide anyone who comments and tries to show the silliness of such posts: I did so, at my own peril, and ended up having a huge blowout with one of my closest friends. One would think that close friends wouldn’t see facebook activity as an indication of real personality. Oh, and having a huge online reaction and ‘holier that thou’ attitude is stupid. You are just feeding the troll. Never feed the troll.

Another annoying aspect: applications. These are vastly useless and pointless, and, though they used to be easy enough to access, now require you jump through more hoops and tests than forty trained circus animals to “prove that you are human”. I mean, what is wrong with the Captcha system that the rest of the bloody internet uses to foil bots and programs from creating false accounts? And please, please, never even mention the word Farmville. Another wonderful application: Photos. This usually consists of photographs (obviously) of the two times that human beings take photos: users posting self-portraits in strange quirky poses; or, alternatively, drunken nights out.

Photos and albums that make me want to wash my face with battery acid:

• Any album with the word “random” used anywhere.
• Self portraits, especially those taken whilst driving.
• Any photo that someone posts and then comments on saying how fat/ugly they are. These are always invariably followed by one of their 883 friends saying, “oh no hunz lol ur so beautifl u alwys r k luv u hunz 4eva BFF mwa” or something to that effect.

Now it’s time for the ‘Like’ (by far the worse and most cringe-worthy) function of facebook to step up to the guillotine. Two friends of mine once came up on my news feed with the report “X likes ‘[generic subject]’ and 435 other pages.” All that went through my mind was “obviously none of them are ‘real life’”. Whoever came up with this needs to be castrated lest his offspring inherit some of his genius. Or better yet, shoot the bastard before he has kids.

In all of  these aspects facebook takes a graceful swan dive off the highest pedestal of my respect and lands face first on a rock covered in a layer of pig shit made purposefully thin so that the diver dies a horrific, painful death accompanied by a wonderful new sound consisting of a satisfying crunch and a sickening splat. Of course, at the end of it all I have to stick my hand up and join the countless guilty faces in admitting that even I sometimes infringe these simple No-Nos. Lyrics in my status? Check. “What happened last night? Got so wasted!”? Double check. So in hindsight, I am sorry if I made you scream out in frustration. I am trying to mend my ways. I think that after all is said and done, you can’t take facebook too srsly (zOMG, did I just make this whole article redundant?!). It has its fallacies and its uses, but at the end of the day, it is merely a fun bit of silliness that you log on repeatedly to pretend that you have real frie... I mean, to socialise with people no matter where you are on the globe.

Oh, and if you read this and recognise yourself/your post, don't rage.

Change it.