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Facebook? Well, it used to be good. Recently, it’s become, well, shit. And you know why?
It’s because of you. Yes, you.
You are ruining Facebook. You, and your mother.
Facebook was alright, once. Maybe a year or two back. Since then, it’s increasingly become a vapid experience.
I’m not the first person to notice this deterioration, granted. Jennifer Mattern got there before me. And so did on-again/off-again Facebook devotee, Sugarrae.
But they didn’t go far enough.
Facebook needs direction. Specifically, the people who use it need direction. It’s about time somebody drew up a list of rules. That somebody is me. Here’s your list.
It’ll hurt at first, but you’ll thank me by the end.
The Status
Changing your status every five minutes is retarded. Nobody cares if you’re tired, eating dinner, playing the fucking banjo or taking a shit. Save the change for something significant or meaningful, or do us all a favour and go for a bit of a one-off. Especially if you’re really boring and/or mostly despised. And always be honest. Lying in your status is not cool.
Some examples of good status remarks:
“Stephanie is getting checked at the clinic. You probably should too (Bob).”
“Tim hates his first name. Hates it.”
“Rachel hates being a goth, but looks like this to fit in. She lies to herself that wearing black all the time makes her unique. Inside, she’ll always be daddy’s princess. Why did he have to go to prison?”
“John died.”
The last one is particularly useful as you’ll never have to change it again.
The Poke
Look, let me get this out of the way immediately. Any time you poke another person - any time - it means you want to have sex with them.
This is particularly true if you are a man. It is also true if you are a man poking another man. Would you ‘poke’ your male friends in real life? Maybe you would. Maybe you’re one of those guys who like to ‘wrestle’ with his male friends, Women In Love-style, probably after a few beers, and maybe some porno. I, for one, do not engage in such frivolities. This is because I am not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Being gay, that is. Wrestling with your male friends is, conversely, always wrong, especially if you’re straight. Or claim to be. It’s okay if you’re gay. I mean, I guess. I don’t know. I’m not an expert.
There’s an exception to this rule - just because a woman is poking a man does not necessarily means she wants to have sex with him. She still might - the chance is about, oh, 84.3 per cent that she does. Women are, mostly, like men - gagging for it, especially online. And if they’re ugly. But there are exceptions. Much like in real life where we all know several really hot women who give the impression they are flirting with you when really they are just being polite, there are hot women on Facebook too (honest) who utilise the poke feature for little more than that for which it was originally intended - as a kind of virtual handshake.
And women poking women isn’t so bad, either. In real life, women do all kinds of crazy hot shit like pyjama parties, pillow fights, trying on each other’s bras and making out and stuff. On Facebook, it’s only natural that this kind of thing is going to happen as well. It’s only natural because it is natural.
This is not the case for men, though. Ever. If you’re poking another man, you want him. Bad. The clue is in the word, see? Poke.
The Wall
Nobody needs more than one wall. Nobody. And nobody needs a Funwall, Superwall, Really Super Wall or whatever else piece of crap is floating around Facebook right now. All you need is the Wall. Yes, that’s right - the one that came with Facebook.
Here’s the rule - anyone who has more than one type of wall on their profile is (a) a git, and (b) an attention whore of the highest magnitude who must be deleted from your friend list immediately and without delay.
If you need any kind of proof just compare the content and calibre of poster on the normal, Facebook-default wall to the bucket of shite that is on every single Funwall and Superwall that each and every complete and utter moron deemed essential to his or her existence. If I wanted to see hilarious animals using pigeon English, men with inanimate objects buried in their sphincters and outtakes from American Idol I’d find them on the other three billion websites that focus on that content. And then kill myself.
The Relatives
Having a sibling on your friends list is passable. I mean, you can just about get away with your brother being on there, your sister (especially if she’s hot - unless you’re poking her a lot [in all senses]), and even a cousin or something like that is acceptable. Unless they’re your only friend, when it’s just lame.
What isn’t acceptable is having your parents on there. Your parents are not your friends. When you think about it, you probably don’t even like them. In all actuality, you hate them. Or at least you should. Here’s a tip: your friends can see who your other friends are. What, you want them poking your mother? And on Facebook? (Respect). If you live the sort of life where you’re not only okay about your parents knowing most of the detail - which includes, of course, what your friends are doing, too, thanks to the mini-feed (they’ll be thrilled) - but you actually encourage it by including them amongst all the other people unfortunate enough to be classified by you as a friend, then you simply must be stopped. At all costs.
Think of your friends list this way: if you wouldn’t invite them to an orgy, they shouldn’t be on there.
I’m talking to you. If you’re one of those desperate people who has their mother or their father in their friends list: close your Facebook account, turn off the monitor, unplug the computer and then smash it up.
The Internet does not want you.
The Friends
Do not add people to your friends list who you don’t know. This isn’t MySpace. It isn’t some kind of lame contest. If you haven’t met them in real life or known them online for years, they aren’t your friend. They’re just a person. It isn’t a Same Species List. And even if it was, you wouldn’t be on it.
This goes double for celebrities. Unless you know them, then, one, you do know that isn’t really them, right? And two, you don’t fucking know them.
Yes, they call it social networking. But they don’t really mean it. That’s just a gimmick. A clever play on words like ‘lipstick lesbian’ or ‘life partner’, i.e., it doesn’t exist in real life.
The Applications
They all suck. All of them. Even Scrabulous after a dozen or so games. And the reason why is quite simple - they all live and die on the behaviour of everybody else. And everybody on Facebook sucks. Especially your mother.
We all know that anyone who engages in the werewolf/vampire/pirate shit is a total muppet. Two chumps infected? Yeah, with that disease you call a personality. But it’s got far worse than that. Facebook opening up application development to external programmers seemed like a good idea at the time but has actually turned out to be a total disaster. Because they’re all shit. Sure, most of them give the illusion of being something you’d like for, oh, five minutes, during which time most of you seem to find it essential to spam said application to all of your friends. Then you, and they, realise it was actually shit after all, but by then it’s too late. That shit has gone viral. Which means every time the few remaining non-social spastics left on Facebook log on to their accounts, we have to spend the first half an hour adding your stupid application requests to our spam lists.
I don’t give a fuck if you took some likeness quiz. I know I’m not like you.
The only Facebook application that is in any way useful is Compare People. Especially if your friends think you’re great (like mine do). Being number one rules. If, however, your friends think you suck - which they inevitably do - Compare People is like the social networking equivalent of the ‘slow and horrible’ option of the Suicide Booth in Futurama. Over time, it’ll slowly erode your confidence until you decide you’d rather not continue with this world any more. That despite all the Funwalls, werewolves, celebrity friends and pokes from your grandmother, it’s just not worth it.
You’ll end up topping yourself.
And that’s why it’s useful.
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Funniest thing I’ve read in ages.
I’m totally posting this all my friends on facebook
Sheamus, great post and I can’t agree with you more. FB is a fad and like all fads, it will have to die soon.
Check out: http://cultureslurp.com/2008/04/22/3-reasons-why-facebook-will-die-soon/