Among Facebook’s several design flaws are a number of things that can be avoided if you take the right steps. What I’ve noticed that you can’t avoid are the little angsty preppy teen quotes everyone copy/pastes into their wall. Some of it has been made into business by turning them into things you can like on a “like site” with ads and such on it. Still, these little quotes can still plague your feeds.
No, I’m not even talking about the “Pass this on and your wish will come true! (Really!)” things. Sometimes people will have these nuggets of vague advice they need to share with the world, and today’s technology enables them. Why anyone would pay for a fancy phone to read these things is beyond me (I’m hoping the facebook app isn’t used to check feeds).
Occasionally, emotions will overrun someone’s mind, and force them to post things like “men are awful” against their will. It can be happy emotions, too, like “I have the best girlfriend/boyfriend”. In any given moment, at least 90% of the population that is in a relationship would say they’re in the best one (or at least perfect!). If you ask that same group three years later, unless they were in the same relationship, they would definitely say it wasn’t the best.
Sometimes, they’ll even go as far as condescending to those who don’t happen to have learned from the faults they had in the past. Here’s a quote I saw earlier today:
“(Name) Doesnt care about “girls like bad boys” stereotype. I am dating a nice guy, assholes are overrated and I refuse to date them. Keep your dangerous rebels, emo boys, guys who are more jaded then a hobo living under a bridge hooked on meth, guys who like to seem distant so that the girls will chase them(nice reverse psychology). Ive got a good guy and Im not another statistic.”
Sure, that’s nice. While on the outside this is just another “I’m glad I’m not single at the moment”, it’s only slightly more than that. This person may also want to legitimately help someone else be as happy as she as, but in doing so, she has only formed a statement that fits that claim of a “Perfect relationship” status. Other people will tend to cheer these posts on, with even less insight:
“Amen girl! The good guys are the ones who will still cherish you when you’re old and wrinkly.” & “Scream it sister! Amen“. This will happen regardless of the positive/negative qualities of the post they care commenting on.
I’ve seen this sort of thing hundreds of times. It’s generally an early relationship thing, where one is just happy to be with someone, and the arguments haven’t started yet. This happiness from just being with someone is what prevents relationship-straining topics like “What is your opinion on abortion?” from coming up early on. There’s a point in the beginning of a relationship where you’d prefer to be floating in your brain’s happy chemicals than know if the relationship is genuinely going to last. But I’ve arrived at a tangent at this point.
But there are much worse cases of low-quality Facebook posts. These are generally centered around the party/drinking culture. I’ve included in this post a screen capture of one of these posts by someone that is an emerging celebrity. Seems as though ten people like that this person is drunk. This post was commented on later, but before that point, there were a bunch of people that saw the word “drunk” and immediately found some sort of amusement there. Either that, or for some reason ten creeps thought they were going to score online or something impossible like that.
There are also some religion propaganda to help deepen your level of indoctrination, but that’s another topic for another day.
I could just be overthinking this, though. Maybe Facebook is just somewhere thinking doesn’t belong. I went there to connect to people, and I got way more than I wanted. I guess the general public is whatever the popular social site at the time makes it, which would mean Facebook is to blame for enabling these people to feel good about their existence without actually doing anything of value. It’s no place for my social commentary, art, inventions, psychology, or philosophy. That’s quite a shame, really, since these things (not mine in particular, but everyone who provides such things) bring legitimate lasting pleasure to people in the big picture. After all, it’s nerdy stuff (computers, smart phones, and other tech you’re spoiled with at this point that only nerds had three years ago) that you’re using to read this and post stuff on Facebook.
Related Blog Post by Bob Waack.
Minor note: While I’m aware I may upset people with this post, the intention is to educate, not anger.
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I, too, have always wondered about the legitimacy of the “perfect relationship.” Although it’s none of my business to interfere with people’s personal lives, I find it obnoxious how terrible the rest of us seem in comparison to this new boyfriend/girlfriend. There’s that, and the part about drunk posting was nailed on the head perfectly.