To Play Us Out

Facebook. To some people, it’s a website. To others, it’s something just short of a religion. I’d like to think I’m somewhere in the middle. But I’ll admit that sometimes I feel myself praying for a notification or bowing down to my latest friend request.

I got on the Facebook bandwagon semi-late, not creating a profile until earlier this year. Almost twelve months later, I’m still not sure I made the right decision in joining. Listen, I’m as addicted as any of you. If you recall, I created a fucking game to go along with Facebook. A few times, I’ve been stunned to realize that I have Facebook open on three tabs while I’m on the Internet. So I’m not going to sit here as some self-righteous know-it-all and tear down the website we all love. But that’s not to say I don’t have a lot of problems with it. And it’s not even so much Facebook itself that I have bones to pick with. It’s what I will deem “abuses” by misguided users that really, to quote Peter Griffin, grind my gears.

At the forefront of these abuses is the god-forsaken status update. I’ll confess I’ve used it before, usually writing something like “rooting for the Bengals.” I’ve even gone emo once or twice and posted a song lyric. What I refuse to tolerate are people who are so narcissistic that they believe everyone wishes to know the exact details of every second of their lives. You know what I’m talking about:

6:56 PM Atlas Jobinson is worrying about that math exam tomorrow.

6:59 PM Atlas Jobinson is better start studying for that exam.

7:07 PM Atlas Jobinson is watching the game instead of studying.

7:10 PM Atlas Jobinson is taking a shower.

7:26 PM Atlas Jobinson is no more facebook!!! time for studying >:(

7:29 PM Atlas Jobinson is can’t focus.

For anyone who’s ever done anything like this, I’ve got a message for you: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. No one cares about your exams. No one cares about your bathing schedule. Just shut the fuck up. Unless your next status update is “…jumping off the roof of a tall building while engulfed in flames, landing on a street in the midst of a gang war, and being mercilessly beaten by a large man named Dog,” I don’t want to hear anymore.

There is only one other violation regarding status updates that I think is worse than what I mentioned above: the dreaded “bored…call/text!!” I’ve told the other members of this blog that if I ever wrote anything like that in my status, they have permission to smother me with a pillow until I die.

I’d like to know the success rate of these “call/text” people. Does anyone ever actually get a response? I’m going to go ahead and guess no. Why? Because people look at the words “call/text” and all they see is “pathetic faggot.” No one is going to see your status and think “Oh, gee-willigers. I haven’t spoken with that fine young lad in a while. Perhaps I’ll give him a jingle.” If you’re openly begging for some sort of contact, you belong in a facility for the mentally disturbed. The list of people I hate most in the world goes 1) Oprah Winfrey 2) “Call/text” people 3) Al-Qaeda.

The next complaint on the agenda involves applications. I honestly can’t fathom how the creator of Facebook was smart enough to create the world’s greatest social networking tool, yet stupid enough to allow a fucked up feature like “applications.” Lately, it’s been a barrage of “You’ve had a snowball thrown at you!” Well, isn’t that lovely. I haven’t got a clue what the hell that means. I wish you could reply by “throwing a lobotomy” at the prick that sent the snowball.

But the snowball frenzy isn’t as bad as some of the shit that normally comes down the application tunnel. You can always count on: “CuntMuffin McDouche is now a third-level Dragon Slayer! Click here to join him on his quest!” Last I checked, we’re not at Hogwarts fighting Hungarian Horntails during the Triwizard Tournament. The one that really pisses me off, though, is: “So-and-so has rated you the third best to be stuck in handcuffs with!” Usually, this is a person that you haven’t spoken with in years. Yet somehow, the next time’s she gets arrested, you’re third on her list to be right there next to her.

Next up in the sights of my bitching gun is pictures. This one is mostly aimed at the ladies. I’ve seen entire albums devoted to people sitting around in a dorm room doing nothing. A person sitting at a desk is not captivating material. Then you get the drunk albums, usually titled something emotional/nostalgic/gay like “i wouldnt trade these times for the world!!!!” Every picture is just another shot of a drunken chick flicking the camera off, or hugging everyone in sight, or trying to look gangster, or on the verge of passing out. We get it. You like to party. Great. But you know what? The majority of us have been drunk before. It’s not that big of a deal. You don’t need to turn into Ken Burns and document the whole thing. The next time you’re about to add all your pictures, just think about this. Yeah.

Finally, I was going to go off on a tangent about people who write Facebook “Notes,” and how they’re psychotic, and how nobody actually reads them, and how people should just keep their thoughts to themselves…and then I realized I’m writing on a blog. Fuck me.