Why I Love to Hate Facebook
If you use facebook you may find the following post offensive, either that or a breath of fresh air. I use facebook. It does have some good points to it. You can stay in touch with people who you normally wouldn’t talk to, find people from your past, keep up to date with events happening in your circle of friends and best of all maintain that “delayed” form of communication. You know what I’m talking about..the “conversation someone starts with you that you really don’t want engage in, but you feel good that they wrote you conversation.” That’s where the fun stops on facebook though!
I’ve noticed in the past few months the site is being littered with ego maniacs who simply use the thing to make themselves feel better. I’ll run through a few of my pet peeves.
It’s nice to talk to people from your past about what they’re doing now. When I’m asked “what are you up to?” I usually respond with a “living and working in Ottawa..you?” (I am very proud about my job but I think it’s a little ego centric to write back a response like “I’m on air at the biggest and best F-ing rock station in Ottawa and quite possibly Canada”) I actually feel bad for those in my past who need to write every minor detail of anything good that’s happened in their life since we last talked. Really? You’re life is soo good that you need to tell me all that? I think there should be certain etiquette to the “what’s new?” question. Keep it to where you live and work, if you’ve got kids and if you’re married. Once a person has that information they can decide what else they want to know.
I’ll try to keep my frustration about people in the media on facebook to a minimum. There are some in my line of business who’s ego’s are soo fragile I think when they wake in the morning if someone doesn’t tell them that they are the center of the universe and that they are the most special butterfly in the world they will be on the brink of suicide all day. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones who add you to their friends list when you don’t even know who they are. So these fragile little flowers add everyone that they can come into contact with so that they end up with what appears to be thousands of “fans”. When the “fans” ask the obvious, “Who are you?” they just simply delete them. The sad thing about people in the media on facebook is that this is only the start. There are some who have set up their own “Fan Sites!” That’s right! The person who is the subject of the “fan” site creates the site themselves, and then proceeds to beg people to post on it so that they appear even more popular. In general it’s safe to say that if you’ve created your own “fan club” we all know who your biggest fan is…YOU!
Now I know you may be thinking that CHEZ has used facebook in the past. In regards to that we didn’t do it for notoriety or fans…we did it for the people who wanted to know when we would all pee on Jeff Brown’s jersey as well from time to time we post where we’ll be broadcasting from live so that you can show up get bonus codes and maybe score yourself a deal on whatever store we’re at. You see the difference here? One is all about the individual the other is all about the actual “fans”.
Now if you’re not using facebook and your thinking “why on earth would you ever want to join this thing?” it’s simple…Everyone’s doing it man! You gotta try this stuff…yup it’s just like every other addiction out there. You get in for your first hit and then you just keep coming back for more!
August 21st, 2007 at 3:09 am
Facebook is driving me nuts too - what I hate is that the instant I signed up, there were already more than 100 people in my “friends” list. I think it just went through my email contacts, and signed up everyone I have ever sent an email to who was already on facebook. And I just blindly click OK whenever someone adds me. So now I have a ridiculous amount of “friends”, 50 percent of whom I have no idea who they are. In fact, I’ve only added one person myself, intentionally - and it was you!
August 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Facebook is cool, in that I’ve been able to catch up with some people that I haven’t hard from in a helluva long time. Robin very accurately describes the typical conversations that go on in that instance. What I find annoying (in that it’s rather awkward) is that once you’ve had that ‘catch-up’ email exchange, they’re still there, as you’re “friend”. But they’re NOT my friend! They’re an acquaintance at best!
Facebook has also given me a horrifying glimpse into the lives of some acquaintances - with the add-ons that are available. They have all these useless, crappy do-dads on there (pardon me for the grandfatherish word choice) that must have taken hours and hours to add, play with, update…and suddenly you realize - oh my god, this thing is their whole life! This is ALL they do!
That said….I log on once a day.