Monday, October 6, 2008

It's a book for your face.

Ah, facebook. I got one last year because a friend of mine wanted to show me some photos. For some reason I could only view them on facebook. Go figure. And my facebook profile was born.

Facebook is an endless source of amusement. Not because I play Dope Wars or send sheep to people or whatever, but for the social aspect of it all. That news feed tells you everything, from where people went on the weekend to if their relationship is complicated or not. Fascinating.

Here are some things that amuse me about facebook:

1. The hot friend in the profile photos
I have most of the girls in my grade added to facebook. There is one particular girl who was rather popular back in the day (and still is I suppose). Pretty and smart, heaps of people wanted to be her friend. So I couldn't help but giggle when I noticed that about five or so girls on facebook had this particular girl in their profile picture. Perhaps they were hoping they would appear pretty and popular by default? Or maybe some random facebook babe would add them? That would be a strange conversation.

"You look beautiful in that photo."
"Oh, why thankyou."
"You have really cool blonde hair."
"Oh, no, that's my friend. I'm the fatter, greasier, pimplier, less attractive one on the left."
"...oh."

2. Passive-aggressive status updates
I saw one the other day saying something like, "[name] wishes SOMEONE would get off their lazy arse". I have a hunch that the person they were talking about was their housemate. Who is on their friends list and, via the News Feed function, would have seen it.

I now realise that this entire entry (nay, this entire blog really) is pretty passive-aggressive in itself. But that's okay, because I'm a dirty hypocrite.

3. Um, who are you again?
I occasionally get a friend request from someone I have never seen in my life. On closer inspection and a bit more stalking, I usually find out that we have a very tenuous link - usually
that we went to the same school but weren't in the same year and never once spoke to each other or socially interacted in any way.

Why? I just don't understand. Why would you want to communicate with someone who was two years above you in school? It's bad enough when girls in my grade add me, and they're people who I either didn't talk to or thought I was a freak. Ah, the joys of an angsty youth...

4. Facebook addicts who are obviously new at using the internet.
There was a fellow who added me a while back. He was a regular at my work. Anyway, I had to end up deleting him because I had about 200 requests from him to grow plants, send chocolate, take sexy quizzes etc. And then there were all those SuperPokes. Innappropriately dirty ones too, which was a bit worrying. On closer inspection, I realised that he sent the same things to everybody on his friends list.

What's the point? If I had accepted all of his requests, my profile probably would have crashed and the internet would have exploded. It's not cute or fun to do 200 facebook things; it's annoying. I use facebook to send messages, upload photos, play poker and stalk people. That's it. I really cannot be bothered to join a facebook mafia or race cars or grow teddy bears or whatever.

5. Friendship: DELETED
You know you've really pissed someone off in this day and age when they delete you from their friends list. OH NO! Now who will I throw Pokemon at?




And I haven't even gotten started on myspace. It's more or less the same really, though you tend to see more passive-aggressive bulletins. And more weird friend requests. Please enjoy viewing this person, who attempted to start a myspace friendship with me.

2 comments:

Peter Taggart said...

I don't have a facebook and mark my words...I will be the last person in the world to ever get one. It started off with me thinking that facebook was a bit wanky and thats why I didnt want one, but now it is all about being aggresively defiant. I want to prove a point, but I dont really understand why and what the point is. Almost everyone in my family has a facebook, including my 50 year old mother - who, the other day, was asked to be the friend of a girl who use to bully my sister in primary school...WTF?!?

Anonymous said...

Oh man, I haven't been on Facebook in forever. I've found it has a pretty short lifespan if you have better things to do on the Internet; once the novelty of all the quizzes and throwing sheep at one another dies off, you sort of abandon it and never look back.

Not to say I don't enjoy hurling sheep at people. No, siree.

OH, AND: I have a Facebook story! This girl I knew from high school - knew in the most tenuous sense, we never spoke - wanted to add me. At the time, I only wanted FRIENDS on my friendslist, shocker, and declined.

She added me again. I said no. She added me again. I said no.

About forty times later, she still hadn't gotten the hint, and asked 'do u have somethin against me'. At which point I sighed and added her. She now sits silently on my friendslist. We still never speak.

Ah, Facebook. The epitome of pointlessness.

~ Aaron

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