A Mom, a Blog, and the Life In-Between

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The One Where I Lose My Sh** Over Facebook

This rant has been building up in me, and today, I've finally gone over the edge. I've tried to hold this back, tried to not be so petty - but I'm so freaking DONE with this crap that I don't even care if I'm nutty or petty.

I'm so sick of the way people spew all kinds of inane, boring, and utterly-inappropriate-for-a- public-forum crap on FB. It's gotten to the point where I am honestly baffled and incredulous at the utter lack of self-filtering people do.

I've got on my newsfeed people who are constant, perpetual whiners, who have nothing positive or interesting or fun to say, and all they ever post is complaint after complaint after complaint. These folks post every single day about how exhausted they are, how sick they are, how slowly the day is moving, how sucky their day is (and always over the most minor things, like, because, oh no, their sink is clogged!), etc. It's "FML" all over the place - and yes, eff your life for being stuck in traffic or having a long day or having to do something unpleasant or inconvenient. Eff it, indeed.

Then there are the ones who reek of desperation, posting status and check-ins for the sole purpose, it seems, of eliciting reactions. Not to sincerely share or express whatever genuine emotion is attached to what they're sharing, but mainly to present themselves in a certain light that I guess they think is alluring, but which in reality is not. It's desperate and silly. These can either be the fake-modest boastful posts, or the uber-mysterious ones, where someone has constant drama or intrigue, but what exactly it is, no one knows. How many times does one really need to post super-vague, semi-ominous things before they feel satisfied? How many times does one need to have people going, "omg, are you ok?", "hang in there!", "whatever it is, you can beat it!!", "please tell us what's going on??" before their self-esteem is boosted (and let's not get started on how bad things are for you if you need a social media site to boost you in any way)? From the outside, it just looks... sad. People you know in another context, whom you generally like, behaving like this.... it's just sad.

As FB has evolved and become the cultural phenom it has, my feelings about it have, too. However much I enjoy using it, it remains to me a superficial diversion. Maybe this is a key point here, the reason why I this stuff has pushed too many buttons for me. I feel like it's a place where I can post what I think are interesting, funny, thought-provoking or silly things, and where I can chat with people I've known at different times in my life and stay up-to-date on their lives. And while this last part really matters to me, I nonetheless resist giving it any real significance - no matter how *important* it is from a cultural, social or political standpoint, it is not important to me from a personal one. It is not the proper place to pour my personal issues and dramas (though have I posted the seemingly requisite vague posts? A few times, yes), it is not the place I am compelled to rush to to post the inane shit that makes up my day - "uugghhh, work :-(", "time to shower!", "it's raining!!" - nor to expose my unhappiness at whatever thing has gone wrong with my day, nor to post impulsively, without thought or consideration to what exactly it is I'm putting out there.

Can I expect anyone else to feel as I do? No, but I also feel very strongly that there has to be some kind of limit to what is acceptable. I hate how the fact that the newsfeed is a de facto audience, it's given people the (deluded) notion that every aspect of their lives is of interest to anyone but themselves.

It's not.

I want to know what my friends are up to, but not when what they're up to is the same boring nonsense I'm up to. I don't care that you're stuck in traffic, that you have to go to the dentist, that the whole world is against you and you're a helpless victim. I only care about these things if there's a funny or surprising or quirky or interesting story attached to it. I also don't care that you're at Taco Bell, or at the gas station, or at the grocery store, or at home, unless you were in the hospital and you're letting everyone know you're not anymore. If your newsfeed is indeed your audience, can you at least make it worth everyone's time?

And you know where I especially don't care that you're at? A funeral home or cemetery. Because if anything convinces me that social media has obliterated a certain portion of our humanity, if not personal relationships and personal interactions, it's this, this image of someone at a funeral or burial who, instead of at least being respectful, is on their phone, dicking around on a social media site.

Have people forgotten that? That in the end, FB and the like are flippin' websites that can't possibly matter more than the actual people around you? That the way you use these sites speaks volumes about you, sometimes to your own detriment? That you post stuff like this and it's virtually impossible to feel good about it, because really, what am I supposed to do with this? That living your life through the site, or attached to your phone while you post update after update after photo after check-in, isn't living much?

Of course, it begs the question: when so many people do it (and to be fair, the majority of my FB friends are not like this, just a small handful. But I hear from others about their FB friends, and I visit sites like Lamebook, so these people, they're out there in abundance), despite my own feelings about it, does it automatically make it acceptable? Am I too rigid? I can't seem to agree with this. I want to share in my friends' news and lives; I delight when I see them doing something they clearly enjoy or are excited about, when then they share a restaurant or shop or item or link that they enjoyed, when I can see them sharing with no real strings attached. But in the end, we're all mundane to a degree, and I want to be spared that mundaneness (and the melodrama). It's not interesting; it's not fun; it has zero value. And I don't want to be dragged, by virtue of having agreed to *friend* you, into your melodramas, or be forced to feel... something... or have a reaction of some kind because you're posting from a burial. A burial!!

I know we've all been lame in one way or another on FB. Hell, I sure have. I mean, that divorce I went through? My god, did it make me morbid and vague and sometimes ridiculous on FB! I cringe when I think back to that time. But my use of FB has changed as the site's grown in popularity and ubiquity, and as I've been more conscious about reigning my shit in. Because that's the thing: this stuff I'm complaining about, it's rooted in an appalling lack of self-awareness, self-filtering and perspective on the perpetrators' parts. And I guess I have no patience for that anymore.

/rant

Now go enjoy my non-inanity (I save that crap for Twitter) on Facebook.

Labels: facebook, things that irritate me

Posted by Tere @ 9/21/2011 | Permalink |

11 Comments

Mary G posted at 9/21/2011 4:53 PM
Amen!

Yogesh Kumar posted at 9/22/2011 2:41 AM
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Jean posted at 9/22/2011 10:09 AM
I agree, the home page on facebook is now totally overwhelming. I understand that they are competing with twitter and foursquare, but come on.

Emily Vogel posted at 9/22/2011 1:04 PM
I have a running argument with a few friends and my husband that goes like this: "So and so said this on facebook! Can you believe it!" or "So and so didn't comment on my post, or commented too much, or commented in the wrong way, etc, etc". And my reaction Every Single Time is "it's just a stupid website. It's JUST FACEBOOK. It's not life. Get over yourself". Ugh.

Tony Scornavacca Jr. posted at 9/22/2011 10:02 PM
Well written.

Couldn't agree with you more.

DJBOBO posted at 9/25/2011 4:24 AM
Interesting

Anonymous posted at 9/25/2011 6:33 AM
cheers!

Personalized Pens posted at 10/27/2011 12:53 PM
Interesting, FB has many positives for networking..but the drama is ridiculous. It seems to be creating more and more narcissists.

Anonymous posted at 11/09/2011 2:43 PM
ohhh, ok...aren't you the one who exposes your life here on a blog? just checking!

Tere posted at 11/09/2011 3:08 PM
Whatever point you're trying to make failed, anon. A blog is not FB, nor anything remotely like it. And "exposing your life" is not the same as "posting boring, inane crap," nor is subjecting everyone on your newsfeed to that crap vs. visiting a blog by choice (much like you just did).

Good effort, but try better reading comprehension next time.

Anonymous posted at 11/22/2011 4:26 AM
I hear you. When i went through a divorce i went through a morbid but at times semi-spiritual phase myself. Kudos to you. And yes, facebook is tiresome sometimes. Sometimes it's freakin' awesome. Just like life, no? Great post!
Shazaf