Other than getting Facebook in 2007, I am a slow adopter of social media. I had Twitter for a bit before I got bored with it, didn’t see the point of Instagram, and multiple people have pushed me to get Snapchat, but I just can’t be bothered. The point of this is that I consider myself a social media curmudgeon. I look at my Facebook feed every day and think, “Why. Why do people do this?” I do not understand young people today.
Here are some things that instantly make me roll my eyes and cringe:
Couples posts
You know them: they’re so in love and they want everyone to know it. They’ll post kissing pictures, update their statuses with glowing comments every time their significant other does something nice but mundane like make them breakfast.
They’ll constantly post about how much they love them (congratulations, you love the person you’re dating), and they might even say explicitly or implicitly sexual things. They’ll call them “boo” or “bae” and constantly trumpet their love from the rooftops.
It’s nauseating. Go away. This bothers me so much that I almost never post about my boyfriend and there are only about six pictures of the two of us on Facebook. I also felt weird about posting on Valentine’s Day, even though he got me the complete box set of A Song of Ice and Fire, which is objectively awesome.
Constant updates on an event
Sometimes, people have exciting things going on in their lives. They’re moving, they’re going on vacation, they have a new job. That’s great! Maybe, in specific cases, I would be happy hearing about it once. But most people aren’t happy just talking about it once.
There’s the guy who’s apartment hunting and tweets about every little detail and thought process he has. There’s the girl moving to another country and constantly doing a countdown with her own hashtag. There are the people who post constantly about their weddings. There’s the guy who went on vacation once and is constantly reminding us that he went that one time. People barely care the first time; they certainly do not care the tenth time.
Self promotion
I could be biased here because I have a Facebook full of journalists, which pretty much requires self-promotion. That doesn’t stop me from not caring about your stupid articles. The occasional article is fine. But if you post literally everything you write, constantly promote your own business page (which, to be clear, is just you), and/or ask me to donate to your Kickstarter or Patreon, I am going to unfollow you. Especially if you quote yourself and especially if you compliment yourself.
Selfies
Once in awhile is okay. One before every semi-significant day in your life? Go away.
Mundane statuses
The core of all these arguments is that people think others care more about them and their lives than they do. Nowhere is this thrown more into sharp relief than with the mundane status. “Going to the grocery store, then home.” “I’m wearing rubber boots today.” “I don’t know what to make to eat.”
I would really like to get into the head of the person who writes this. “Man, people REALLY need to hear that I’m eating chips while watching a movie.” Social media is an extremely easy way to make yourself look better – that’s why most of these annoyances exist. So why would you actively make yourself sound like the most boring person alive?
Oversharing
Did you just get a nipple pierced? Did you just have sex with your significant other (the nadir of this unfortunate trend being after-sex selfies)? Did you write an article about your bloodbath of a period? Good for you, literally no one wants to hear it. These same people would (hopefully) not go up to a complete stranger and talk about what they did in bed last night, so they should not broadcast it to the Internet. Everyone is cringing reading these.
So how does one become not-annoying on Facebook? Well friends, apparently it is more difficult than people think. Here are some tips: be funny, do not clog the newsfeed, and put some thought into what people do and do not care about. Everyone is going to make a misstep and nobody is going to post something appreciated by everybody. But maybe just put half a thought into what will appeal to your audience.
