Facebook (or as elderly individuals call it, “The Facebook”) is both a blessing and a curse. It’s great for keeping in touch with people or being a stalker without having charges pressed against you, but it is also home to many pitfalls. I was on “The Twitter” yesterday and came across an intriguing Trending Topic: 10 Facebook Tips. After thinking about it for a while, I came to the realization that people do A LOT of stupid things on Facebook. I know that no one should have to cater to the interests and opinions of their friends while doing their thang online, but nonetheless there IS a set of unspoken social conventions that relate specifically to Facebook that everyone really must adhere to in order to make all of our lives better. You can tell it’s important because I was just forced to use a run-on sentence to sum up my feelings. And I don’t like run-on sentences. Anyways, are you new to the Facebook world? Well, as a congratulatory gift for finally crawling out from that rock you’ve been stuck under for the last decade, I have prepared a list of the Ten Commandments of Facebook. Read on, take notes (probably by hand since you’re clearly not tech savvy), and memorize these rules if you don’t want your social networking peers to hate you.
1. Thou Shalt Not Share Thine Own Profile Picture
I can’t remember when “Likes” became a thing on Facebook, but people go NUTS for those bad boys. I think they’ve become a sort of status symbol, and some people will really do anything to ensure that their photos, posts and links receive an adequate amount. One popular method that is often employed in order to gain more likes is sharing your own profile picture. For those of you who are unfamiliar with sharing, it basically makes your picture pop up on your friends’ homefeeds again and again until the image is all but burned into their retinas. Sharing other people’s stuff is totally okay, and if you’re really that set on breaking the triple digits on that new selfie of yours you could probably just get your friend to share it and pretend they’re just a nice person. But repeatedly sharing your own? Not okay. No matter how many likes or comments you get from it, you still shared your own picture. Even if you really do look awesome in it, it’s embarrassing.
2. Thou Shalt Not Send Needless App Requests
Once upon a time when everyone clearly needed a hobby, there was a thing called Farmville. Farmville was a Facebook app that allowed people to make quaint little virtual farms and pick cute little virtual crops. A part of me will forever be convinced that by playing Farmville we were somehow controlling agricultural endeavours in Third World countries, but that’s a story for another time. Anyways, the point here is that Farmville was hot shit at the time, and it wasn’t uncommon to receive several requests for the application in the span of a day. Alas, people eventually realized that virtual farming was a new low for society, and the trend stopped. Facebook apps were all but forgotten, and one would expect that app requests would stop too. But no. To this day I still get requests to be a waitress in someone’s virtual café or to kill a guy in some sort of mafia war, and besides confusing me about where the line is drawn between real life and the internet it’s just plain annoying. When I go on Facebook and see a notification I get excited and think that I might actually have friends for a minute, but when it turns out to be an invitation to beat someone’s score in Snake my dreams are dashed and I’m left heartbroken. So while I wish you all the best in whichever online career path you choose to pursue, please don’t ask me to help you with it. Unless you make up for it by writing on my wall so I can feel good about myself.
3. Thou Shalt Not Shove Your Relationship Down People’s Throats
There are many different types of Facebook couples. Some are acceptable, and some are just not. I’m going to focus on the two extremes of FB couples for the purpose of this post. On one hand, there’s the super-lovey-dovey-probably-going-to-get-married-in-a-couple-years-and-call-each-other-stuff-like-Snookums couple. These are the people that take pictures of themselves holding a baby and say they’re preparing for their future, post on each other’s walls every five minutes to say they miss each other even when they’re together, and in the most severe circumstances, even share an account. Gross. There’s nothing wrong with being in love and wanting people to know about it, but there’s a point where people just start praying you break up so they don’t have to deal with you anymore. Speaking of break-ups, that brings me to the second kind of Facebook couple: the jaded-exes-who-viciously-chew-each-other-out-in-statuses-and-posts-and-make-everyone-else-uncomfortable. The only thing worse than the crazy in love couple is the couple who ended on a bad note and don’t care who knows it. It’ll generally start out with subtle sass, but over time it can escalate into full on virtual brawls about someone being a slut or someone having a small dick. It’s funny initially but when it gets to the point where someone threatens to pull a shank on their ex-paramour a line is crossed. So please, if you’re dating someone and happen to both have Facebook, just pretend you don’t know each other.
4. Thou Shalt Not Fish For Compliments
Let’s be real here: Facebook is an opportunity to post flattering pictures of yourself in order to pretend you’re actually good looking when in reality you look a little bit like Steve Buscemi in a wig. It’s a well-known fact. But every once in a while, someone will try to pretend that they aren’t aware of this, and post a photo with a caption like “Ugh I’m so fugly.” in the hopes that someone will be quick to disagree with them. They don’t actually think the picture is ugly. Come on now. No matter how valiantly they try to project the image that they just needed a “temp” picture and just so happened to be hanging out in a ballgown with their hair curled when their webcam accidentally went off, we all know that they probably spent hours scrolling through hundreds of selfies before they found one that perfectly portrayed their ability to smize while looking off to the side mysteriously. If you didn’t like a picture, you wouldn’t post it to Facebook. So instead of fishing for compliments by insulting yourself, just do what most teenage girls do and caption it with a Taylor Swift lyric instead. And if you ever catch someone in the pursuit of compliments? Just answer their “I’m hideous!” with a “Yeah, you are.” Problem solved!
5. Thou Shalt Not Post Attention-Seeking Statuses
Before I begin, let me clearly state that I am a total supporter of freedom of speech and don’t think people should have to censor their thoughts. But I’ll make an exception for Facebook. Most things are a-okay: corny jokes, university acceptances, the occasional video of a cat doing something funny. What isn’t okay? Posting a status that sounds extraordinarily depressed and/or angry and then refusing to answer people when they ask what’s wrong. If you’re not doing it because you genuinely want help, chances are you’re just doing it to spark people’s curiousity and get some attention. And that ain’t cool. What if someday someone is actually extraordinarily depressed and/or angry and actually wants to talk about it, but people ignore them because they assume it’s just another underhanded reference to the heartbreak of being RNR’d? It’s like the boy who cried wolf. But with song lyrics. And sadfaces.
6. Thou Shalt Not Upload A Boob Picture and Get Mad When People Comment On Your Boobs
Let me set the scene: It’s a Wednesday night; you’re super bored and somehow you wind up on Facebook. As you scroll down your feed, you notice that a lot of people have been commenting on someone’s profile picture change, so you decide to check it out. Click. WHAM, BOOBS. Oh, and there’s a face somewhere in the upper left corner. Huh, didn’t even notice. Almost every single picture that is at least 60% boob will be accompanied by the following series of comments:
Commenter: Tits.
Person in Picture: Haha.
Commenter 2: Tittaaaaayyys!
Person in Picture: Um…
Commenter 3: b00bz.
Person in Picture: Cut it out guys, I’m not that kind of girl.
Commenter 4: Rack city bitch.
Commenter 2: Rack rack city bitch.
Person in Picture: Stop it! You’re all so immature.
Commenter 6: ( . Y . )
Person in Picture: OMFG I HATE ALL OF YOU.
Generally the conversation will end with boob-girl giving the commenters a stern lecture about how they’re creepy and gross, and then proceeding to share the photo at least five times just so everyone knows how classy she is. Poor little thing, I bet all she really wants is for someone to comment on her radiant smile and political activism! Ha, I’m funny. But seriously: if you’re going to expose the girls on the internet, be prepared to handle the consequences. An alternate solution is investing in a collection of turtlenecks and scarves. Both could work.
7. Thou Shalt Not Use Hashtags
Self-explanatory. Don’t do it.
8. Thou Shalt Not TyP3 LyK3 Thi$
I’ll accept poor capitalization. Heck, I’ll even accept the occasional misuse of your and you’re or there, their, and they’re. But when people $t@rt t@LkiNg LyK3 Thi$ I Lo$3 mY MiNd. Fact: Typing like that for the sake of this post may have caused me to lose an IQ point. Combining what were perfectly normal letters and symbols into something that bears a resemblance to Wingdings might be a little bit impressive, but it doesn’t make you look cool or artsy. It makes you look illiterate and it hurts my eyes to read unless I put my glasses on. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I’m pretty sure no elementary school teaches kids to write using @ signs for a’s and $’s for s’s, so why in the world would you ever do that? Perhaps there’s a modified keyboard out there that I haven’t heard about yet, but until someone shows me one I’m just going to say if people don’t start typing in a legible fashion, I will force feed them alphabet soup until they change their ways.
9. Thou Shalt Not Poke
I don’t know why poking exists. I really, really don’t. Can you think of any possible circumstance where virtually jabbing someone with your index finger would be appropriate? No. It can’t be a “we’re in a fight” thing, or the word would have been punch. It can’t be a “Hey, just so you know I’m still around! Why aren’t you answering my texts?” thing because people have walls and inboxes for that. I really hope it’s not a flirty thing like some people seem to think it is, because let me tell you: nothing is less flirtatious than some middle aged man who has no mutual friends with you sending you a “Poke”. I speak from personal experience. So since poking will never accomplish anything other than putting you on a pedophile hotlist, just don’t do it. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg will take the hint and give us a “Punch” option instead.
10. Thou Shalt Not Rage At People For Lurking
There are few things that make less sense than getting angry at someone for lurking you on a website that is essentially built for the express purpose of lurking. I can’t count the number of times I’ve mentioned seeing something on Facebook and received either a snide “Wow, you creeper.” comment or a look that is usually reserved for convicted sex offenders. The most commonly accepted way to react in this situation is to mutter “It was on my home feed…” and attempt to rapidly change the topic, but you know what? Why apologize? I’m sorry, but if you’re going to publish your stuff approximately 9 times in the span of 5 minutes in order to make sure everyone sees it, chances are people are going to lurk the shit out of it. I know I’ve lurked, and I’m not ashamed. I, Hannah White, am a Facebook creep. And I am damn proud of it. We need to stop kidding ourselves: EVERYONE lurks Facebook. Chances are that some kid you went to day camp with when you were eight knows more about you than your current friends do and there are people out there who you have never met but who know your name, all because of lurking. That’s the beauty of the 21st century: People are creepy as hell, and it’s slowly becoming okay. So next time someone mentions your status update from a couple days ago or an awkward snapshot of you in someone’s album, don’t give them sass. Just remember the time you went through someone’s 104 profile pictures in one day, and move on. Unless they know really weird details about you like your dog’s birthday or your cousin’s middle name. That is not common lurking, and you should probably contact the cops.
So there you have it. The Ten Commandments of Facebook. I know they’re a lot to take in, but don’t worry: if you can’t handle them, there’s a nice little home for you on MySpace.
