A Facebook Flavored Post

Happy New Year! 2009 was definitely a crazy and change-filled year for moi. But I’ve landed on my feet and much happier than I’ve been in years, so the risk paid off.

Now, on to more pressing matters. Because I am no longer travelling, this blog has turned into a self-serving rant vessel. And here’s another chunk of coal to power the steamship Pissed Off.

Everyone and their mother are on facebook these days. And while this can lead to some wonderfully awkward moments (see lamebook.com), it can also lead to some highly annoying habits. As a society, we can only grow through constructive criticism, so I would like to constructively criticize people for their status updates in the hope that we can all learn and grow. As my dear friend Liz pointed out in her similar themed blog post (see http://40ozliz.blogspot.com/ ), the main problem is consistency. The first rule of status updates should be not to do the same old thing time after time. Switch it up a bit. If you write the same dribble every time you update your status, you fail. At facebook life. So congrats to the people who consistently do the following, I’ve hid you.

1. Post nothing but movie quotes or song lyrics – Seriously? Is it that hard to have an original thought? Is there nothing in your pretty head that could be posted instead? These people are not only boring, but they can be deceptive as well. Often, they will post a generic line or lyric without quoting the source, leading many to erroneously believe the person came up with the line or lyric all on their own. Not true. They pulled it from IMDB. These people should be shot for a lack of the simplest original thought.

2. Mundane tasks, chores or To Do Lists – I don’t care what you’re planning to do today, or every day. If you find yourself writing something like “Got an early start, dropped the kids off at camp, picked up AA batteries, did some food shopping, three loads of laundry, put air in the tires, picked up kids, made dinner and now relaxing with the hubby and glass of wine before CSI. Phew! Long day!” stop yourself immediately and realize that there is nothing worth sharing there. As you may have already suspected, your life is dull. Now stop sharing that with me before I defriend you because I’m afraid dull life is catching.

3. Cryptic updates about something bad that happened – Ok, so something terrible happened in your life. Please don’t share it on facebook. Or if you must, don’t write a few cryptic lines about the terrible incident, only to reply to information seekers that you “don’t want to discuss it here.” If you don’t want to share it with all 283 of your friends, then don’t mention it.

Honorable Mentions: Sympathy seekers, Constant quiz posters, Debbie Downers and people who respond to happy status updates unrelated to them with the crappy details of their crappy lives so it becomes all about them.