I can never work out which is less sincere: wishing someone a happy birthday on facebook or thanking everyone individually for their birthday wish on facebook.

The most annoying thing isn’t even that all this woman posts about is her stupid grandson. It’s not even that I couldn’t care less about all the exciting activities she gets up to with this infernal 2-year-old now that she’s retired. It has nothing to do with the fact she updates her status to this effect at least five times per day.

The single most annoying thing about this whole situation is that the child is called Ernie. ERNIE! Ernie?! Need I go on…?

In general I don’t ‘like’ things on facebook; I find these incessant groups futile and inexplicably infuriating. But recently I’ve fallen in love with Sam Tsui thanks to this video.

I cannot stop watching it, I feel I have to watch it at least once to get through the day now. It’s practically an addiction. I am addicted to Sam Tsui. It’s everything about it, his cute little face, how happy he looks, the way his tongue pokes out really far for no reason… EVERYTHING.

And when he sings the Katy Perry line, ‘you make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream, the way you turn me on’ I become a 13 year old girl. Giddy at the knees, my heart flutters and I feel like Sam Tsui is the only man in the world.

Because of all of this, Sam Tsui has become the only thing I’ve ‘liked’ on facebook and I’m not even ashamed.

Just when exactly did this become cool?

NAAT.

squeakybrand:

LOVE THIS. French rap group brings facebook to life via music video! Awesome.

I’m friends with some of the most intelligent people on the planet. We all pride ourselves on our grammatical triumphs and semantic constructions.

Please, please tell me it hasn’t come to this. I’ve now seen three separate OMGFacts groups on facebook that involve ridiculously vast amounts of text.

If I could change one thing about facebook, it would be the ability to join groups or ‘like’ things.

No one wants to see this; it’s just pathetic.

Everybody knows they’re incredibly annoying, yet many people join them and many people find themselves laughing and even slightly enjoying - if we’re honest - their stupidity and futility. We may also quietly think to ourselves, “yes, I do that too,” or realise after having genuinely thought that you were the only person who did something that in fact that are 153,856 other people who do it too.

What gets me though, and what I think really needs to stop, are groups and pages like: I used to run up the stairs, using both hands and legs, I open my fridge, gaze inside for a while, close it and walk off, and Trying To Put On A T-Shirt Without Messing Up Your Hair.

People become fans of these things (or ‘like’ them, as seems to be the new standard) because it’s something they relate to. Fair enough. We all relate to them. We all used to do that and we all struggle with keeping our hair in place when changing clothes. But does no one else think that this is sharing a little bit too much about ourselves? Is nothing private any more?

It’s bad enough we have hundreds of photographs - over whose existence we have very little control - depicting our all-too-frequent moments of drunken debauchery. It’s bad enough we post every one of our intimate thoughts every ten minutes of the day for - potentially - all the world to see. Isn’t it, then, going just a little too far to detail all our inner-conflicts, habits and tics through joining these pages, just because we can relate to them? Aren’t some things much better left unsaid? Un-thought-of? Un-agreed?

I saw this recently on my friend’s wall. I know for a fact that he’s deeply religious, but I wonder if the Arch Bishop of Canterbury knows he’s talking like that!

thedisgracebook:

(via berniceshaw)

We all remember chain letters exactly like “25 Things” making the rounds on AOL back in the late nineties and early oughts.  Then the “about me” lists migrated to MySpace, where they remain a staple on evertyone’s Bulletin Space to this day.  What I’ve found really fascinating about “25 Things” is not how rapidly it has spread through Facebook Notes, but how long Facebook users resisted these sorts of chain letters before finally caving in to what long seemed like the inevitable.

Facebook has experienced a number of tipping points over the years, from the advent of high schoolers and social networks to open access applications, and each opened flood-gate has changed the social dynamics of the site.  My theory is that the “25 Things phenomenon” (if you want to call it that) is the result of a number of social changes on the site happening at once, notably Facebook firmly overtaking MySpace, and the “graying of Facebook”.  As a result, the fastest growing demographics on the site are those younger and older than the original college-aged users, and they bring with them different mindsets and objectives.  Those migrating from MySpace (generally younger) are already familiar with personalized shrines of narcissism (consider MySpace’s open layout to Facebook’s consistent structure).  Those migrating from LinkedIn (and other older users) are enjoying the relaxed freedom of a personal webpage where they can share pics of kids and update their address book.  And -like they just arrived at the neighborhood bar-b-que- they want to nibble on a little bit of everything on the table and have some fun.

For a long time, most first generation Facebookers wouldn’t have gone along with such blatant self-promotion like the “25 Things” lists, fearing others would have called them out on it.  But now if everyone else is doing it…

That’s why you’re now seeing the “25 Random Things + Concession Statement Addendum”: Adding “I know” or “I caved” or “So many other people tagged me, I was feeling so guilty, so I had to!” to the title.

It really is an interesting change, and if you’re willing to help out Slate with their quest, click on the photo to go to their article… (mine’s better).