Don't do THAT on Facebook

Some of you have heard me say before how fascinated I am with the most simple of truths about Facebook (and some other social networking sites as well); that on Facebook everybody has a news feed which is unique to them and nobody has any control over what gets into their feed beyond whom they choose to friend/follow (but not block).

The thing is, that different people have some very different ideas about what should and should not be shared on Facebook, and at times people can get very vocal about others sharing things they don't want to see because often the only choices you have are to convince your friends to stop posting things you don't like, block them from your feed or just live with the content you don't like.

I find that about once per year something has gotten me upset enough that I feel inclined to go on a public rant over my friends posting such things. Past rants of mine have included:

• Slacktivism (which despite being much less than it was 5 years ago, is clearly never going away)
• Friends constantly complaining about layout changes (the number of these complaints have massively decreased despite the fact that Facebook continues to change their layout multiple times per year)
• Friends constantly complaining about it being Monday (I am happy to be employed, why are you trying to drag me down with you?)
• Friends constantly complaining about the weather (if the weather upsets you 3/4 of the time, consider moving to a climate you would like)
• Friends constantly complaining about getting game invites in their feed (one of the few things you actually can easily block on Facebook)

But my complaints are just a small sample of what people are saying not to do on Facebook; if you were to try to not offend anyone you would have to avoid doing all of these.

• Don't post anything of the mundane things happening in your life. (obviously nobody cares)
• Don't post anything about your job. (its not as interesting as you think)
• Don't post anything about your hobbies. (everyone thinks they are stupid anyways)
• Don't post anything about shows you like. (most people don't care and the rest don't want to be spoiled)

• Don't complain about any of the little annoyances that happen in your life. (other people have it worse)
• Don't complain about any of the huge troubles in your life. (we don't want to be brought down, and somewhere, someone has it worse than you)
• Don't talk about any of the good things happening in your life. (you're just making other people jealous)
• Don't post about an upcoming party. (some people won't be there)
• Don't share your opinions on religion and politics. (people who disagree don't want to see your crap)
• Don't say anything pro or con about any health issue. (someone will hate you for it)
• Don't try to tell jokes. (you're not that funny)
• Don't post quotes. (so unoriginal)
• Don't post anything publicly you could send privately. (nobody cares)
• Don't post things on multiple social networks.
• Don't post links to anything you haven't checked on Snopes. (cause no one wants to see anything fake)
• Don't post links to Snopes. (don't be that guy)
• Don't post links to Cracked, Youtube, Reddit, College Humor, Buzz Feed,  The Onion, Slashdot, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Fox News, The Huffington Post, Yahoo News, Rotten Tomatoes, any webcomics, Tumblr, Pinterest . . .
• Don't post links to news that other people on my feed have already linked to. (if its remotely interesting, you're probably too late)
• Don't post links to your blog (oops)
• Don't post pictures of yourself drunk. (don't need to see it)
• Don't post pictures of your kids. (no one cares)
• Don't post selfies (especially duckfaced ones)

• Don't post pictures of your vacation. (stop rubbing it in our faces)
• Don't post memes.
• Don't post Bit Strips. (don't you know everyone hates those)
• Don't play any Facebook games that will harass your friends. (which is to say, all of them)
• Don't "vaguebook".

So basically, don't post anything. Except that some people get pissed when there's nothing new on their feed, so you lose that way too. Don't have an account maybe? I don't know how to win this game. Oh wait, yes I do - "the only winning move is not to play" - which in this case means post whatever makes you happy to post and other people can follow you or not follow you as they wish.

On Birthday Wishes

I had a birthday just recently, a fact that will probably leave a couple of you wondering why Facebook didn't inform you of this.

Have you ever found a public domain picture, only to
wonder who is in it, and how they feel about the whole
world having permission to use it?

The first four birthdays I celebrated as a member of Facebook (2009-2012) I had my birthday set to hidden. This was a purposeful choice based off of privacy fears; that is to say you can have your identity stolen by a person who has nothing more than your name and birthday.

But although I felt like I was taking a stand on privacy, it seemed that no else I knew, including many very intelligent people, were similarly blocking their birthday. Every year I would watch friends get scores of birthday wishes, but then I would get just one from my wife and a couple more from people who saw my wife's post. Even though it was an absurd thought to have, it made me feel pretty worthless to seem to have only one person in the world who cared that it was my birthday.

Reluctantly, for my 2013 birthday, I decided to make my birthday public during March. I got a lot of birthday wishes on the big day, and for that day I felt really great; that day was one of the best things about an otherwise bad year.

But when the day was over I realized something, that now I would be socially obligated (or at least I would feel socially obligated) to send birthday greetings to others when their birthdays came up. In all the years I was hiding my birthday I didn't feel bad at all that I almost never wished anyone else a happy birthday; I might wish three or four people a year happy birthday and that would be it, and I quite liked it that way.

Unfortunately, old habits die hard, and I quickly fell back into my old ways of not posting birthday wishes to other people. So I decided that for 2014 I would go back to keeping my birthday private, lest I be an even worse person for not wishing others happy birthday.

Strangely, I don't feel so lonely this year, and I am actually quite happy that no one except Margaret wished me a happy birthday (also, please note I just said I am happy that no one wished me a happy birthday before you get any ideas about wishing a belated one).

Actually, in many ways I wish my birthday had passed by completely unobserved; its not that I dread getting older, its just that feel little need to celebrate it.

5 Groups I Wish I Could Friend on Facebook

We've all seen the posts where people declare they are trimming their list of Facebook friends. Some are a brief message with little information other than the fact it will or has happened ("I'm cutting back my friends list; if you can read this you survived the cut.") while other are long essays on who will be removed.

I've never done a Facebook purge, nor have I ever felt the inclination to do so. I'm not sure why it is a somewhat common thing for others, but not for me; it may be that I have been a little pickier in who I have friended (the only friends I have that I've never met in person are radio DJs I like, and there are many people Facebook thinks I should be friends with that I am not because I did not get along with them in real life); it may be that my friends list has never grown long enough to warrant such a purge (my friends list has been hovering between 130 and 140 pretty much since I left NAIT three years ago); or it could be that the rare time a friend is posting things I don't like I am completely satisfied with just blocking their content from my feed (in the six years I have been on Facebook I have unfriended one person).

No, I don't have people I wish to unload to my virtual life, but what I do have is a long list of people I wish I could add to it, such as:


1. My High School Gaming Friends

From the moment I first signed up for Facebook there has been no group I wanted to friend more than this, and no group that I have struggled more to find. I did find Alan not long after I joined and Quinn found me fairly recently, but other than those two (and two others who only very occasionally gamed, and a third who I was good friends with in high school but did not get along so well in university) I have really struggled to find any one.

All in all that is probably 75% of my friends I had as a child who either have no presence of Facebook or are so well hidden that I have never been able to find them. Compared to the percentage of the general population my age that have Facebook accounts, it an anomaly.

At least I'll always have you . . .

2. Family

My father died when I three, and the next year my mother decided that his family should have nothing to do with me. Four years later my mother had a fight with her mother, and I would never see anyone from my mother's family for the rest of my childhood.

Growing up the only child of a single mother with no extended family in my life the value I place on family has always been significantly lower than most other people do. That being said, I had long hoped that Facebook could marginally increase the presence that family has in my life - for the most part it hasn't.

I am Facebook friends with a few of the Dyers (relatives of my mom's third husband) and a few of my in-laws, but that's about it.

Despite many attempts, I have yet to track down a single cousin, aunt or uncle of mine (from either side of my family) on Facebook. Admittedly, I only have a small number of names to go off of, but I've always assumed that as soon as I find one, others would follow.

With the Dyers I have had good luck with those close to my age, but not so good luck with those much older or younger than me; mostly this is an issue of not being on Facebook, though some have chosen to reject friend requests from me.

When I first got on Facebook I made a conscious choice to not friend any in-laws I didn't already know well until I could track down some of my own family. Months have turned into years, and at this point it would just seem odd sending friend requests to my wife's nieces and nephews that probably don't even remember me; though I probably should get on friending my brother and sister in-laws that joined Facebook in the last couple years.



3. LRPS

I was part of the Live Role Playing Society for three years in the mid-90s. With one exception (which I will mention in a minute), the issue I have had with LRPS friends is very different than with my family and gaming friends. First of all, I have lots of friends on Facebook that I knew through LRPS - after call centre co-workers and former classmates they are the biggest group represented in my friends list. Second of all, I have never really gone looking on Facebook for people I knew through LRPS - everyone of them on my friend list is there because Facebook suggested I friend them and I thought "yeah, that's a good idea".

And yet, I hold an angst towards my lack of LRPS friends. This can be simply explained as, almost every denied friend request I have ever had was from a LRPS member. Why have so many LRPS members turned me down? I don't know for sure. My best guess is just that I remember them better than they remember me. I was a quiet guy who was only part of that group for a fraction of its existence, so in all likelihood many of the long term members don't have a clue who I am when I send them a request.

Now as for that exception. Todd was my roommate while I was in university, and when I signed up for Facebook I had really hoped I could use it to get back in touch with him. Still, it doesn't shock me he's not on it (last I checked), he was never much of a computers guy, and probably still isn't.



4. Co-Workers and Classmates

I group these two together because the situation is much the same. I have been pretty efficient at friending both of these groups during my time on Facebook; each of them represent a sizable fraction of my friends. Yet, in each group there have been a lot of people that I wish I had on my friends list that I do not. But, what makes the missing friends from these groups so different is that as time passes I care less that they aren't there.

When I joined Facebook it had been just 4 years since I had left Convergys and just 1 since I had left Dell; I've now been on Facebook for 6 years. When I was friending my NAIT classmates I was in class with them; next month it will be 3 years since I've seen most of them.

I don't even remember the names of most of the co-workers and classmates I used to wish I could track down, much less why I enjoyed their company.

Of course, because I have so many co-workers on my friends list, and because those call centres were so huge, Facebook loves suggesting employees from Convergys and Dell for me to add. But the ones it seems to suggest aren't even the ones I used to want to add, they are all either strangers or people I didn't like when I worked with them.



5. Outliers

There are a few people who aren't really part of some easy to point to group that I wish I could find and friend - a couple of kids I knew when I was really young, a couple more I knew when I was somewhat older, a guy I played board games with many years ago, a girl who helped me out when I had nowhere to stay and so on.

From time to time I look for some of them, but always fail to find them.

In many ways being unable to find people you want to find is the most frustrating thing that can happen to you with Facebook, after all, connecting with others is the very purpose of social media.