Facebook: Chain message special

Facebook by Tom NashI thought I’d drained Facebook for everything it was worth on this blog. In my mind, every feasible behaviour had been documented and ridiculed…

How wrong I was. Only last week, the format of the site changed, causing fuck-tons of people to start whining about this free-to-use, voluntary piece of social media like the slight tweak to the newsfeed was tantamount to a personal violation. There was so much moaning that it even started trending on Twitter. First world problems, eh?

So this post will celebrate the people that fall for those ‘copy-and-paste’ this if ________’ stauses…

Most of the time it’s the same few people doing it, but they can be categorised in the following ways:


The tabloid reader
In Britain, they last reared their head just before the 2010 World Cup. Someone, somewhere got it into their head that pubs in England were going to ban people who were wearing England shirts or carrying flags of St. George from watching England’s matches in their establishments. The reaction online was huge… Among those who don’t bother fact-checking… Grammatical and spelling error-ridden Facebook groups started popping up in protest and people copied-and-pasted ill-informed ‘quotes’ confirming it was true and lots of Sun readers ranted and whinged and threatened to smash up the places that implemented this rule.

Then the World Cup actually started and… Fuck all happened, of course. Pubs let people wearing England shirts in during England matches and pubs around the country were full, as those of us who possess the skill of rational thought always knew they would be, of drunken EDF wannabes chanting ‘No surrender to Al-Qaeda’ while drinking shit lager out of plastic glasses. Phew!

This week, a new one’s started. One about Facey-B charging people for use. *Sigh*

The bandwagon jumper
Remember that ‘replace your profile picture with a cartoon from your childhood’ thing a while back? When people got it into their head that a Google image search and basic photo uploading skills could somehow support bringing an end to child abuse? I can’t remember what charity this oft-repeated status claimed to be representing but within a day, they released a statement that claimed the whole thing was nothing to do with them.

The next thing, another, equally as preposterous chain started, one that claimed your favourite cartoon profile picture was actually helping paedophiles fiddle with kiddies!!!! FUUUUUCCCKKK!!!!

Don’t be so fucking stupid. Not implementing security settings so the whole world can see the photos you uploaded of your kids in the bath is more risky. Next time, try engaging your brain before you highlight that text from your bimbo friend’s wall, eh?

The guilt-tripper
Arguably, you can lump this lot in with the entry above, but fuck it, I’ve got a word limit to reach. This person will copy-and-paste something about some good cause that does nothing to raise money or increase awareness of a common, but overlooked illness. They provide no links to official sites or helplines if their friends have genuine concerns regarding the subject matter, the message just serves to fuel that person’s superiority complex and make everyone else feel bad for obviously not caring as much as they do. Last one I saw harped on about cancer being bad and effecting lots of people. They even threw in made up statistics, like: who-gives-a-fuck-% of people won’t repost this, but if you think you’re better than everyone else, you should.

Thank you, keyboard activists.

http://thewritetomnash.co.uk

One thought on “Facebook: Chain message special

  1. Anonymous

    Some of the bloody chain messages really do make you feel guilty if you ignore it! they should be banned!! now there are Massive essays of sob storys on there to make you cry and repost (or you have no heart) grrrrrrrrr
    Kt x

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