Facebook: Why it gets boring and those fighting the dull

Tom Nash Facebook Drawing No.2When it was new Facebook opened up a never-before-seen (apart from MySpace, Friends Reunited, Bebo and various others), gossip-laden world of forgotten school and university mates, former colleagues and long out-of-touch family members.

You could approach it like Pokemon and add everyone you ever stood next to, you could catch up with folk you lost touch with and you could draw offensive pictures on your mates’ ‘walls’ that questioned their sexuality. All fun and new.

Skip ahead eight years, past numerous shitstorm-causing updates, a company floatation and a tidal wave of corporate accounts… Where’s all the fun gone?

When was the last time you heard someone speak favourably about Facebook? Are you with people now? Just say ‘Facebook’ and gauge the general reaction- not positive, eh?

Yet we all have the app on our phones and are logged in on our computers and tablets, right? We all have a little scroll through our newsfeed every now and then; some of us even post stuff on there still.

Are you in your late twenties or older and have had an account with Facebook for about five years? Here’s why it’s dull as fuck now:

You’re dull as fuck now

The older the average age of your friend list, the less lively the place is going to be; face it. There may be a few folk posting photos of messy nights out, but those people are still going to the same nightclubs every week that they went to at 17 and they inspire pity rather than envy.

Where your feed was once a hive of witty conversation, now you have becoming increasingly aware that your carefully honed and edited updates are lost among the cooing mothers singing the praises of their children, grumbling commuters complaining about public transport, the terminally boring informing the world of another successful trip to the gym or the constant stream-of-consciousness ramblings of the desperately lonely. So you stop bothering…

Whereas once we carefully crafted our Facebook output to showcase ourselves at our most awesome, we have been sucked into the system and have become just as tedious as those we once swore we would never be like… And everyone seems content to let it happen.

Fear not, some valiant souls are keeping the place interesting; brave folk like:

The parents who constantly remind everyone they’re a parent

Ah, inspirational photo-memes and their sharers. The first person who placed a quote or statement over a photo and shared it has a lot to answer for (they’re on the ‘poke in the eye with a shitty stick’ list). Namely this lot.

“There’s nothing greater than spending time with your child. Like and share if you love spending time with your special little person”

Tell you what- until you publicly announce that you’re kid is a cunt and you hate it, we’ll all assume that you love it. Deal? Enough already.

I have a theory that these particular photo-things are mostly shared from the cafe area of soft-play centres. Read into that what you will.

The chronically single who is totally OK with it
You know the one- they share idealistic statements about what a ‘real’ man or woman should do in a relationship that make claims or demands that are totally deluded or clearly written by someone whose concept of a relationship comes from Disney Princess films.

This one probably accounts for 60-70% of what you see on your newsfeed on any given day, normally following a theme of ‘look how rich, full and awesome my life is’ with a sprinkling of in-jokes only three people will get and photos of food. If you’re updating your status you’re not crying, right?

The Fearmonger
Remember that old urban legend about gang initiations involving cars with no lights on pursuing and killing those in cars that flashed them to make them aware of their no lights? It’s ba-ack!

My favourite is the dog thief that has been photographed trying to nick a dog in about six different locations… Same photo every time. ARE YOU SCARED YET?

If you want to drum up some fear about things that never happen, type it up on a computer, add an official looking header (a security company will work perfectly), print it and photograph it- BOOM, you’ll have morons who don’t know how to use Google cacking their pants and hitting that share button in minutes.

Fear the person that gets their safety information from Facebook, not the information. Go to Snopes.com– you’ll probably find that every BEWARE email or status you’ve ever seen is bullshit.

The angry tabloid reader
They must be angry- hence all the spelling errors, lack of original insight and link to the Mail Online (seeing a lot more of these since The Sun’s paywall went up… Troubling for a host of reasons). Often the same person that shares racist/xenophobic memes from ‘patriotic’ titled pages that don’t make me proud anyway (unless pride feels the same as shame… It doesn’t, does it?)

The person who is just getting the hang of the internet
If there’s one person still sending you Candy Crush invites, it’s this guy. Late to the party, chances are they don’t work with computers or are an ageing relative, so they have missed everything that has happened on the internet up to this point.

Remember that funny video from five years ago that went viral for about a week then got boring? They’ve just discovered it. And they think it’s hilarious. What about that song that was popular when you are at school? OMFG everyone- you can find it on this site called YouTube.

The public servant
The digital age’s busybody. If there’s a piece of bullshit picking up momentum online, this is the person who will attempt to quash it. They may not go about it in the most diplomatic way, in fact, they may even come across as arrogant, but they’ve got it off their chest now and in their eyes, they’ve helped a bit. Just let them get back to resisting the temptation to correct every misuse of the word ‘too’ or ‘your’ on their newsfeed…

What?