I Will Not Hide Annoying Friends On Facebook Because I Prefer To Complain About Them
Every time I’ve written about social media netiquette, I’ve noticed one common thread: People get suuuuper bitter if you dare challenge the way that they behave on the Facebook. How dare you.
I’m not sure why Facebook is so personal, but I am sure that I am probably guilty of many of the annoying behaviors myself. But that doesn’t stop me from complaining about it. In my humble opinion, it’s fun to poke fun at our generation. Us twenty-somethings to forty-somethings are apparently the only ones left on Facebook””save for the fact that everyone’s grandma now has a profile””because all the teens are jumping ship.
Every time someone criticizes Facebook activity, I hear the same rebuttal again and again:
If you don’t like it, don’t read it!
If you don’t like it, scroll past it!
If you don’t like it, then unfriend them already!
I get what you’re saying, really I do. My husband falls on the other side of the fence, and he has “cleaned up” his Facebook feed so much that he has almost everyone hidden with settings that only show Very Important Activities. In his world, he has achieved Facebook Nirvana. Nobody bothers him and says stupid stuff or brags or uses hashtags inappropriately. I’m very happy for him.
In my world, where I work at home alone all day long, I would be so sad if I didn’t have all of the annoying people to complain about on my Facebook feed. So thank you for that. And you are also welcome for my annoying posts as a form of repayment.
I do understand how Facebook settings work. I could hide all of the terribly annoying people that I know as a friend of a friend of a friend that continually #humblebrag or talk about baby bodily fluids. But I don’t want to! I’d rather complain about it!
If I hid everyone on my Facebook feed, like my husband has done, there wouldn’t be any Facebook activity. Sure, I wouldn’t see quotes or song lyrics from high school friends that, for some reason, now think they are professional philosophers, but I’d also miss out on utterly random, juicy pieces of gossip””like a slow-motion train wreck divorce that I once saw play out on my newsfeed. That was glorious.
Call me a jerk, but this is the world I’m living in. I will probably make fun of stupid stuff that you say on Facebook in my head, and I would expect you to do the same to me.
(Image: Syda Productions/Shutterstock)
