The next time you’re on Facebook and decide to become a fan of “The Smell of Rain,” know that you’re helping kill society.
Professors have no doubt lectured that everything you post is public, and future employers are out there looking at your page. What they fail to tell you is that not only are future employers judging your content, but so are your peers … namely me.
Call me an elitist. Say that I eat from a silver spoon. I won’t lose any sleep over it because I go to bed at about 10 p.m. while you are all out in dirty basements drinking from red plastic cups and photographing it.
In the age of Web 2.0, people like me have evolved the ways in which we are able to judge you without ever meeting you. It’s an intricate science that I’ll let you in on.
This new age of judging extends extensively throughout the Web. It reaches from Facebook to MySpace, from Twitter to Blogger and so forth. With new social networking sites popping up daily it’s hard to keep up. But I’ll give you a bit of a run down.
I’ll start with Facebook. There’s a lot of unknown etiquette in the world of Facebook that few are familiar with and even fewer comply with. There are a lot of easy traps to fall into that will instantly result in a red flag and a shunning from my ilk and me. First is the profile picture—now there are a lot of ways to broach this subject, but only limited word space.
Avoid the dreaded photo of you drinking from that red plastic cup, taking a beer bong or sucking back the can of the piss known as Keystone Light. You have instantly lost all credibility. If you have to have booze in your profile (i.e. you want to highlight the fact you’re an alcoholic), at least drink from a respectable glass like an adult—they’re not expensive.
Also, we’re all aware that you can take a picture of yourself in the mirror looking away from the camera, but you’re not in middle school anymore. Those kinds of photos are reserved for MySpace. Speaking of MySpace … why? This ridiculous community has devolved into two sects: emo kids and pedophiles; pick a side.
The verdict is still out on whether or not pictures of you taken on your MacBook are acceptable. I’m torn. On one side, you have a Mac, which proves you have a bit of credibility, but since you are taking pictures of yourself, youprobably don’t have any friends. In the end though, a nice MacBook is probably better than most of your friends.
Next, we’ll glance at content. If you’re one of those people that place hearts around everything you write in your interest section, go away.
This planet is crowded enough, and you’re slowing down evolution.
Also, when describing your favorite bands, it’s easy to write something along the lines of “I like everything.” No you don’t. If “everything” to you means “from Carrie Underwood to Nickelback,” you need to look up “everything” in the dictionary.
Alright constant status updaters, this one’s for you. There’s nothing sadder than looking at someone’s Facebook page and seeing an entire screen of posts written by yourself. Go to Twitter; you won’t have any followers anyway.
Here are a few other things not to do because they annoy the hell out of me and everyone else that is loosely affiliated with you.
Stop sending me application invites—I’m an adult, and I don’t have time to sit on Facebook all day and when I’m on there, I’m not wasting my time playing with a farm or pretending to be in the Mafia.
I go to school, so I won’t ever have to do manual labor on a farm, and there is nothing cool about the Mafia anymore.
That goes along with page suggestions, too.
First, I’d rather you not invite me to be a fan of some arbitrary thing, and second, I find it laughable that you have spent the time clicking to become a fan of “Adding ‘ish’ to the end of a word when describing something,” “Stopping the microwave before it hits 0:00 to avoid hearing the beep,” or most ironically, “I hate dumb people.”
There are too many things to continue on.
Just know, though, that every time you send one of your “friends” a group invitation because you were drunk and dropped your phone into a toilet and therefore need their numbers again, there are people like me out there shaking our heads in disappointment.
I don’t know what Web 3.0 will look like, but I hope none of you are invited.
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