My 10 worst Facebook friends

 

A rant: these are the people who foul up our pages

A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR movie about Facebook is to be launched worldwide by Columbia Pictures next year.

That sounds exciting. I can’t wait to sit in a cinema for two thrilling hours watching Kevin Spacey editing his friends list.

Facebook, the social networking website, is wildly successful but also incredibly annoying, since anything anyone on your network says, pops up on your page.

But friends are friends, and they are all listed there by name, so you CANNOT point out that their contributions are utterly worthless garbage, unless of course, you’re a tactless, completely insensitive oaf. So here goes. To my Facebook friends: many of you are sending contributions which are utterly worthless garbage.

Thinking it through, I reckon there are ten types of major timewasters that foul up our Facebook news pages.

1. The linguistically blind: You regularly send me letters and invitations in Bahasa Indonesian, Tagalog, Mandarin and other languages that you know I cannot read. Why? Do you think I am going to learn the language just so I can read your worthless opinion on the latest Ashley Tisdale music video?

2. The hopelessly juvenile: You invite me to join groups that are clearly designed for very, very small, brain-damaged children, such as clubs for owners of virtual pets.

3. The everything sharers: You give me too much information, constantly sending me messages saying: “John just played Typing Maniac and reached level six with a score of 64.558. He wants to share his success with you!” Well, thank you. In return, I would LOVE to give you this bullet from my AK47.

4. The mass mailers: In my opinion, mass mailers and mass murderers are equally evil. You guys send me invitations to events on different continent. No, I am not going to cross the world for a drink with an inane, thoughtless idiot.

5. The disguised promoters: You pretend to be my friend but you are really just selling me a product. No I don’t want to join a new sub-group set up to praise your latest self-published book since I know that all the other fans are you under various pseudonyms.

6. The link forwarders: You forward unfunny jokes to our message walls, neatly reminding us how retarded you are.

7. The hopeless amateur: You don’t really understand how Facebook works, but you click everything so each of us gets five identical invitations. You are on everyone’s “auto-ignore” list.

8. The bad conversationalist: You don’t realize that your dull responses go to everyone on the network so we all get to hear your dazzling gems of wisdom such as “Anyone their?” {sic}

9. The spreader of awfulness: You don’t realize you have extremely poor taste but you remind the rest of us of that fact every day. “Here’s the fab new Aqua music video, I love it almost as much as I love I’m a Barbie Girl, woohoo!!!”

10. The missing person: You signed up for Facebook but are too busy to use it so you miss almost every single posting and comment and invitation.

Actually, come to think of it, number ten may be smarter than I give her credit for.

Comments

[fardel]

11 you cannot email the Master without talking to Leo the dog, first

[Christy]

12. You keep taking mundane "quizzes" such as "What sort of a kisser are you?" and want everybody else to take them too.

[farah]

and not to forget the secondly status updates!

[Angela]

I am number ten, guilty as charged!

But don't hate me just because I prefer real life to virtual life, real friends to virtual friends, real animals to virtual animals, and ofcourse, real surfer dude to a web surfer. Nothing wrong with chatting on the internet but I prefer to look into real eyes that crinkle as he laughs at my jokes rather than just reading his LOL. I love real experiences, real hugs, real touch, real kisses (not just mwah mwah mwah)... because when death comes, it is real. I want to have lived a real life before I die.

[Angela]

Also, there is real excitement in getting dressed up and putting on makeup to go out for real date or meet real friends. Real relationships may be an old technology and does not move as fast (depends on how you handle it) but at the end of the day, it is more exciting and fulfilling.

[Ellen]

So nury i dare you to put this on your facebook page, see what you friends think about your description of them!!!

[Nury]

Hi guys,

I agree with you, Christy, the mundane quizzes such as "what celebrity are you?" are really the worst thing.

And I also like Angela's point -- no way can facebook be a replacement for real social life.

What I find it does is bring your social life into your work day, because checking what your friends are doing is more fun than working!

Ellen -- I put it on my facebook page, let's see how long it takes before my friends see it and get insulted!

[Angela]

Nury, real friends would not get insulted ;-)

[Steve O]

Worst facebook friends number 11.

People who click you onto their friends list and then sneer at you in columns printed on the internet and in newspapers!!

[sej]

Nury, imagine getting a dollar for every post that went onto your Facebook page.

You'd either be very rich, or you'd only see posts from your true friends. Either of which would be a desirable outcome.

[fardel]

sorry to be old fashioned and from another planet:
What does facebook bring that regular emails do not?

[Facebookfan]

sorry to disagree but I am a heavy facebook user.

Fardel, facebook brings you a lot that regular emails do not give you. Imagine logging on to your computer and seeing your screen turn into a sort of newspaper front page.

The only difference is that instead of articles about politicians and business people, all the articles are about your buddies. If you choose your friends carefully, this can be a fantasic bonus to your life. You feel part of a lively community.

But if you friend everybody who asks you like Nury does, tyhen disaster will follow. your page will be filled with rubbish from people you don't really know and don;t want to know. that was the mistake that nury made and most people made.

[Ella]

Hey nice to have you back in teh newspapers, we missed you

[Anon]

my theory is that facebook makes no sense at all, unless you are an 11 year old girl or someone similar.

the endless forwarding of pop quizzes, the banality of topics such as "which celebrity are you most like", the virtual pet stores and the little games, etc etc these are no good to most of us, but are perfect for small females. (I don't mean that to be sexisst but it does sound sexist so this comnet better be from "anon.")

[Chamin]

There is this person who requested to become my Facebook friend, so that she can tell the world about Myanmar Junta's injustice. It went that way for a few months, but now all that I see are results of quizzes and boring video clips. Can this be number 11 on the list?

Fardel has posted a valid question. Effective use of email can bring almost every good thing Facebook has, and it is much easier to manage.

[farah]

my boyfriend would have loved today's article. he fights with me every other day over facebook! (but i am not a heavy user)

[fardel]

thank you for the explanation, facebookfan.

With facebook, I would have to spend 90 % of my time cleaning up my computer screen,which I do not have to do with regular emails:
My web server cleans out most of the spam
My selected friends send me pictures stories which they know, are going to interest me.

And I have time ( after work, that is) to create new models, repair my car, bake my bread, make my pizzas,take care of my bees,make pictures and best of all, talk bullshit and share it every evening with my backyard neighbours.

With facebook:
Do you know :spand time with your neighborurs?
what happens when you get in trouble, depressed, sick or happy
Do your facebook friends bring you cake , soup, food , and occasionnaly argument .
Looks to me that your Your facebook keeps you lonely behind a computer,.

I agree with Angela.( again)
our old ways look better so far: it has kept mankind going for thousands of years
e mail is a plus , it brings distant " cousins" together
I'll skip facebook

[sej]

Look, everything has it's place, including Facebook, just I don't think anyone has really worked out what that place is yet.

Likewise for Twitter. Twitter has it's place, but again, no one really knows what that place is. Right now, Twitter is for twats, but I'm sure one day, it's use will come to the fore.

There is almost this "religious" war. To Facebook, or not to Facebook. To twat, or not to twat. Sorry Shakespeare.

[PG]

I get a lot of junk mail from facebook notifications...
My account is a disaster.

[TS]

Facebook is as much or as little as you make of it, it's really up to the individual user.

The last twelve years I have lived in four countries and in six different cities, I got family and friends that travel like I do. Facebook have proven to be the best method of keeping in touch and letting me know what people are up to on a daily basis without having to read or write emails.

I find it to be something that I use in parallel with email. I don't bother people with irrelevant emails and they can choose to comment on things I post, or not.

Most of my facebook friends are people that I know for real, although I keep a few celebrities like Nury in a little zoo.

Nury would probably be better of with a fan page that people can subscribe to and keep his friend account for his real world friends and family.
I would not feel the least offended if Nury dumped me as a friend from facebook, even if he didn't create a fan group.

[SJ]

I liked this article a lot! Made me to realize how much non-sense(and FUN too :P) I've made having a go at all those quizzes. Nevertheless, Angela your right about the REAL vs VIRTUAL life. Nury don't delete me, alright?

[Noman of BD]

If one adds friends selectively than one will not be bothered with stupid comments,invitations....etc..@PG-you can stop emails of notifications by doing some editing in your account settings.the thing is that there is no rose without thorn.

[tamanna]

we need a nury vittachi fan club in fb as well!:P
jokes apart fb does have some advantage..like finding a school mate with whom u lost contact like 10 yrs ago or more...atleast i did...most of my fb friends are my school n college mates and its easy to keep in touch with fb..
but there r few ppl whom i refer to as the royal emos..constantly updating status every hour saying 'i m now looking at the sky' or 'i am hungry' and not to mention the quiz invitations like 'when will u have ur first baby'...its my choice when i m going to have my first kid its not fb to decide tht!

[Mushfiq]

I agree with Angela about the fact that real life is way better then the virtual life.

But TS have a stronger point, we live in a very different world nowadays. After a few years, even the neighbours will look alienish, depending on the way people are becoming so addicted to computers.

I got to appreciate one thing about the facebook admistrators (though its EVIL)-- they somehow made simple and completely useless things SO attrative and addictive that you feel you cant live without it. Kids stopped playing on fields so they can spend more time playing those worthless games in facebook. And i am not kidding about this, its happening. Another example, the quizzes in facebook. everyone knows its stupid, yet people are taking it.

so what can you do about it? either live with it, or stand agaisnt it

[Angela]

Technology is unstoppable, it seems. Even my elderly parents are on facebook, I just found out. They needed to have an account so they can keep track of what is happening to all their children who are now spread across the globe in 3 continents, look at pics of their grand children playing in the snow, see their son drinking beer beside a camel in the desert, and get the latest scoop on their little girl’s dating status. But they don't see anything from me because I prefer to call and talk to them or write long elaborate emails describing my day, rather than post photos of me slurping prawn mee or letting them know which celebrity I am most like ;-)

My friend who lives in the same apartment building keeps bugging me to add her as a friend in my facebook even though we see each other everyday and almost always have dinner together. I guess to some people, virtual relationships give that fulfillment that I can only get from real relationships.

So there is no need to take a stand for or against facebook. Use it if it is good for you, don't use it if you don't think it is good for you.

To facebook or not to facebook is NOT the question. To each his/her own, just live and live that would be a good answer though.

[godiva]

My worst facebook friend: The one who call me everyday to tell me to open my facebook account because he reached the nth level of this game, a test revealed he is this and that; he posted some comments... it goes on...

[Leo]

I guess my sin is number 10, being AS BUSY AS I can get in my real life and completely ignoring my virtual life.

Nury, this world is not a virtual world. We don't live with virtual pets that never die and virtual games or work that you can win or finish at the instance of a "CLICK".

It's not likely for us to be dominated by the virtual life and accepting every single invitation. THOSE INVITATIONs are meaningless unless you really want to get people together and do something WORTHY.

I don't mind IGNORING HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS of JUNKY INVITATIONs and UNKNOWN FRIEND REQUESTS which say something like: XXX thinks you should have plastic and polystyrene for lunch. Earning the GUILTY verdict from Nury, is an honor.

And I absolutely don't mind getting this unfunny note onto my Facebook Notes. LOL!

[dul]

my worst fb friend(s)
a couple wit a joint account n a long distance relationship whose statuses r always like..
"wer in lovve!!"
"so far away yet so close @ heart!"
n post romantic videos n send invites to add "kisses" application etc
hard to decide if they're trying to convince us or themselves...

[Shehabul]

I think I am the number 10 NOW. Every student should be the number 10.

[Ramya]

No 11. The pretentious boor. You update your status with quotes from little-known authors, or philisophical texts to show your depth of reading and knowledge. Well, I don't understand and I don't care!

[Janice Lim]

Guilty as charged for Number 10.

CHEERS to Nury & all for the many thoughts!

I much prepare Real-life experiences than Virtual ones! Enough said!

Oh, can I paste this link/ article on my FB? hehe

[Nury]

Thanks for all the comments, I got so much reaction on this that it seems that facebook is definitely a hot topic that raises passions.

Janice, feel free to add the article to your facebook page -- but don't blame me if your friends get upset with you!