Heather Christena Schmidt

Almost anyone that has blogged has posted – at least once – about Facebook. It’s a part of our daily stream of consciousness; and moreover, it’s a relevant topic. I’ve posted about it at least twice, maybe three times. My favorite was about how Zuckerberg’s got us all by the balls.

Today I woke up pretty early and, in doing so, killed my early-morning hours doing what I do best when riddled with insomnia: I dicked around on Facebook. Different today, though, was that I noticed some new trends in the failure posts. You’ve all experienced them – the half-naked pictures, the baby bump photos, the 7,000 shots of the new couple sucking face, the political rants.

As Facebook drudges on and refuses to be overtaken by the competition like Myspace did, there are a new breed of Facebook Failures out there. They are like the evil offspring of the original Facebook Failures. Mutant Facebookers that seem to be there just to piss me off.

#1 People that get mad because you use Facebook differently than they do

Nothing roasts my fanny more than when someone gets annoyed or makes some bitchy comment because you have used Facebook differently than they do.

I don’t like political posters, and it is very infrequent that I post anything relative to politics. Having worked in politics for two years, I have had my fair share of rants and propaganda and debates to last a lifetime. That said, I don’t begrudge others for posting political stuff if they want to. That whole Chick Fil A thing got a little old after a while, but to each his own, right? Wrong. The political posters always have to bag on other people for not posting about politics. A guy I met at a local writers group a while ago had to be removed from my friends list, simply because I couldn’t take him bitching at me about the fact that my posts didn’t “relate to what is going on in politics and the world.”

Everyone uses Facebook differently. The next time you want to judge someone for the way they use Facebook, think about the fact that everyone is on there for a different reason.

#2 The Grammar Police

I’m just as much of a grammar and punctuation Nazi as the next person, but by the same token I don’t go trolling around the Internet correcting people’s “I”s and “me”s just to make myself feel smart.

For real faithful blog followers, what is it about the Internet that made people such dicks? Not everyone is on the same intellectual plane. Not everyone had the same level of education. Not everyone takes the time to correct autocorrect. Not everyone is as worried about “they’re,” “their,” or “there.” Do they look like a fool with minimal ability to speak or write properly? Of course they do. Do the people that have to point out every single, cotton-pickin’ grammar faux pas – as if their understanding of the English language is far superior to any of the rest of us underlings – look just as stupid as the person that typed out “me” instead of “I” in a Facebook status? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY.

#3 #Hashtaggers

Facebook does not utilize hashtag technology like Twitter and Instagram do. Facebook does not have a “search” function for people to search popular public updates about #swaglife #baller #nerdychic and #all#other#miscellaneous#bullshit#people#hashtag.

The only exception to this is if your Twitter and Facebook are linked.

There is absolutely no reason to hashtag (or, the symbol’s official title – octothorp) on Facebook. This reminds me of when people started using the “at” symbol in front of people’s names to identify them. Neither is cool. The next time you go to @soandso or octothorp something, remember how ridiculous you look.

#4 People that turn your status into something about them; and then derail the conversation 30 or 40 comments down into being about their own life

Ugh. This is so annoying.

I’m not talking about people that relate to your post. “Oh we had this just happen to us. Good luck!” and all those canned niceties people comment with on Facebook. I’m not talking about Facebook updates that inspire conversation relevant to the post that involve a lot of comments.

I’m talking about the people that somehow turn your post into their post, about something entirely different, and then have a 30 or 40 comment discussion on your post about their life.

I’ve always wanted to interrupt these little, narcissistic diatribes with a “thanks for being supportive of me by talking all about yourself!” but have never had the balls to. I have, however, had the balls to post this eCard:

#5 The “come to my event”ers that don’t come to yours, and then complain when people invite them to things

I’m not just talking about realtime events, as in in-person ones; I’m talking about online ones and “shows of support” as well. This is a real pet peeve of mine at this point, simply because (as I’ve said before) when I go out of my way to “like” people’s pages, support people’s causes, share words of encouragement on people’s event walls, and even vote for things when they ask me to vote, it would be so awesome if I could just get the same courtesy in return. I talked about it just last week in my post about blog blunders. It goes the same for Facebook Failures.

What makes matters worse, though, is that these Facebook Failures don’t just reply “decline” to like your page, or just ignore your request altogether. They post updates that they hate when people invite them to events on Facebook that are not realtime events. Then a couple weeks later they invite you to a “vote for my kid contest” or a “support my cause” event. Seriously motherfucker?

I suppose a lot of this boils down to the real issue Facebook and the Internet in general brings about, which is a growing worldwide narcissism. It’s all about me, me, more me, with a side of me. To some degree that’s okay; but I think these five Facebook Failures show how too much “me” is not a good thing.

On that note, why don’t you all click on the Top Mommy Blogs banner here to vote for my blog. All you have to do is click that picture and you’ve voted. And when I post on Facebook about how my ranking went up and some asshole derails the conversation into being about them, maybe that time I’ll have the balls to finally tell them to shut the hell up. Something we should all do.