~*If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best *~

Focus:
Well, the short version would be:
Look at me working out!
Look at me participating in a run/triathlon/etc!
Look at me on vacation!
Look at me with my friends, we'll be friends forever, because we're such good friends!
Posts, mostly by female friends, with some stupid quote, something like the thread title.
Posts sharing some kind of super discount on big brands, which are so obviously a scam I can't really believe many of these people made it to university. But they of course know that. They just share it, you know, just in case.
And the ususal political bullshit.
And then there's of course the few female friends who are so desperate to find a boyfriend/think that they may be a model or whatever that they post some borderline suggestive pictures of themselves, ususally taken by a "photographer" who titels them as models in the description.


I think I already blocked most of the drama, so I wouldn't really know if there's been some kind of major meltdown, but my ban threshold is kinda low. I just don't give a fuck about most of this stuff, like reality tv.

Alt Focus:
I don't really share anything above the bare minimum. Shit's out there forever, no thanks. If I want someone to know something about me, they usually do, I don't have to share it for the whole world, or facebook's servers, to see.

 

I'll sum up my feelings on Facebook with this...

Last week I posted something for the first time in probably 6 months. It was innocuous and I put very little thought into it--just a brief anecdote. What transpired afterwards was a prolonged argument with a really good friend that never would have transpired in 1,000 alternate universes where Facebook didn't exist.

It's amazing that the same communication tool that has helped overthrow oppressive governments is also responsible for alerting me that my mother-in-law just achieved Supreme status in Bubble Witch Saga.

 

As far as social media goes, it has approx. one billion versions of these people:

 

Focus: I like Facebook, but I'm one of those apparently rare people that genuinely likes their friends and the people they surround themselves with. When I see/hear about the bullshit other people see when they log on, I don't blame a lot of people for not caring for it too much. But the vast majority of my newsfeed is stuff I actually find funny, interesting, thought-provoking, pretty, etc etc. There are maybe 5 randos from high school that posts silly shit that I usually find amusing in a reality TV kind of way, and then only 2 or 3 that I've hidden from my timeline because I couldn't take it anymore. Most of my fun comes from the comments of friends' friends that I don't know. This is not dramatic, but since I have it easily accessible from one of the half-dozen Facebook Chats I have going on at any given time (another reason I'm a fan) this is the best I can share:

(Posted on a picture of a guy's gnarly black eye he got from a bike accident, saying he thinks the crazy shade of purple is actually kind of pretty)
" No it looks really realistic, which is great. But as someone with a theatre background it's clear to me this is makeup. But as you can see by the comments it looks real!"

Alt-Focus: Most everyone I know and like lives somewhere other than here, so I do use Facebook as a way to keep in touch with my friends and family and let people know what's going on in my life. I almost never post about anything negative, though. Besides there being a little fear of turning into one of those posters that people complain about with the emo statuses, I just tend to be more private about those kinds of things in general. I like to keep my page light. (Although then every now and then I feel a bit "curating my life"y but, I'm fine with it.)

 

I don't use Facebook. I have a Twitter account so I can follow updates for things, but I don't tweet. The only individual person that I follow is my sister. And, she never tweets either. One time, I tweeted something to try and win a contest. So, I have no idea what's going on with my friends on social media. I have good friend that shares many of the high school friends that I have, and he is on Facebook. We eat lunch together about once a month, and he will occasionally pass on some hilarious Facebook drama to me. It seems like I'm not really missing anything.

I don't share much publicly, at all. I'm very private. My most active online social activity is here at TiB. And, most people here don't even know that I'm actually a 52 year old grandmother, divorced twice, spent 11 years in prison, and have seven children.

 

The primary thing I use Facebook and Twitter for is finding out when a band I like is releasing a new album or a TV show I like is about to start a new season. Even that doesn't work that well anymore now that Facebook only sends updates to a random subset of a page's fans.

 

I like using it to laugh at the attention whores. Generally, I've noticed that people who post the most self-helpy shit trying to encourage others to be better are actually in need of the most help themselves. Facebook is a two-way mirror for the narcissistic and emotionally retarded. Whats that? You banged a guy who wanted to cross MILF off his list and made it seem like he actually liked you? Post a bunch of shit about how you're going to change now and how you think everyone must know that you're a better person than you feel. You'll do it again next week. It ups the entertainment factor when they do this at the age of 45. I'm talking about you Bonnie.

Basically, Facebook is the emotional version of Newton's 3rd law. Get treated like shit or act like a whore? Post about how you aren't. Asking for prayers but not telling anyone why? I pray for shit to get worse.

You know who doesn't post shitty garbage about how happy/successful they are? People who are actually happy and successful.

 

I think that may be due to the fact that most people use facebook in a different way. For me, it's not a place just for friends, I like the people I surround myself with, too. But many people have a ton of "friends" that they maybe know or have seen once, but don't really hang out with. I was guilty of that, too, so I have lots of idiots in there, which I'm too lazy to unfriend, so I just block people when they annoy me. Nowadays I deny friend requests from people I barely know and/or will never see again.

 

You people are doing facebook wrong. To make it an enjoyable experience defriend everyone that you aren't really friends with. You don't need to be connected with everyone you have crossed paths with in the last 30 years.

The thing I see a lot of recently in my news feed is idiots who bought into a pyramid scheme. Essential Oils and Advocare being the main culprit. Trying to sell me on your pyramid scheme is automatic grounds for defriending.

I like Facebook because it is a fun way to make fun of my friends, and keep in touch with those I still like but don't see often.

 

I use Facebook the way it was intended to be used - perving the profiles of ex boyfriends, ex girlfriends, random hookups whose last names I remember and other people I don't really like, so I can feel better about my life. Come on, I spend most of my time these days in yoga pants wondering why my tits are in my shoes. It's only fair that I get to spend a few minutes relishing my ex's forays into amateur wrestling management, or perusing a female acquaintance so fully entrenched in her midlife crisis that all she needs is a pool boy and a TV series to complete the picture. Hey, is it my fault that these people don't take advantage of their privacy settings?

I admit with some embarrassment that I have used Facebook to post pictures of my kid these days because she's fucking adorable and I want the likes. Shut up.

 

Right now, my newsfeed on Facebook is:

Selfies
People I am related to trying to sell me something
links to images on websites
dogs in both photo and video form
baby pictures
potted plants that are quite lovely

Alt Focus: I don't share much of my life on social media. If I think of something that I find clever, I will post a status update or if something really big is going on, I tell people about it. For example, I told everyone when I graduated college, but I did not feel the need to post a picture after my recent haircut. My Facebook profile is almost entirely my best friend sending me links to random things like motivational Shia LaBeouf videos and articles about Patrick Stump. The last douchey thing I did was post pictures of my friend and I at Starbucks because we was trying to be ironic.

 

Focus:
As a twenty-four old male, I joined Facebook relatively late, and at the behest of high school friends encouraging me to start my own page there just before summer so I could participate in events planned through it, etc. I can honestly say about 35% of those friends have been summarily deleted for various infractions even my tolerant and generally jovial ass couldn't stand, like sending request for joining into freemium games, (I've only ever played one, Game of Thrones: Ascent, and I can honestly say it's usually about as satisfying as playing Go Fish in a retirement home; not that fun) and I am generally a very liberal "friender" and "liker", but this means every once in a great while I have to boot a 'bot account or some idiot who keeps making posts about miracle wraps. I freely admit I keep some friends merely about to peruse their updates and laugh my ass off.

Anyone over the age of eighteen who is hot and a girl apparently also needs to toss in a song lyric quote and like eleven hash-tags to make the selfies shine and sparkle with just enough narcissism. I'm in a few groups, a couple green-text and story-sharing ones, quite a few dog ones and photography ones. The dog ones, a few of them, will often explode in vitriolic rage as two people butt heads over the most mundane things, like rolled braid collars vs leather, raw diet vs high-quality kibble, etc. At current count I have 512 friends, and most of them I have only met through the Internet, and one a scale of about 45% real life friends, relatives, acquaintances and the 55% Internet friends and acquaintances. I rarely mute anybody, and if I get pissed enough with someone then fuck it, un-friend.

I usually just make many re-posts, posting a quote or two from a book, making a simple status update here and there. It's mostly just fun for me.

Alt-Focus:
This is where I get pissed with the more generic Facebookers; they don't tell a story, use decent grammar or spelling or conveyance of ideas and just usually post a cryptic shit of an update like "So done with the drama" or "OMG this bitch" or whatever the fuck-else. Here's two examples, one from a cousin of mine, another from a young girl who is a friend of a friend:



The second one is better, namely because it's a woman, it's less cryptic and it has a cuteness and little micro-story within. The one by my cousin, however, is cluster-fuck of an update. It's cryptic, near-nonsense and spelled in half-gibberish.

 

Focus: I'm 28, and recently the women my age who are doing "traditionally" well (married to a guy who makes good money, couple of young kids, maybe a pet or two) are approaching cunty levels of showing off, and I honestly can't tell how intentional it is. There's definitely nothing wrong with posting pictures of your family/life on Facebook, but there are a lot of "nothing" posts that all seem to show off how well they're doing. A picture of their lunch (with their ring finger coincidentally very noticeable), a "random selfie" (that's perfectly framed to show off the leather interior of a new SUV and their daughter asleep in a top-of-the line car seat in the back), etc.

I would much rather a few "Hey look at this big ass rock on my finger!!" or "New SUV with leather seats, woo!!" than a dozen "just thought I'd post a random picture of our lawn… why yes that IS our new boat in the background, wow good eye!" The passive bragging bothers me.

 

You should see the same sort of woman with just a couple of pets, especially if it is a mammal like a dog or cat. You can hear the maternal-instinct, whether being ignored in favor of the animals or being turned aside by another factor, squealing underneath every photo of Tiger or Fido doing something cute or stupid or whatever-the-fuck-else. I love pet photos. I just hate seeing the same sleeping dog on a couch, for fifty pictures, over the course of two days.

 

My Facebook feed is becoming more and more inundated with babies and weddings lately. To the point where I would know it was the weekend just by the sheer number of new wedding photos popping up in my newsfeed. Not so much people I'm close with now, but lots of high school and college friends that I never talk to but also haven't bothered to delete from my friends list. These posts (the baby ones, particularly) always elicit a feeling of "wait guys, aren't we too young for this?" But then I realize that 25 or 26 is a pretty normal age to get married, and *gasp* maybe even have a baby.

I rarely post anything, and I have to approve all posts I'm tagged in before they'll show up on my page (wall? what's it even called now?), but I do use Facebook to remind me of birthdays and occasionally chat with friends who live elsewhere. I have decided that I am not funny enough for twitter, and probably too old for instagram. Pretty lame, really.

 

Just checked and I have literally 16 facebook friends, including my wife. I guessed the number was somewhere around there but was curious how much pruning I had actually done. They're all family (and even then just the ones I get along with reasonably well) and a few close friends. I use facebook exclusively for sharing pictures with family, seeing interesting/funny stories and pictures from a few places I subscribe to, and every once in a while I'm guilty of posting links to something about equal rights just to piss off my in-laws when they start getting out of hand.