Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I think I might hate Facebook

So I have recently been having some trouble with Facebook. I was on MySpace for a long time, but now spend much more time on Facebook. I think I made this switch because Facebook was so much more interesting. You could “tag” pictures of your friends and visa versa and then your home page would tell you when one of your friends was “tagged.” Your home page would update you on what your friends were doing at any given moment, whether they were in a relationship, what parties and events they were attending, etc. Because of this I have developed a deep passion for online stalking. Want to know whether a friend ditched you for dinner to go on a date? No problem. Want to spy on an ex-boyfriend? EASY. Questions about whether your ex-best friend is pregnant or just kind of fat? Answers are readily available.

However, this love of Facebook stalking has recently backfired on me…

Remember the days when you had to have your photos printed and you could rip up negatives of anything incriminating? Or when people had pagers and would text you with codes like 143 (I love you) or 18 (my personal code :)). Now everyone with a phone, PDA, iPod or camera can take photos of you and upload them to the internet within seconds. Now I have entire conversations with people via text and hardly ever actually talk on my phone (especially since I got a BlackBerry). For example, before, if my Stupid Ex had a new girlfriend I might not know about it for months. I probably wouldn’t find out until a mutual friend let it slip or I caught them making out at a bar. NOW I would know within hours!! First, pictures of the two of them would show up on Facebook. My home page will nicely tell me Stupid Ex has been tagged in new pictures. I would go look at said pictures and start to get suspicious. Soon enough, Stupid Ex would change his relationship status to “in a relationship.” Really? Well who might you be in a relationship with, Stupid Ex?? Oh, THANK YOU, Facebook! How nice of you to provide me with that information! Stupid New Girl, you say?? Wonderful. Now I’ll waste another half day stalking her and all her lovely, make-me-want-to-barf new pictures of her with Stupid Ex.


Now, we all know the above is a hypothetical for me since all my stupid exes are either married or smart enough not to be on Facebook (but if they were, the above would totally be a possibility). But I did have a few instances recently where I learned things about people I TOTALLY didn’t want or need to know. But I have no choice! There it is staring me in the face, a nice new little tidbit from my informative friend Mr. Facebook. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW THESE THINGS BUT DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP. *Help!*


* I'm calling Amy Kerr out here, specifically, because Facebook has informed me of all her new Salem friends and I have long-distance friend jealousy :)

6 comments:

Emily said...

Wow! I have been thinking the exact same thing...I too indulge in stalking from time heh heh. The problem is that I am being forced to stalk! Don't get me wrong facebook is really great for keeping me up-to-speed on all my close pals that I wish I could see more often like you of course however, it makes me want to check out other people's pages even if I don't particularly care about their lives that much. It has become a sickness and I am infected. I too need help. We may need to make some sort of group;-)
Perhaps we can do some art and vent about it heh heh! Love you!

Nanny Goats In Panties said...

So I guess this wouldn't be a good time to bring up my armpit smelling obsession? Not my own armpits of course, that would be gross!

btracy said...

Yes! I'm proud to say I'm not on facebook. I'll have to show Kim this post. Thanks for helping make my case Lizzie.

Brian

Anonymous said...

The whole "virtual (or virulent) community" thing is strange and unsettling. It may be somewhat better than breaking into David Letterman's home, but it's a close call.

Beth said...

OK, so I have done some stalking too. And what about un-friending people? That is just bad facebook manners...so even if you don't want to be their friend is it worse for them to find out that you un-friended them. BUT, what if you go in and block them (as an Ex of mine has recently done to me) now that is just childish!!!!

Frankie said...

HOly crap girl we really are on the same page. That's so funny. Facebook is completely changing the way people date/interact/live. I'm not sure if the good things about FB outweigh the bad or not... but with stupid ex boyfriends the bad def wins. AMAziNG post! :o)