You're bad at Facebook. Here's how to be worse.

In today's culture, trends don't last as long as fresh fruit. You better jump on the bandwagon quickly, otherwise you'll almost certainly miss it. By these standards, Facebook is really old. What was once such a great social tool has become something many of us hate, but can't quite bring ourselves to get rid of.

Facebook itself hasn't done anything to get worse, but now that seemingly every person on Earth has a page and can share their boring life with the rest of us, it's become terribly annoying. If you have a Facebook page, it's your fault.  You have screwed this up for me.  I know I could just quit Facebook altogether and never have to worry about this, but I'm not willing to do that just yet.

So I'm going to give you some pointers on how to make me hate Facebook so much that maybe I'll finally just be able to quit entirely.

Status Updates


Updating your status is an excellent way to get the word out about something or just call attention to yourself.  There are a lot of ways to do this poorly.  Unfortunately this is what everybody sees when they check their own Facebook page.  Avoiding this entirely is tough.  Many people over-share, while others under-share while still giving frequent updates.  Either way, make sure you use poor grammar and use as little punctuation as possible.




We all know somebody who posts about once an hour what they're doing.  I can't imagine anybody who is cool enough to have anybody care what they're doing every waking hour.  But we've all seen it.

"Buzz Quimby is eating at Subway again lol"

"Buzz Quimby just saw a cloud that looks like a sloppy joe"

"Buzz Quimby is watching Rugrats LOL"

You know what I'm talking about.

Under-sharing could be a great thing, especially when you have a few friends that over-share.  But these are still putting themselves out there.  Facebook should be renamed "Vaguebook" for these people.

"Trixi Stickley is over it"

"Trixi Stickley is wondering..."

"Trixi Stickley is thinking about somebody ;)"

Clearly the motive here is to have people comment and say "Tell us more, Trixi!"  Thankfully there's a quick and easy way to delete friends for those of us who really don't care.

Another thing you need to start doing is telling me just how drunk you got last night (or are now).  It's one thing if you're in college or maybe a couple years out, but for most of the rest of us, we should probably keep some things to ourselves.

Wall Posts


This is a good way to quickly contact a friend without having to commit to an hours-long phone call because you haven't talked to them in several years.  Again, there are lots of ways to get my eyes rolling, so keep these things up.

If you like something, you can only truly show your affection for it by saying "love" three times in a row.  "OMG I love, love, love your new Crocs they are so pretty and green and plastic yay lolz!"

And if you miss someone, admit it--you don't really miss them, you miss their face.  So tell them like it is.  "I miss ur face call me soon puh-leeeeeeazzzzzzzzze!"

Photos


Facebook is a great way for us to show photos that are important to us.  Years ago, people carried pictures in their wallet.  Now we can show pictures of our families to everyone via Facebook, but let's face it, we just want to show pictures of ourselves.  Here are some things to make sure you do next time you post pictures.

Flex your muscles in the bathroom mirror.

Give gang signs.  This includes the scissors, or sideways peace sign, the West-Side "W", and the rocker.  This is super-awesome.

Ladies, make that kissing face.  Guys see "she wants to make out with me", but you're just thinking "my cheeks don't look as fat when I do this."

Also, take the strategic self-portrait from up above.  For some reason you never see girls in turtlenecks taking this photo.  Oddly enough, it's only done while wearing a low-cut shirt.  The view of Cleveland is always best from up above, if you know what I mean.

Post every picture from your latest outing.  And I mean every one.  Even if you have 23 pictures in a row of the same thing, post them all.  And let us see the blurry ones too.  Those are the best ones.

Games


I'm only on Facebook so I can see how you're doing on Farmville or Mafia Wars.  Your page should look like a trophy case.  I want to know everything that's happening in your life of virtual organized-crime.  Please invite me to play your game with you every chance you get.

Fan Pages


Facebook is a great way to show the world what you're interested in.  You can "become a fan" of certain things.  You can show people you're a fan of a restaurant or a band or a university.  But what's really nice is that you can become a fan of things like "Texting the person next to you stuff you can't say out loud" or "Texting while laying down on your back and dropping your phone on your face".

Quite a few people are only on Facebook so that they can promote their business.  I understand that and don't have a problem with it.  But if I'm going to hate Facebook forever, you need to keep asking me over and over to become a fan of your business, even after I've rejected the request multiple times.  Now that I think about it, ever since you got an expensive camera, you're a tremendous artist, and I want to show the world that I support your photography business.

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I'm sure I do plenty on Facebok that people hate.  There's nothing worse than somebody who tells their friends to go see their blog or look at pictures of their new nephew.  If you don't like me anyway, I guess you don't care about those things.  If that's the case, you have my permission to delete me from your list.

This is all my fault.  Being on Facebook for a few years has made me irritable.  I, like most other ornery people, don't like change very much.  But I'd like to know if I'm all alone here.  Let me know what bugs you about Facebook, and maybe I'll have to issue an updated version.

It's a High-Tech World, and We Don't Even Realize It

Technology gets a bad rap sometimes. Texting while driving, cyber-stalking, facebook obsessions, tweeting EVERYTHING you do all day--all problems. Don't take it out on the technology, take it out on the idiots using them.

I know it gets said all the time, but where would we be without all this stuff? Forget living off the land, we feel like we'd be roughing it to not have the internet or our cell phone for a couple days. Don't act like it doesn't affect you...everybody knows somebody who says "I hate this cell phone, and I never use the internet." Even if you are telling the truth (and you aren't), nobody wants to hear it. We've all got to stand out for something, and if you need to stand out by being belligerent, more power to you. Just don't expect anybody to like you.

It's not like this stuff has been around for all that long, either. If you could go back in time just 10 years, I'd like you to drop a comment about texting while driving at a cocktail party. "Texting? What are you talking about...I mean, what are you WORDING about? Idiot, get out of here." Seriously, we take 20 minutes to invent words to talk about this stuff.

My buddy Brad and I were talking tonight and trying to figure out how old a particular baseball player was. In just a few seconds, we knew he was 34...and we're not even smart. Well, he's the one who found out, so maybe he is. But we got to wondering, how did people find this stuff out 15 or 20 years ago? I can't even remember back that far anymore. I guess you just try and find out by getting lucky. "How old is Eric Byrnes?"

"Beats me. Guess we'll never know."

"I'll write a letter to the newspaper. Maybe we'll get a response. I'll let you know in a couple months."

No way that would work today. If somebody tells me I have to write a letter, I'm like "what? No way! I don't even think I could find a piece of paper, let alone an envelope! And how much are stamps nowadays?" And if I get a letter in the mail, forget it. I'm nervous for a week. Maybe it's a ransom note...maybe I owe somebody money...maybe this is chemical warfare.

I'd like to see somebody go back 20 years and explain their facebook addiction. You might as well be explaining it to cavemen.

"Facebook? What? Do they have phonebooks with pictures in the future?"

"No, it's a website. Uh, it's this place on the inter...um...so it's this thing on my computer."

"You have a computer at your house? Nerd alert!"

"Yeah, I have a couple, but it's this place on the computer where people communicate with each other. All the computers are hooked together, all over the world."

"Wow, even in Russia? Russia sucks man...stupid Commies. So are there just wires all over the world or what? What are you, like pen pals with people everywhere?"

"Oh man, no, I don't know how it works. But anyway, there's lots of information on there, and I have a farm and a mafia on my page. I spend about nine hours a day on there. Plus more time on my cell phone."

"What? What are you talking about? You're a farmer and a mobster? Your page? You sell phones? I am so confused."

"No, it's a cell phone, like cellular. It's where I do my twitter."

"Get away from me, man. I don't want to hear anything else about your twitter."