Least defensible type of self-applauding status update

Pictures of kids / recountings of 'cute' things said by kids.

i'm leaning towards perverse grump which, y'know, i frequently am meself

1,2, 3, 4, and 7 all seem reprehensible to me. I should probably hate 1,3 and 4 more than the others because they are pure brags, but 2 and 7 gross me out a lot. I have no particular qualms with 4 and 5 - cute kids and exotic locations are nice to look at.

i have a terrible offender who writes long statuses in the form of letters written to her, recounting how awesome she and her life are, that are signed off "love, the universe". doesn't get worse than that.

I don't mind specific stuff at all - if you've just achieved something, facebook is a reasonable way of informing people. It's also more used for photo storage than flickr is, so even though I get pissed off by photos of kids in my stream I don't think I can totally hate on that.

So, it has to be 1, 2 or 7. I think on balance 1 is worst.

the only reason i'm still on facebook is that it's the most efficient way to share pictures of my daughter with anyone who might want to see them (relatives, other friends with kids), if it wasn't for that i'd quit fb today, so if you don't like pics of cute kids then go ahead and unfollow me

unfriend.

all of these are fine except people who post about how much they can fucking lift

I have certain particular friends who post a lot of the romantic so-grateful-for-your-love-and-support things about their partner where I just don't believe them, based on what I know of their relationships. These gross me out especially.

a young coworker was inveighing against the momification of facebook where people are just updating shit about their kids, and i'm thinking ...fuck, i didn't need a picture of your osso buco, bro, i can go out to dinner too.

that time i posted my first 7 figure 1099 was a little over the top tho

oh yeah ppl who post pics of food all the fucking time are up there on my list of annoying ppl

especially when they do it with tags like #foodporn #foodgasm

unclever hashtags are also awful in themselves

The one I can't stand is the career achievements update, but that def says more about me than the people posting them.

a young coworker was inveighing against the momification of facebook where people are just updating shit about their kids, and i'm thinking ...fuck, i didn't need a picture of your osso buco, bro, i can go out to dinner too.

― all false moves (Hunt3r), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 12:42 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am biased here, but I find this to be pretty much the only thing facebook is really good for other than pure timewasting. But we created a separate subscriber-only page for baby stuff so as not to clutter up the feeds of bitter non-breeders ;)

I am genuinely not bothered by any of these. I guess I prefer "life is good" posts that don't literally end with "life is good", but whatever. Give me your beautiful snowflake children and your newest book. Give me your mountaintop photos and hard-won pounds lost. I am especially happy when you praise your amazing partner. Keep it up!

"Expressions of love for / admiration of romantic partner"

this is the worst bc other stuff seems to have at least a small amount of communal value (keeping track of ppl's families, jobs, travels) but PDA online is simultaneously gross + transparently braggy

xp to austerity ponies: i'm cool with most of those things, it's just some ppl are particularly obnoxious in the way they do it. i mean i'm sure we've all been guilty of one of those status updates at some point but i don't fucking sign off my "life is good" posts with "love, the universe"

WIN

WINNING

A WINNER IS ME

where I just don't believe them, based on what I know of their relationships.

yeah, the whole putting on a good face in public grind is universally not a nagl

there's a line where being positive switches into a desperate grimace. On the internet, I guess it's probably a series of lines.

I can't wait for the poll results to come in and make the posts calling out options by number indecipherable

all of these are fine. i'm happy that people i know - and if i have them on fbook, like, even if distantly - are happy. obviously some people are clumsy or irritating in their use of language sometimes but who cares really. all of you are miserable fuckers except austerity ponies.

Yup Jibe, it absolutely depends on the tone? Like for Option #7, "Omigod I have the best boyfriend ever, I love you Sean!!!: is obviously terrible; it is possible to be dignified with it. So if something is low-key and heartfelt I can't get mad. Therefore I guess if the way it's expressed is the thing that pisses me off the most, I have to vote for "Life is Good". I find that fake-chillness obnoxious.

However I am not really on Facebook so I guess I'm not sure how bad some of these can get.

and i am ALL FOR BRAGGING, life is a hard motherfucker and any joy anyone can glean from it deserves to be fully revelled in

stray question mark there, oops

Like one of my friends posts stuff like "Every day I wake up grateful to have x as my life partner" -- no you fucking don't! No one who has been married more than a year literally wakes up every day grateful. Some days you are grateful, some days you are blase, once in a while you are miffed.

But lex don`t you find Facebook status updates weirdly competitive and bizarre

Like you have to display how awesome your life is so people you never speak to will be jealous

plus, imo it doesn't feel dignified to go public when you're feeling like shit or when something's fallen through (not counting low-grade whinges) - not judging those who do but perhaps this is why some people's social media profiles seem like endless bragging

low-grade whinges are also fine because they are there to be empathised with

like good grief if you get SO annoyed by someone just go ahead and delete them and then you'll both be happy

But lex don`t you find Facebook status updates weirdly competitive and bizarre

― franny glass, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:57 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like you have to display how awesome your life is so people you never speak to will be jealous

― franny glass, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:58 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not really, you're thinking about it too much. i mean probably there are people who are competitive about it but who gives a fuck tbh, glance at it and move on, if you really resent it then unfriend

I don't mind anything really apart from my possibly irrational loathing of people sharing pictures of their fucking cars.

"Life is good" is hatefully smug but people who announce their running times are the worst. Go to a running forum or a Google+ group if you want to do that. I have some friends who do this on Twitter and I have to grit my teeth and remind myself of their good points.

Enjoying lex's chilled "whatever bro, diff'rent strokes" vibe itt. Posts very much not in character.

i <3 the running times, it's a weird window into an alternative method of running - i run but for me it's a way of getting out of that constantly-measuring-one's-achievements thing, a total head-clearing exercise

i really hate the logic of "someone posted something you dislike, delete him" because most of the ppl i have on facebook are ppl i like it's just that sometimes they show a less likable side of themselves. i've yet to meet someone who doesn't annoy me once in a while, what am i supposed to do, just delete everyone out of my existence ?

you don't have to unfriend them, just hide them from your feed

Well I`m not really on facebook (have approximately 5 `friends`, just to keep up on when our group meets) but this is how it seems to me from what I`ve seen of others` pages. The whole thing is a weird life-performance platform that makes me uncomfortable so I opt out. If I used it regularly I think I would die of envy constantly seeing my ex-boyfriend`s South America honeymoon pictures or whatever. Ugh.

the annoyance elicited by someone being gauche on social media, which i acknowledge happens, should never last more than a few seconds. social media is constantly rolling and there'll be something likeable along next!

thzy don't post only status updates i find annoying !
xp

life is a weird life-performance platform xxp

generally prefer life-is-good type shit to guess-who-got-a-promotion type shit. don't mind athletic bs accomplishments, because lol.

Like one of my friends posts stuff like "Every day I wake up grateful to have x as my life partner" -- no you fucking don't! No one who has been married more than a year literally wakes up every day grateful. Some days you are grateful, some days you are blase, once in a while you are miffed.

this but also, shouldn't some things be private? if anything should be private, your relationship w/ your life partner should be.

the status of your relationship should stay between you, your partner, your marriage counselor, your in-laws, your bartender and your dealer. no one else really needs to know.

Surely you'd tell your parish priest, Mord?

i said marriage counselor

85% of all my social media feeds are running times.

I'd have to go with option 7.

I've just realised that the options aren't actually numbered, so when the results come in nobody will know what we mean by e.g. "option 7".

For reference:

1. Statuses that end in "Life is good."
2. Statuses expressing generalized gratitude for friends and/or family members.
3. Notifications of career achievements (e.g. hirings, promotions)
4. Notifications of athletic achievements (e.g. marathon times, amount of weight lifted)
5. Pictures of cute kids / recountings of cute things said by kids.
6. Photos of exotic travel
7. Expressions of love for / admiration of romantic partner
8. All these status types are defensible and anyone who dislikes them is a perverse grump who hates joy

8

lex otm itt

most of the ppl i have on facebook are ppl i like it's just that sometimes they show a less likable side of themselves

there are quite a lot of friends of varying degrees of closeness who I like and respect and am sincerely honoured that they see fit to associate w/ me irl... and yet if I only knew them through the prism of social media I would have probably written them off as dorks

children are the worst

Number 4 is the only one that bothers me, because tedious updates about running are the worst. I don't care. I don't really care about the other items on this list either, they just doesn't stick in my craw as much as the jockish bragging.

I only friend slothful people

it bothers me because there is really no point to these dudes letting everyone know your running time or what you lifted or how many calories you burned or whatever other than to impress girls. baby pics don't bother me because a lot of people have a bunch of extended family on FB and it's a good way to send out a photo to everyone. when we have kids I'm sure the mizzuz is going to do this all the time because she's got too many relatives on FB who live thousands of miles away and she's not going to send them to everyone individually. just ignore it or block the person if you think the kid's ugly

there's a mrs. frogbs? i had no idea!

in the end i'm going with 8. and none of these bother me as much as people posting noxious political bs that i would never waste my time trying to contest via facebook.

frogb-ess

PDAs are bad enough irl.

yup. it's pretty interesting being married to a foreigner and having like 25-odd members of her family add you, including a bunch that are in high school or college, so you get to see all the same stupid memes that everyone here complains about, but in a foreign language

hahaha quality frogbs

i have done a few of these myself. the "life is good" one, the generalized thanks to friends/family (usually after birthdays/coming home and getting to see a bunch of my friends who live in different cities etc). i guess i don't care all that much about individual athletic achievements really but i'm not an athlete, i'm sure if i ran a marathon or something i'd probably write something about it because it's kind of a big deal!

i have - and will - post about cool stuff/accomplishments i'm a part of at work because frankly i need that kind of confidence building sometimes and i think certain projects i'm working on will genuinely interest some people i'm friends with (past experience has proven this to be more or less true)

i find stupid garbage memes (george takei/i fucking love science/etfuckingcetera) a million times worse than any of these, tbh. basically lex otm, you don't need to read this stuff yourself if you don't want to obv but basically this world stinks and we all need some self-affirmation sometimes, big deal

I really don't mind people posting running times - I run, some of my friends run, my sisters run, why the heck wouldn't we talk about how we got on in races and stuff like that? I don't post my own times on fbook btw, but then I don't really post anything much at all so

dude we all know its just to impress girls

yeah I'm not talking about those who do it as a community thing

Yeah, telling girls you came 375th in a local 10k is a surefire winner in my experience. Would have gone faster, but I was at the point of shitting myself. How about a drink sometime?

Most self-applauding things on FB don't bother me, unless they're mawkish. Or accompanied by a badly designed macro using an unacceptable font.

I agree it depends on intent and delivery. Most of these don't have to be awful, but are if the person posting them is actually trying to be impressive rather than just sharing.

Personally I hate the self-regarding anecdotes that seem designed to show how awesome/funny/quirky/unique/badass/"crazy"/desirable the poster is.

I'm also not keen on the self pity/validate-me/martyr posts. Or the threats to delete anyone who does/doesn't do something.

What the fuck is any sort of status update for if not most of the above?

philosophical musings?

i guess there are defensible and indefensible ways to do any of these things.

brb just gonna go post on FB about how well my poll is going

I don't typically hate any of these unless that person overdoes them - I want to hear good news from my friends! - but #7 is the hardest to defend. Not really an update, uh unless things were bad before. #2 would be up there too but I don't know anyone that overdoes those.

Don't really mind any of these (again, depending on the delivery). Self-congratulating status updates I DO hate include:
-pictures of your stupid organic vegetables that you grew
-pretending to give a crap about some tragedy (showing off what an empathetic, big-hearted person you are)
-this one dude always promoting his really stupid app. (Dude also recently posted a sincere RIP Thatcher update)

7 is fine if it's a photo of the two of you at the play, ball game, dinner, whatever. If it's you talking baby talk to your snookums, I find it less annoying than deeply problematic. Like you're either delusional or exceptionally socially dim-witted.

I'm pretty okay with most of them except the athletic achievement one because of

1) a friend whose only posts are looooooong bloggish upddates about the results of his weekly softball game. And I mean, like paragraphs long. wtf

2) crossfit friend who posts stats about squats lifts blah blah blah blah blah ragh woo

3) friend who used to be overweight who now lifts (male), who now posts, I'm not kidding, daily selfies of himself at the gym lifting or showing off upper body and yes you have a good body but he's totally using it for confidence boosting in a really OCD way and I'm sooooooooooooooooo tired of it

I have hidden all these ppl btw

See, I thought athletic achievement was fine because the only ones I ever see are very very rare "I did a marathon" posts. I think I would have to hide someone if their 'achievement' updates were more like a daily exercise log.

it's irritating beyond belief. and sad.

These are all 100000x better than a single post on religion or politics tbf

http://www.stfuparentsblog.com (good for them, already got the book deal)

It's the formal qualities of the 'praise significant other' option that make it stand out for me

there's a line where being positive switches into a desperate grimace.
i live to see people cross this line -- this is what makes facebook entertaining!

i find all of these more or less entertaining depending on who's saying them, but probably not entertaining in the intended way. my heart is not warmed by expressions of love, for instance. i dunno, it's people unwittingly laying their neuroses bare, what's not to love?!

Voting ''life is good'' b/c it's almost always about some really really ordinary stupid thing being made out as great luxurious figured-out-how-to-live serenity, and overlaps closely with the 'picture of the meal i ate.' Kid pictures are dull dull dull but I sort of accept them as coming from a good/legit place when they're not too numerous. And hell, if someone moves to a new city or quits their job or whatever it's actually significant life news for them, and if I am their friend I probably care.

My 24-year old cousin literally posts nothing but reactions to DC football and basketball games and lines from '90s alt-rock songs.

had to vote perverse grump but life is good was very tempting. marathon/weight ones seem to be about motivation and encouragement so totally fine w/ that, travel photos can be interesting, expressions of love or gratitude toward family or romantic partners seems ridiculously churlish to be angry about, actual something happened updates like promotion/job change/whatever are rare enough occurrences as to be actually encouraged (certainly more justifiable than yr 'i'm gonna take a nap' updates). even the life is good ones could be fine if they were actually posted by ppl taking stock of their life or having a moment of perspective instead of just insecure and smug assholes congratulating themselves on going out to eat.

i'm leaning towards perverse grump which, y'know, i frequently am meself

― life went on, sadly (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 12:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ this

I went with the perverse grump option, in that all of these are defensible, if done in a proper spirit of humility. If you care about someone, their happiness is a source of borrowed pleasure. If you don't really care about them, it is perverse to attribute your irritation with their happiness as a sign of their polluted motives for revealing it to you.

I think maybe part of it for me is that Facebook is just kind of boring. I've seen people in my feed complain about bragging & competitive posts and just shrugged, figuring they have different friends. I've also seen people complain about changes in features where I can barely tell the difference, and I've seen folks complain about ads, and I've been like, "Oh yeah, hey look there are ads," and I've seen people complain about requests from apps, where I just click on the feature that blocks future requests and move on. So maybe there are all these horrible things going on but I'm just meh who cares, it's Facebook.

I just like checking in to see if my friends are happy about smooching their awesome partners who makes the birds sing in the morning or if they're running fast in their fancy new shoes that their awesome new job paid for. Sometimes it's a bonus when they're funny.

who decides what a "proper spirit of humility" is? that seems flawed to me but whatever floats your boat. as i mentioned, none of these irritate me at all -- facebook is mostly good for fun people watching because people share things with me when they would otherwise not do so. share all you want, people!

yeah but then you get the status updates that are all "well my pap smear didn't go well today, time to prep for the hysterectomy" and part of me can't help but wonder if people actually meant to post that level of detail to all of their Facebook friends

I don't have a Facebook account, LL, so I don't entirely understand the dynamic of that place. I'm sure my ignorance shows.

If you don't vote the final option you're probably a bad person

i don't mind the achievement type ones, cos it's sort of a good way to hear a friend has got a job and i might be pleased for them. the exercise ones i don't mind since i only tend to see them from friends whom i exercise with so it makes sense.

the type that really annoys me i guess is a variant of one and two - it's the "oscar speech" which seems to have got really prevalent, like particularly after somebody has been away for a weekend or a holiday, or weirdly also on an anniversary of a sad occasion. i mean like the really long "AWESOME time in Paris guys" with a load of people and venues thanked and tagged and then a "life is good" type thing near the end.

it just feels sort of pathetic.

Did I mention that I am a bad person

your post was an xpost to mine, i wasn't responding in case that seemed like i was!

i was going to post on my wife's facebook page congratulating her on passing her driving test, but this thread stopped me.

I was self xposting too

I just wasn't clear about it because I am a bad person

I'll be back with more thoughts on this after I tackle this IBS flare-up. fingers crossed!

I had to vote athletic updates. Had to.

the love for romantic partner stuff is weird, cos like, why wouldn't you just tell them directly... but i suppose people want to tell the world.

some people just want to make their single friends feel bad.

There was this guy I went to high school with who would post multiple times a day about this woman he met named Lorraine. It was always Lorraine and I did this, OH how wonderful are my times with Lorraine, etc. Then one day he posted a picture of himself with her and announced that they were engaged. She looked terrified in the picture. It was like watching a movie.

I cringe hardest over posts I can imagine the poster really regretting someday. On that basis, "expressions of love for / admiration of romantic partner" seems to offer the widest scope for future self-humiliation. Also, public performance of romance for a Facebook audience is just not very romantic.

LL I just lolled so hard at that

He's totally gone from facebook now. No idea what happened to him or Lorraine!

public performance of romance for a Facebook audience is just not very romantic.

it does feel like part of a routine with some people. like they're telling themselves as much as each other. that validation is probably at the heart of most of the poll options i guess. plenty of which i am guilty of.

yeah I feel mean to judge people for most of the other self-applauding status updates, and even the abusers of the athletic update that I've noted above def have some big self-esteem things going on

but when it's at the level where it's an obsessive daily need for validation I get kind of ia

those updates about perfect suburban lives make me ia to a tee

yeah, xp, I remember this study earlier this year saying Facebook makes a lot of people feel envious and dissatisfied

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130121083028.htm

which - in addition to possibly causing a lot of it - also probably compounds the constant need for self-validation

it's fun to watch people cultivate their public selves, whether they're very deliberate or stumble around or w/e

"Statuses expressing generalized gratitude for friends and/or family members."

i've done this one a few times. sometimes it was either in the midst of a prolonged terrible period of sadness, almost as a plea for someone to remember that i existed, like "hey, i love you all, life would be meaningless without you" (subtext: goddammit, can an old friend just call me up to say hello for once?). the other times it was right after the sads, and it was a genuine thank you to the people who helped pull me out of it.

Indefensible

i guess i should have tweeted

Jk obv :-)

Statuses that end in "Life is good."

not really annoying so much as boring but the whole "dinner, cooked. dessert, in the oven. wine, open. mad men s6, let's go." type status is actually really fucking annoying now that i type it out even though i began by saying it isn't and was thinking maybe it's more mundane.

my favorites are stuff like "welp just spilled groceries all over the walmart parking lot because my bag broke" and then no comments, just that lonely pointless statement.

Do photos of weird-ass shit I've seen in deep eastern Washington state count?

You missed out long pontificating updates explaining how everyone else is doing a certain aspect of life wrong.

I dont mind any of these and have even done some myself (esp occasionally being thankful for friends/expressing life being good). What I'm fed up with is people who post sixty bajillion pics of sad puppies with OMG SAVE THIS BABY FROM THE POUND KILL LIST. Every. Single.Day.

Excessive PDAs about lerv interests is also a bit gauche.

I post pics of my veggie garden sometimes cause I'm so stoked it actually worked this year! But I filter my FB posts to hide em from the people thatve added me who dont even really know me bcz why the fuck would they care? and thats mostly ILXors, sorry yall. I mostly just post stupid thoughtless joek shit and links to youtubes. Im sure I annoy the piss out of more than one person my FL.

This thread would be more enjoyable if you guys were posting travel pics and running times.

I find the statement "Life is good" offensive. Talk about privilege, to try to make a universal claim like that.

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/2167230/Joe+Walsh.jpg

This is it, y'all: a pint of Half Baked, a six-pack of Edmund Fitzgerald, totally nailed my driver's license renewal no big deal and, to top it off, tickets tonight to see the Evil Dead remake. Life's been good to me so far.

"Life is good" seems to me more like a statement that one's sense of general well-being has temporarily moved to the foreground, blocking one's vision of struggles and toils that seem more remote and less relevant to the moment. I think this can happen to almost anyone and is not some sign of rampant privilege.

Pictures of cute kids / recountings of cute things said by kids.

i do this virtually every day, i feel like once you have kids it just becomes second nature. the only self-applauding thing i really cringe at are political updates from people railing against the other team(s). even when i agree it just comes across as obnoxious.

my favorites are stuff like "welp just spilled groceries all over the walmart parking lot because my bag broke" and then no comments, just that lonely pointless statement.

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a "sad lonely facebook statuses no one liked" blog could be good

it's called "my facebook wall," oh god, thanks for reminding me ;_;

there's something extra poignant about those lonely responseless posts on Facebook that aren't quite replicated in the threads on ilx where people (people like me!) wind up talking to themselves

I have never had a FB account but seen enough to know it is no good. When you are dealing with dark times social media is no good because people don't want to know real dark awkward shit like illness and disability. Nothing wrong with folk expressing love of their kids or spritzing their new romance. But this 'how grate MY life is ... stuff makes my skin crawl. I only know FB through my wife's account and all her shitty friends, who incidentally were quick to pay lip service to her on fb since she became ill but have never lifted a finger to help her or subsequently even visited her.

By the way, I do at least two of these regularly, and yet something in me complains about the same practices by others. Strange!

Last night I ran 10 miles in 1 hour 25 minutes and 29 seconds. I felt great!

last night i walked 1.5 km in 20 minutes, i feel great !
today i walked up all 3 flights of stairs to my office, i feel great !

^ statuses i should post

"Just to let you know, a joke or bad word about Margret Thatchers death will result in an immediate unfriend. Show some fucking respect for the dead."

^^^
From the most consistently twatish updater on my feed.

Did you delete this twat?

No, I kind of enjoy getting angry at his shit.

Career achievements, when you overdo it--which in my world, means links to every last piece of writing you do. I'm very much in the Albert Brooks from Broadcast News camp:

"What do you when your life exceeds your wildest expectations?"
"Keep it to yourself."

Now and again, no problem. And yes, some sour grapes here.

i don't mind the achievement type ones, cos it's sort of a good way to hear a friend has got a job and i might be pleased for them. the exercise ones i don't mind since i only tend to see them from friends whom i exercise with so it makes sense.

the type that really annoys me i guess is a variant of one and two - it's the "oscar speech" which seems to have got really prevalent, like particularly after somebody has been away for a weekend or a holiday, or weirdly also on an anniversary of a sad occasion. i mean like the really long "AWESOME time in Paris guys" with a load of people and venues thanked and tagged and then a "life is good" type thing near the end.

it just feels sort of pathetic.

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 10 April 2013 19:03 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

someone i know did this for a week

"Today in Paris: metro, Opera Garnier, electric opera lights, metro, falafel in the Marais, many modernisms in the centre George's Pompidou, unsuccessful maçon procurement at the 8 à huit, artisanal crêpes, RER, Eurostar, underground, train, home."

voted for these are okay really, because they are. i think most of them have specific subsets though which are being touched on in this thread because those are unequivocally awful

I don't mind kid-status updates since about half of my facebook friends are parents and so am I. But a friend of mine whose kid was born around the same time as mine dropped the knowledge that she bought her daughter's easter dress at Nordstrom. Like, I have never been able to afford Nordstrom in my life and you're buying kids clothes there for a one-off event? And that's cool or whatever, because she has money I guess and she should be able to spend it how you want, but it felt like a fairly intense thing to post on the 'book, especially when a lot of my other friends status updates are about job hunting and interviews and particularly around easter time the impact of the sequester.

wow at pronouns. sorry.

One of my FB friends from school lost a son in Afghanistan. She is deeply involved with being a Gold Star Mom as a result, and updates centre around fundraising activities and the way she can feel 'Benergy' (her son's name was Ben) at crucial points, in exactly the same way Jesus leaves signs in the minds of the religious, and often seems to conflate these things in an attempt to feel a bit more special and a bit less alone. I wouldn't mind any of this by itself because she's lost *a lot* of people over the course of her life, but enough with the right-wing cryingeagle.jpg already...

'Benergy' (her son's name was Ben)

Oh no. No no no. That's awful.

Like, not just cringe-makingly awful, but sad-awful too.

idk, someone who has lost her son ges a lot of leeway in my book. hating on her for trying to deal w her loss seems kind of... low?

That's why it's also sad-awful. She should probably seek out actual help, rather than relying on Benergy, you know?

newly vegan friend is taking photos of every single thing he pulls out of his garden, everything he buys at the farmers market, even the bland, signless storefront of the new vegan grocery store in his hometown.

ENOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

Know some people who have lost kids. Most of their status updates are about the kids. You can give whatever support you can, or just tune them out, hide them, unfriend them. If either of my kids died, I'd probably drop off the face of the earth. But if these folks are out there somehow and coping and you want to be a part of their lives, realize that it's gonna be a huge part of their lives from here on out.

my Canadian friend and his fucking waether photos

It is really sad, but the drift to the right bugs me a lot more, underscored by the posting of dreadful macros. In the beginning she was even in British tabloids because his organs were donated and she went and met the people who got them. She does a lot of good work but she never switches off. The magical thinking she does is totally reinforced by other broken soccer moms she's met, of course. They are all worshipping their dead sons like Jesus.

I've known this woman since I was in grade school and I would never, ever unfriend her. My loyalty does not extend to approving of sad, fixated behaviour and I had hoped that by now she'd be focussed on the good work she does more than the loss itself.

it rarely works that way, though; my brother's been dead for 25 years and it's only been within the past 2-3 that my parents have been able to talk about him in a non-wrenching manner

I have a friend whose older brother did suicide by cop 20 yrs ago and he's still kind of shattered by it.

(My parents also set up a scholarship in his name my junior year of high school that was partially run by one of my brother's best friends from high school, so there was something in the "good works" category for them to focus on in relation to him and still the loss was overpowering)

(also the best friend recently died of a heart attack, wasn't even 50)

Burying a child has to be the worst thing a parent can ever face.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Descriptions of food I prepared with comments about its deliciousness" also a good category, one I sometimes indulge in myself. Potentially defensible on the theory that if recipes are included you could be providing some public service.

cooking, exercise etc are people's hobbies/interests/passions, it's totally legit to post about those things online. it's what the internet is FOR tbh. it's like when i post music or get excited about new albums/shows, i'm sure you joy-misers could construe that as being smug about stuff i get to hear or go to, or being smug about my taste or whatever, but it's because music is something that i am excited about! i don't begrudge people who love cooking or running etc getting excited about it.

Otmbut ilx is for jaded misers tbf

my ex-navy evangelical cousin is currently using fb statuses to complain that his teenage son has displeased and disappointed him in some vague way and obv more church is needed and pray for us. Thats the worst type of fb update

Every so often I just like whacking a good dessert pic into a feed seen by diet-obsessed fashionistas.

Any posting is OK in moderation and as part of a whole. Don't really want to see people posting exclusively about any one thing.

Have voted for "Expressions of love for / admiration of romantic partner" purely because of one old school friend who has made a disgusting habit of doing this as some kind of overt public compensation for the fact that his marriages keep falling apart. He was divorced twice by the age of 30, and then married a stripper who he stole £50k from, etc etc, and seems to be splitting up from her now, despite continual Facebook check-ins to "our lovely sofa in our lovely livingroom" etc.

His latest post: "If you love someone set them free, if they come back to you they are yours.. It hurts like hell, but sometimes there's nothing else you can do..."

lol

good on him for stealing money from the stripper though, that story is generally told in the other direction

i know of two dudes who dated strippers, and no shit, both ultimately told their stories from hospital beds after getting the shit kicked out of em

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

^ self applauding status update?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in. Life is good.

This polls results are now in and I PASSED #YOLO

hahaha, people watching wins

Oh, thought of another one. People discussing their weight. One skinny girl talking about how she needed to hit the gym after indulging in too much lolrice. Stuff it!

actually prob my biggest annoyance, tho i think i've unsubscribed from all the offenders, is people using their status update to sell something they're promoting, like gigs or whatever.

even worse than this is the seeming legions of acquaintances who work for a hipster pr company in dublin and hence their feelings and thoughts on social media are the property of whatever client they're working with at a given time, but still expressed informally guys!

i mean obv like "hey i'm djing here tonight" is fine, but i mean people who are like non-stop for 3/4 weeks before each event.

Oh, thought of another one. People discussing their weight. One skinny girl talking about how she needed to hit the gym after indulging in too much lolrice. Stuff it!

― emilys., Tuesday, April 16, 2013 8:02 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually yeah this is exactly where my "let people be people" good-naturedness runs out

good on him for stealing money from the stripper though, that story is generally told in the other direction

Well she stole £100k off a 'client' and then A stole half of that off her and hid it in a shoebox at his mum and dad's house. His dad was mayor of the town we grew up in.

I keep meaning to write up what I've gleaned from FB / can remember of his romantic life story because it's fucking amazingly spectacular.

hahaha, people watching wins

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 01:42 (11 hours ago)

Would appreciate it if they stopped tbh

Any opinion, controversial or not, preceded by "I'm sorry but..."

Magical thinking, again: this time it's prayer chains.

there, i said it.

"i'm sorry but" is awful and self-congratulatory in the all the ways "there, i said it is" PLUS you can't say "i'm sorry" and then say "but".