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.

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".