In the beginning, when Facebook was new, I loved it. Mainly for the reason that it connected me to my overseas friends. And there was the sense of bragging, of course, putting photos up from exotic locations, new items I’d acquired, all with the “look at me!!!”-idea playing in the back of my mind. I’d be lying if there was any other reason why I’d be uploading photos of cake, shoes and rugby players.
Then I found out the horrifying truth, everything I uploaded, every photo, story, update, digital fart, my interests, everything is out there for the world and universe to see and abuse.
So I locked everything down.
I already was smart enough not to put my real work, career, school and university in my profile. Then I started to use Facebook less and less and reduced it to email notifications of people that I had seen at least twice a year.
After a few months of getting useless notifications of absurd status updates like these:
One person only had complaints in the updates.
Another one had vague shit like : Well that hurt.
While another overloaded the feed with “if you don’t forward this shit to your Facebook friends, your hands will fall off and you’ll win $18902378923231”.
A couple had identical status updates about where they consumed their food, but each from their own point of view and always complaints mixed in.
And don’t get me started on the “If I get 1000000000 ‘likes’, little mBuoto from Africa will get his heart surgery”.
I started rethink why I should even be on Facebook.
Then I received the award winning status update. A status update from someone not born in this country, complaining about immigrants, fortified with immigrant Facebook friends cheering this individual on.
Oh the irony.
I started unfriending these folks.
I felt guilty at first, because I had socialized with these people and they hadn’t done anything wrong, nor hurt me, except insulted my intelligence through Facebook.
Then I realized that at some stage one of these people sent me a message stated that “we should catch up, because they hadn’t seen me in ages.” (Naïve me, still thinking that they actually wanted to catch up, that they actually meant what they said.) Just one day after this message, they updated the status saying they went out for breakfast IN MY TOWN, 20 metres from my residence in fact, ending with complaining that they were bored, there was nothing to do in Broken Dick, Wisconsin*. They could’ve visited me.
So the guilt of unfriending these humans quickly disappeared.
My Facebook activity nowadays is still restricted to the email updates. I have added some new people that I actually socialize with and deleted some more that had annoying things to say. I think someday I’ll delete my complete Facebook page, because more and more I start doubting its usefulness.
* I don’t live in Broken Dick, WI, my attorney told me to change the names to protect the innocent.