why are these people web-enabled?

Okay, level with me--the point of Facebook is to:

a.) be annoyed by your mother's obsession with getting gifts for Farmville.
b.) learn to hate fish every time you look at your feed.
c.) so people you met before the age of reason, or fuck, the age of puberty, can track you down like some kind of goddamn dark magic GPS, because I refuse to believe anything as beautiful as computers could be responsible for this shit.
d.) ex-boyfriends from non-English speaking countries who were instrumental in your growth and development can friend you. No reason.
e.) a long-lost friend is into otaku-like beliefs but in relation to the Fae (yes, nymphaea1, I am not joking, I have evidence) and sends you pictures (EVIDENCE). Of her wings (NOT KIDDING).
f.) Fundamentalist relatives. I'll just leave that as-is.
f.) give you a glimpse of what hell will be like in terms of population. Yeah, this.

Guess how many of these are happening to me right now?

Okay, showtime. Beat that list. I totally dare you.

Comments

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

How about people you know who WON'T facebook friend you? Another lovely aspect of FB.

It's mildly amusing. I do use it to follow some of my interests such as the Museum at FIT and Tim Gunn's blog on Project Runway but mostly it shows me aspects of people I know that I didn't want to know about.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh man, facebook si the one place I would not mind being ostracized.

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

You can hide your Mother's Farm posts without hiding any of her other posts.

Fish?

I'm lucky that so few people from my past have found me. Just a few ex boyfriends and one grade-school friend. No wings, alas. You have me beat.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...I really wnated to lose? *g*

[ratcreature]

This is the reason why I have no facebook account.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I wish beyond words that I hadn't gotten one.

[emyrys.livejournal.com]

e.) a long-lost friend is into otaku-like beliefs but in relation to the Fae (yes, [info]nymphaea1, I am not joking, I have evidence) and sends you pictures (EVIDENCE). Of her wings (NOT KIDDING).

I am SO jealous! I only have fundamentalist friends from childhood coming out of the woodwork. Yours sound much more interesting.

(also, I would love to see the evidence *snicker*)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

By interesting, you mean she has wings and wants to meet up to chat because she lives really close?

It's just--*hands* I am totally open-minded, but there's wings. I don't know what to do with that.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

This post is win

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I keep hoping I'm exaggerating, then I look at my friends requests.

[lexstar29.livejournal.com]

The wings thing intrigues me no end too!

I managed to get around the people finding me thing, by changing my name slightly on FB. This backfired when my previously computer illiterate brother joined FB and asked me to friend him. From there he went on to friend family and childhood friends willy nilly and I am now stuffed as through him I.Have.Been.Found!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Facebook: the dummy's stalking manual! WHICH IT IS.

[jazzy-peaches.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhhh Farmville no application on facebook has ever annoyed me so much. I DONT CARE IF YOU NEED NAILS.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

YES THIS. OR A GODDAMN FENCE OR A TREE.

[an-kayoh.livejournal.com]

I cannot compete mostly because I ruthlessly refuse to allow people who are not a) non-crazy family members or b) people I see at least once a week and smile at. My profile is as invisible as it gets.

I continue to use it because it updates with crazy shit more often than lj and research has shown that there are few better ways to stalk Shaun White (and this is the cheapest).

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*falls over and dies* Carry on.

[cat-77.livejournal.com]

Hee! Originally got a FB account because my partner's family in Colombia all had them and she needed me to translate and it was 1000x easier to have my own. It was also 1000x easier to then start mocking wars with them, but I digress.

I rarely if ever remember to even sign in, but have discovered that I have an ex of mine who once emailed me while drunk to ask how he could have possibly been so awful to turn me gay who now has joined a gay rights group over on FB, and a fundie jock from HS who wished me and my partner a happy 10 year anniversary, but a supposedly good friend from HS defriended me for pretty much the same thing because it showed up in one of her feed thingies. IDEK.

I do know that it's oddly helpful to log in, not post, and keep up to date on how often your 11 and 12 year olds are secretly playing Mafia Wars when they claim to be doing homework though, and then use screenshots as evidence for grounding. Or, er, so I have heard. *cough*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Your parenting is inspiring. *nods seriously*

[batdina.livejournal.com]

I think Facebook is the new AOL.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

This is a workable theory.

I shit you not:

[2naonh3-cl2.livejournal.com]

1) Two stalkers that I had called the cops on friended me. One from college, one from my IT job who flipped out when I turned him down for a date.

2) People who I have never met, had no mutual friends, and/or lived in another country.

3) Two people who actively tried to make my high school years hell. Including throwing my bookbag full of books into the pond in the front of the middle-school next door.

4) People who I don't remember meeting, but they apparently remember me.

5) People who throw sheep at me--wtf is up with all the FB apps? I don't get them--and have never said a word to me on FB.

6) Someone who criticizes my weight, publicly.

Re: I shit you not:

[seperis.livejournal.com]

....what the fuck?

I--wait, which app is sheep?

Also, you win. Though I will say my Fae-friend does come a close second. SHE LIVES NEARBY AND WANTS TO MEET UP.

[aivilo-18.livejournal.com]

I have a Facebook account because it proves to me that my brother isn't imaginary. He's just a musician and this is why I never see him ever.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*bites lip hard* Myspace and Facebook really have a lot of those. At least in FB, I dont want to cry from the sheer aesthetic horror. Mostly.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

My cousin in law keeps INVITING me to join Facebook. I cheerfully IGNORE THE INVITES, as I am in touch with everyone I WANT to be, to the DEGREE I want to be.

And, since I can go into my mother's office at work, and give her my opinion on her quest to buy a kayak (and the breakfast menu at our hotel) - and do little dances to drive her NUTS, I feel pretty good about *not* being on Facebook.

My reward for the above? Being called a 'smartass' and a 'brat' within a minute of each other.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*GIGGLES* Kayak?

[cobweb-diamond.livejournal.com]

I just defriended like 50 people. It was very refreshing.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*admiring* I cannot even manage that.

[hollyxu.livejournal.com]

Farmville notifications need to DIAF. Right now.

I have -

1) Crazy med school wannabe kids who have events all over the place.
2) Someone who has 3 aliases: Thomas Hardy/Clark Gable (depends on the day), her teddy bear, and herself.
3) Various people: lots of drunk photography.
4) A group of aspiring models. Apparently I went to high school with them.
5) People who write sonnets to biochem.

Eh. Most days it's mildly entertaining, esp #2 and 5. (And you can so tell my age group, right there.)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I am totes in love with sonnets to biochem right now. That is an underrepresented poetic genre.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

I have had people try to friend me because they "wanted to know if we were kin" (gee, guess what, we weren't), and I've had people try to friend me just so they could add me to their f*cking farm. (Here's a shirt for you: http://www.jinx.com/men/shirts/geek/no_one_cares.html?catid=79&cs=2&csd=79)

If I don't know them, or they're work-related people that I have no other contact with, I don't friend them.

I've had to block about a zillion applications--you'd think people would know better. (I agree that FB has become the new AOL.)

BUT, I get to keep up with friends I wouldn't know anything about--one has cancer, for instance--so I still find it useful.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I hate the apps. But yeah, there are some benefits.

[vickita.livejournal.com]

So that the musician who inflicted a Celtic hair-metal version of "Folsom Prison Blues" upon me two weekends ago can friend me, and holy mother of God, how did he FIND ME???

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you--dark fucking magic GPS. I'm waiting for people I got drunk with at frat parties to show up annnny day now.

[forsweatervests.livejournal.com]

g.) let people spy on you. This ties in to the Fundamentalist Relatives, who then call you, worried you will go to hell because you swore on the interwebs. Even worse, you'll corrupt your 19-year-old cousin.

[cathalin.livejournal.com]

I... was thinking I really needed to break down and do FB?

Oh. My. God.

I already suspect I couldn't actually ever see my cousin or nephews if I actually heard what they believed rather than just ~got the drift once every few years.

BUT, WINGS.

Yeah, maybe I'll wait another year?

[inteligrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you on most of the list, but f.) Fundamentalist relatives - I am so there it's not even funny.

Half my Facebook ppl (I refuse to call them friends, let's stick with acquaintances) are semi like minded people, and the other half are from my fundamentalist background. I don't like to fight, but I will be passive aggressive now and then. When everyone joined the boycott on Ben & Jerry's after they released their pro-gay marriage version of Chubby Hubby, I joined their "fan of" group and made comments about how much I enjoyed eating their Cherry Garcia. It was tasty and satisfying.

[anjak-j.livejournal.com]

I only really use Facebook for playing games and to connect with certain baseball sites. I don't really see any use for it outside of distraction for some of my mental health issues.

Related to Farmville et al, given the facility is there I've never understood why:

1. Those using those apps don't filter their notifications so that those who don't want them don't get them. (Not possible with all apps but it can be done with some.)
2. People don't just block notifications from applications that annoy. (Not 100% reliable but moaning about it repeatedly - as some folk do - doesn't help. I used to feel guilty when people moaned about the notifications, which actually defeated the purpose of why I was using FB in the first place.)

[fyrdrakken]

I'm guessing on #2 a lot of people don't know how to do that, or are afraid that if they do that it blocks all posts from that individual instead of just the posts for that particular app. And probably a lot of people don't know about #1, either.

[seekergeek.livejournal.com]

OMG, FACEBOOK. I sign on to that pit of hell once a month or so and refuse every friending request I've gotten. Then I get the hell off before someone invites me to play yet another damned game. One of these days I'll get around to deleting the damned thing. I'm certainly not using it.

[dine.livejournal.com]

some of these are *exactly* why I refuse to open an account on Facebook - I'm pretty happy with the level of connectedness I have with folks, and see absolutely no reason to encourage people from grade school or former coworkers I never actually liked to contact me in any fashion

[mylittlehottie.livejournal.com]

good to hear from you, because judging from my facebook page, i thought i was the only person left in this universe that was not a farmer.....

i de-friended my sister in law because she is a member of the "tea party" and bombarded my facebook page with anti Obama crap. she didn't come to my son's wedding.......

[stillane.livejournal.com]

I was such a good person for such a long time. I had no interest in FB all through undergrad, and managed to confine myself to the occasional status update for the last few years, and then my classes got long and boring and my classmates all started playing FB games. Forget drugs; you want to talk peer pressure, try being the only lonely bastard sitting in a lecture on bovine parasitology while everyone around you gleefully harvests their crops and whacks mobsters. You, too, will cave. *cries*

The best day of my life was when I figured out that you could do FB friends filter lists. I no longer had to feel guilty all the time, either for not sending game stuff on to the people I knew who played or for sending it all on to the people who hated it with a violent passion. It was like chocolate and peanut butter! Dogs and cats coexisting! Amazing!

The best thing about FB, though, is getting to watch all of your friends and family be social networking site newbs. Flounces, exceedingly dorky chainletter-style memes, flamewars... You could fill out a bingo card, I tell you. *g*