Facebook Theories (Why everyone I know likes it but me)

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Facebook is fantastic. I use it daily. It's a great way to keep in touch with friends and family without having to actually call them. I like being able to just go to one place and see what my family is up to, see pictures of their kids and vacations, and maintain basic contact with old friends and keep track of where they are living/working and when they get married/divorced/die etc. I have never been one for making a lot of phone calls or writing letters and FB makes it super easy to keep in touch with very little effort. Do people post a lot of stupid shit on it? Yes, but no worse than this message board. Unlike this board though, there are handy curation tools that make it pretty easy to filter out 90% of the bullshit. Event planning and messenger are excellent too. Especially for me since my cell coverage is pretty spotty but messenger comes through not only if I get cell coverage but also when I get to my home wifi so I'm much less likely to miss them than an SMS message.

And yeah, the people that love to tell you that they don't use facebook are just another form of too cool for school assholes that you wouldn't want to see on facebook or anywhere else anyway.
 
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Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
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I think a part of it comes from the definition of "friend", seems more to me some random person that sent you a friends request rather than what I would call a friend.
 

a_skeleton_06

<Banned>
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Yeah, people are playing it a little fast and loose with the term friend now. To me, it's a close personal bond. To most people I know, it's a person they stood in line with at Starbucks 4 years ago.
 

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Yes, Facebook calls all of your acquaintances "friends" which may not be technically correct. What does that have to do with anything?
 

Eomer

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You can also set up lists that have different privacy settings. I've got something like 200-300 friends (after doing a bunch of trimming), but only about 50 or so have full access to my profile, pictures, posts etc.
 
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Big Flex

Fitness Fascist
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give me all your data goyim

Zuckerberg-Jewish.jpg
 
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Aldarion

Egg Nazi
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Honestly, people who are proud of how much they hate Facebook are idiots. I mean, if you don't have an account, no problem, that's totally acceptable. Just don't brag to me how edgy and rebellious you are because of it. No one gives a shit. Just like no one gives a shit about all the pictures you're posting on it or Instagram or whatever.
Youre obviously free to think I'm an idiot for not using Facebook among various other assorted reasons.

But lets make the objections clear -- its not that Facebook is uniquely terrible. Social media is completely gay. Facebook just happens to be the most widely used platform.

in 1998 if you knew someone who had made a "personal website" to show off their interior decorating, rockclimbing, baby pictures, and talk about their views on the latest movie -- you and everyone else called that person an insufferable cunt. What kind of self-absorbed twat puts that kind of time into self promotion?

Social media has made 99% of America into that same unsufferable cunt. The behavior is no more tolerable now that everyone is doing it.
 
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Cad

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Youre obviously free to think I'm an idiot for not using Facebook among various other assorted reasons.

But lets make the objections clear -- its not that Facebook is uniquely terrible. Social media is completely gay. Facebook just happens to be the most widely used platform.

in 1998 if you knew someone who had made a "personal website" to show off their interior decorating, rockclimbing, baby pictures, and talk about their views on the latest movie -- you and everyone else called that person an insufferable cunt. What kind of self-absorbed twat puts that kind of time into self promotion?

Social media has made 99% of America into that same unsufferable cunt. The behavior is no more tolerable now that everyone is doing it.

This just says "I don't like people and I don't want to see or hear about them, they all suck"

Thats fine, but as you say thats not a Facebook flaw. Thats a you flaw.
 
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Aldarion

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It may be, I can be antisocial, but I think youre wrong to attribute it entirely to that.

Great minds talk about ideas. Average minds talk about people. The least interesting minds of all talk about themselves.

And thats what Facebook explicitly and all social implicitly is: talking about yourself. "See my kids, arent I a great parent. See my dogs, arent I a responsible pet owner. See my political tribal affiliations, arent I a Good Person who Cares About Things"

"See my scrambled eggs, yea verily even my breakfast is a Sight To Behold!"

I like people, or at least some of them. My wife, my kids, my coworkers. We interact in real life. In real life people dont do this shit. "Wow let me show you a picture of me rockclimbing, dont I look buff?" In real life we talk about what we are doing at the time, what we're going to do, things that happened to people we know, whats happening in the world, whats new in science. Events and ideas. We dont sit around sharing fucking pictures of sandwiches and hanging giant poster-sized photos of ourselves on the wall so we can all admire them.

The "social interaction" that takes place on social media is self-centered and inherently worse than real life. Whether thats an inherent flaw in the platforms or because of cultural conventions that have emerged, I dont know.
 
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Mrs. Gravy

Quite Saucy
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I joined under a nickname in the way back to keep an eye on my nephews and niece, who at that time didn't understand the implications of oversharing. This was pre-lists and so they friended me, giving me full access to their "stuff". I could then help them navigate a bit through some murkiness. Of course, they do that for me now.
I use FB for closed or secret groups mostly. I have a large family and the closed group helps us keep up with one another.
G joined last August and it made him happy because he was able to reconnect to people who were at one time, important to him...and they provided him with love and support and became important again.
I used FB for FUN-eral planning too.


I like the Science Daily articles in my news feed and KC Chiefs propagada. But I do unfollow people who put every little thing on it...feck.
 
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Cad

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It may be, I can be antisocial, but I think youre wrong to attribute it entirely to that.

Great minds talk about ideas. Average minds talk about people. The least interesting minds of all talk about themselves.

And thats what Facebook explicitly and all social implicitly is: talking about yourself. "See my kids, arent I a great parent. See my dogs, arent I a responsible pet owner. See my political tribal affiliations, arent I a Good Person who Cares About Things"

"See my scrambled eggs, yea verily even my breakfast is a Sight To Behold!"

I like people, or at least some of them. My wife, my kids, my coworkers. We interact in real life. In real life people dont do this shit. "Wow let me show you a picture of me rockclimbing, dont I look buff?" In real life we talk about what we are doing at the time, what we're going to do, things that happened to people we know, whats happening in the world, whats new in science. Events and ideas. We dont sit around sharing fucking pictures of sandwiches and hanging giant poster-sized photos of ourselves on the wall so we can all admire them.

The "social interaction" that takes place on social media is self-centered and inherently worse than real life. Whether thats an inherent flaw in the platforms or because of cultural conventions that have emerged, I dont know.

Actually that is a lot of what I do on facebook, is participate in other people's stuff... people post a pic of a match they played and all of ask who won, what happened, ref make bad calls? etc... one pic and 100 comments from 20 of us.

I don't have a lot of the lunch-pic friends, maybe you should make better friends? It's like complaining this forum sucks because of that idiot who posts banana pics. Sure.. that guy is retarded. But there's still a fair amount of decent content.
 
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ZyyzYzzy

RIP USA
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It may be, I can be antisocial, but I think youre wrong to attribute it entirely to that.

Great minds talk about ideas. Average minds talk about people. The least interesting minds of all talk about themselves.

And thats what Facebook explicitly and all social implicitly is: talking about yourself. "See my kids, arent I a great parent. See my dogs, arent I a responsible pet owner. See my political tribal affiliations, arent I a Good Person who Cares About Things"

"See my scrambled eggs, yea verily even my breakfast is a Sight To Behold!"

I like people, or at least some of them. My wife, my kids, my coworkers. We interact in real life. In real life people dont do this shit. "Wow let me show you a picture of me rockclimbing, dont I look buff?" In real life we talk about what we are doing at the time, what we're going to do, things that happened to people we know, whats happening in the world, whats new in science. Events and ideas. We dont sit around sharing fucking pictures of sandwiches and hanging giant poster-sized photos of ourselves on the wall so we can all admire them.

The "social interaction" that takes place on social media is self-centered and inherently worse than real life. Whether thats an inherent flaw in the platforms or because of cultural conventions that have emerged, I dont know.
Do you smell your own farts?
 

Aldarion

Egg Nazi
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Do you smell your own farts?
Im confused; isnt smelling your own farts (in the South Park sense) exactly the kind of 'absorbed in your own self promotion and tribal signalling' that I'm complaining about?
 
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Uber Uberest

rdr^2
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Aldarion, can you stop with the self obsessed posting on this forum please, it's worse than the single moms I'm friends with on Facebook. We don't care about your views on Facebook, or how you gaze at buff dudes rock climbing, just stay in your lane and go back to reading yellow pages and playing game gear.
 
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Voyce

Shit Lord Supreme
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Great minds talk about ideas. Average minds talk about people. The least interesting minds of all talk about themselves.

16 - early 20's me thinks you're a cheap imitator ripping off my style.

28 year old me wont bother putting you down, instead I will just tell you the truth, the sooner you cut the bull shit and start exposing yourself to the reality you are willfully cutting yourself out of, the better off you will be.
 

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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This is Aldarion and his buds hanging in RL.

death-of-socrates-AB.jpe
 

vGrade

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I use Facebook to see how awesome everyone's lives are while I sit in front of my computer
 

kudos

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I don't have a Facebook because I'm not the type of person to care enough about people to keep in contact. If someone is important enough I will text them or email them. I just don't have this need to keep in contact with anyone but that may just be because I am probably a sociopath.
 
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Xeldar

Silver Squire
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I had facebook in college because you needed a .edu email address to register. I lost a gf in college and then a collegiate election because of pictures on facebook. At almost 30, I no longer have a facebook.