Social Networks

I'll be the first to admit, i was late to the game with social networks. it wasn't that i didn't know they existed or anything, i was just very skeptical. when friendster came along, it just seemed stupid. i didn't get why anyone would want to be in a "social network" so, amidst endless invites, i ignored it. finally, one day, i got bored and joined. immediately i become addicted to it and pretty much was glued to it for a few years. then, along came myspace. a slightly more "Edgy" network ( by "edgy" i mean you could use curse words in bulletins and girls truly whored out in profile pics). when people i knew started jumping off the friendster boat, i held strong thinking it was just a phase but, as we all know now, the only people still on friendster are…well…no one. at best, perhaps some appalachian mountain person who just got their first computer. (side note: i was thinking about this the other day. do you think there is anyone left on the planet who has a flourishing friendster life? that would be so ill). so yeah, when i saw that no one gave a shit, i moved over to myspace…and it was great. it was the exact same thing as friendster but with more bells and whistles…and i loved it. it even had music pages where i could whore myself out (which to this day i maintain with a surprising amount of activity for something as archaic as myspace) so, for years, i rode high on the myspace. they i began to hear murmurings "facebook". everyone one i knew was going over there and leaving myspace in the dust. i couldn't blame them cause myspace had truly been over run with spam and shitty rappers asking you if you wanna cop their new shitty mixture. but, for some reason, i held on for a loooong time to myspace. i fought facebook as long as i could. eventually , myspace was a barren wasteland of vacuous updates from lonely strippers and ad campaigns by shitty musicians. no "real" people. it got boring….so , once again, in spite of all the ridicule form my friends, i shamefully headed over to facebook with my head down kicking rocks the whole way over. and that is where i reside now. it's fine. no complaints (well, obviously, i have complaints but we'll gut to that later). but still, when i hear people shit on myspace like it was never fun and rave about facebook, it kind of annoys me. the reality of it is, it's not the website, it's the traffic. if people still checked their myspace and were active on it, it would still be fun. facebook isn't THAT much different. sure ,it's got more applications (the scrabble one is the best thing on the planet) but it's still basically the same thing. this also has to do with myspace pretty much copying everything facebook does. but whatever, same shit. so, now everyone tells me i need to join twitter. but this is where it ends because twitter is basically just the worst part of facebook and nothing else. fucking status updates. the thing about twitter is , if you have something to promote or like putting interesting and funny clips or links up, it's awesome for that. but if you're just some fucking person who feels the whole world needs to know when you eat a bagel, you're a dip shit. i see it on facebook and that's only one aspect that facebook offers. unless you're funny, famous or that "most interesting man in the world" motherfucker, you do not need a twitter. straight up, you're just not that important. so, here's my beef with status updates in a nice clean list form:

1)who gives a shit?

EXAMPLE "just finished my dinner and now i'm watching "lost with my bf!"
you just ate dinner? good for you. no one asked for a play by play to your boring evening at home. did you just get gang raped and need assistance? twitter that. hopefully help will find its way. the thing about twitter and facebook status updates is that it feeds into peoples already wildly inflated idea of their self importance. in 2009, people are vapid, attention seeking assholes and giving these kind of people an outlet is pretty much the worst thing imaginable.

2)overshare
EXAMPLE "sometimes the pain i feel inside hurts so much, i doubt it will ever stop. why didn't you call me back?"
i'm a man who can appreciate good gossip. so, when people air their dirt in a public forum, it's always great. however, with status updates people mostly opt to air their emotional dirty laundry. i have friends who i've seen have virtual meltdowns via status updates. not only is that shit crazy embarrassing but it also really just makes you like a person less in general. like , if you're "that type of person",it's a safe bet you're a complete disaster of a human and you're life is falling apart for a reason.

3)who are you talking to?
EXAMPLE "I bet you wish you were doing what i'm doing! loll!"
one of the more embarrassing type of status updates are ones where you can tell people are baiting comments and no one bites. it's a lonely persons game and no one ever wins. it's the internet equivalent of making a joke in front of a crowd and no one laughs. it's the sound of crickets. however, in most cases, if you actually know the person, it kinda makes sense that no one would respond to their shit.
but that also leads me to…

4)who the fuck are your friends?
EXAMPLE "Only two weeks till the fun begins!"
there are a handful of people on facebook that i'm friends with that i'm fairly certain are lonely ,friendless morons. however, whenever they post some dumb update about whatever they ate for lunch or some random shit like "and you that's truth! LOL! ROFL!" they get a ton of responses from people who are seemingly their close friends. it really confuses me cause i know these people in real life and no one ACTUALLY likes them. by a rule, they're tolerated by all those that cross their path. yet in facebook land, their fucking prom queens and kings. go figure…i suppose it makes sense cause losers tend to be way more tolerable on the internet.

5)the fake poets
EXAMPLE "melancholy melon balls lay atop the dusty table, but what do they know?"
almost worse than giving vapid assholes a forum to write things, is giving artsy vapid assholes a forum to write things. be it the people who leave one word updates that mean absolutely nothing to anyone or people who think it's dope to drop some haiku hybrid they just barfed up about being at the beach. either way, it sucks and makes you like that person just a little less with every typed letter.


I will say this about facebook and status updates. i've learned a lot about people from them. for one, it turns out i don't know the last name of tons of people i'm friends with. it also teaches me what people should not be on the internet as well as that people are just complete idiots in general.