Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big fan of Facebook. In fact most people reading this will have followed a link from my Facebook to this very page. It’s a way for me to know what’s going on in my friends lives, a way to organise my social life, a way to chat to my friends for free, an outlet for me to vent my daft sense of humour, my observations on life in general, and on tough days, when I’m sat on my own at home, with only the pooch for company, it brings the people I care about most into my living room, so I don’t feel quite so alone.
For me Facebook should be a positive thing. It’s supposed to be fun...it’s a social networking site which aims to bring people together. So why is it, that sometimes, people can take this good, wholesome idea, turn it around, and use it to make other people lives unpleasant?
Facebook stalkers are my favourite. I have had to recently block two people from my Facebook, and they weren’t even my friends! They were viewing my profile through mutual friends and then posting bitchy statuses about me based on comments made in a conversation they shouldn’t have even been looking at!! Who does that?? You’re not a part of my life, I clearly don’t want you to be or we’d be Facebook buddies already, so why do you feel the need to spy on me through mutual friends? It astounds me that some people’s lives can be so empty that they feel the need to do that.
I don’t see what anyone has to gain from Facebook bitching. Deliberate comments between friends, behind which is the intention to upset another individual. Or worse, designed to prompt people to ask what’s wrong, so that you can gossip to the masses about that individual and how you’ve been wronged by them. Whatever happened to good old bitching down the pub? At least then you can have too much to drink, forget what was said and no’one ends up getting hurt particularly.
Then you have those people with a huge chip on their shoulder, who when their lives turn to shite, rant and complain and whinge about their circumstances, (even if their situation is of their own doing), brining every one of their friends down with them. People will always lend an ear to a friend going through a rough patch, but if you spend months on end complaining that your life is crap, the whole world owes you a living and yet you don’t appear to be doing anything to rectify the situation, then people will soon get bored...and start blocking you from their news feed!
For me Facebook is about fun and silliness and it should be treated as such. Facebook has allowed me to get in touch with friends and family on the opposite side of the world. Family that I knew very little about, but that I now feel close to. It gives me the ability to share photos, which in themselves are precious memories of me and the people I love. They’re there for everyone to enjoy, laugh at, cringe at and when it comes to the ones of my pops, well every now and then, just have a little cry at.
It’s allowed me to stay in touch with friends who go to war, to protect this free and safe environment that we all take for granted. It gives them a link to the people they love, when they need it the most. From a morale perspective, can you imagine how shit it must be to get half an hour’s break to access the internet after a particularly awful day patrolling in Afghanistan, logging on to Facebook (because you just want to see what the people you care about have been up to while you’ve been putting your life on the line for them), only to find a newsfeed spattered in bitchiness, “woe is me” updates and boring “Joe Bloggs is doing the ironing” statuses??
Come on people, I know we all need to vent every now and then. Of course I understand that, and I’ve done it myself in the past...but when it’s constant it just makes for depressing reading...
Use it for a giggle, use it to make someone smile...and if you can’t...or won’t, expect to be cleared out on the next friend cull, because much as I might love you, I just don’t want you to bring me down – not when I’m so grateful I have the life that I do, the friends that I have, and the family I was born with. Besides...why rant on Facebook...when you can rant on a blog instead?
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