More on the Facebook malaise

It’s hard to imagine now that I once checked my Myspace several times a day. I haven’t checked my Myspace for months now, because every time I do I have a message along the lines of ‘We looked at your profile and thought you’d dig our tunes. We are a trash metal band from Usbekistan …’. Yes, Myspace seems to be music only these days. Which is nice. If I want to listen to some bands that haven’t got any records in the shop just yet. Annoyingly, most of them have disabled the download function, so I would have to sit on Myspace all the time if I wanted to play a demo on repeat. Ho-hum.

Cue Facebook. The supposed grownup option. The grandmother of all Bebos. I gather Bebo is for chavs and kids who like to play with knives/enjoy underage sex rather a lot.

When I first signed up for Facebook, I vowed it would not be like my Myspace and I would only ever add people I actually wanted to add. People I already knew from the outside world (yes, there is a world out there. Hard to believe, but there is). I now have 94 friends on Facebook. Some of them are dormant. Like terrorist sleepers. They lay in waiting, only to suddenly ‘throw a sheep at you’ out of nowhere or try and coax you into a round of ‘Texas Hold’Em’. I keep meaning to rid myself of these. But can’t quite do it. Although they won’t even notice I deleted them. A Facebook Kill is a silent kill. So far, I only disposed of one person on Facebook. This was duly noticed, I re-added. Temporarily. Then I went for the full delete-and-block option. I win.

One thing I do have reservations about is work colleagues on Facebook. With Myspace, it didn’t matter, really because your profile is up for grabs for the world regardless (unless you pretend to be under age, at which point they filter out grownups eg everyone you know). On Facebook, nobody needs to see what I’m up to outside work. Not that I’m up to a hell of a lot, but still. There’s work life and there is life life. Needless to say, my ‘no work on Facebook’ rule soon began to crumble. Next thing I know, half my team is on there. I do draw the line at work people I don’t really know though. What’s the point in having people on there I hardly talk to in the first place. Yeah, sorry I ignored your request. Twice.

Then there is the groups. Joining seems like a good idea at the time, but after the 10th reminder message about a clubnight the other side of the country, you begin to tire of those. And, let’s face it, in most cases, the notification that ‘… has joined IF 25 PEOPLE JOIN THIS GROUP I WILL CHANGE MY NAME TO STINKBOMB’ is the first and the last you will ever hear of said group.

And don’t get me started on the Application junkies. These tend to be the people that greatly enjoy forwarding emails that say ‘send this to 10 people and your luck will change’ or ‘check out these toddlers in bumblebee suits and fairywings’ and other adorable headings. These people will insist you take a test to find out which Disney Princess you are, they will Superpoke you (despite the fact you don’t even have the goodamn SUPERPOKE! Application!), they will add you to their bizarre Top Trumps-esque entourage of supposed friends and, worst of all, hunt you down in the ‘who is online right now’ bit somewhere at the bottom of the page (if anyone knows how to disable the thing, do let me know!). There is no getting away from them. And you can’t even message them to stop this malarkey because their profile will be so cluttered with slow-loading applications (egg hatching, virtual Christmas trees at Easter time, all sorts of kerrazy cartoon versions of them, online fishtanks, entire cocktail bars …) that it will take about 48 hours to appear in the first place. And no, I DO NOT NEED THE PETROL HEAD APPLICATION IN MY LIFE! I don’t even have a fucking driving license!!!!

Still, it’s easy to get all obsessive compulsive over Facebook. I even check mine on the mobile (ahem). Despite the fact nothing ever happens and all I do is delete messages from promoters whose nights I will never go to and decline invitations to aforementioned far-flung gigs by bands I never even heard of. Or write one-liners that aren’t funny on people’s walls. Or saying Happy Birthday to people I have never even met. Or people whose birthday I would have definitely forgotten if it wasn’t for the handy Facebook reminder. If you want to be really crafty, send them a text to say Happy Birthday. It’s then less obvious you found the birthday on Facebook and they might even think you actually remembered their birthdays because you are such a kind and caring individual.

But. I am sure something else will come along soon.