Thursday Ten: The Most Annoying People on Facebook Edition

Facebook. I love it or hate it depending on the day. BUT I CAN’T QUIT IT. Facebook break? Nah. I’d rather just complain about the annoying people. You know the ones…

1. The overaggressive sports fan, particularly if they gotta bash my team to cheer theirs on. “We’re number one!” they’ll post. “We are Spartans!” Um. Dude. You’re not a Spartan. You barely made it through high school and you still mix up there/their/they’re.
2. The narcissist. Do you have strangers take your picture? How on earth can you explain the fact that you have a photograph of yourself taken damn near everywhere you go. I’m all for healthy self-esteem, but somehow yours is over the top. You take your selfie even when you’re on an ambulance (what the what?) and somehow you have all these photographs that are supposedly candid but look anything but.
3. The airer of dirty laundry. Pretty sure I don’t need to know when you’re fighting with your spouse and even more certain I don’t want to watch it unfold in the comment thread. Keep your marital hooey offline. (And if your kids are reading your posts? EVEN WORSE.) Also? Yeah, once we’ve watched twenty messages unfold, we’re gonna end up taking sides so if you’re wondering why no one likes your wife anymore it’s because she said a lot of really bad things. Oh. And she can’t spell.
4. The conspiracy theorist. Snopes can be your friend, but not like you’d believe it anyway. Maybe your tin foil hat is wrapped around your noggin just a little too tight. We’re sheep who believe everything we read – that’s your rally cry. At some point, we’ll all see that you were right all along. Yep. Okay. Sure. There are far smarter people on the planet, and yet, you’re the one who’s figured out the great mysteries of life? Hmmmhmmmm.
5. The salesperson. I am super excited for you about your nails, your smoothies, your storage containers, your (insert thing you’re selling here). Mostly – I really am A-okay with what you’ve got going on. Big mad crazy props for finding something you dig and working to support yourself. What I’m less okay with is always being the target audience for your sales pitch. I don’t want nail stickers, I think your protein drink tastes like chalk, and the last time I went to one of those kitchen parties, I got a lemon zester that doesn’t zest so much as it twirls lemon rind and it’s super useless so just… no.
6. The racist. You’re a hateful awful person. You start sentences with, “I’m not a racist, but…” I will forever hear that as, “I am a racist butt.” You spew hate, then try to justify it, and get all bent out of shape should anyone argue with you. Unfollow. Unfriend. (It’s 2015. It’s really not okay to think like this.) Racist posts are made worse by people you know have had very little interaction with a diverse culture – how do you have reason for such hate people you’ve never even encountered? You don’t. You can’t.
7. Vague bookers. While I’m not a fan of airing the dirty laundry, go big or go home. To allude to it and not actually say what’s up? That’s annoying too. Also, when you VagueBook, I just assume I know what it is… and I have a pretty great imagination. You’re better off just telling us so I don’t go imagining something worse – or you know, NOT AIRING YOUR DIRTY LAUNDRY ON FACEBOOK.
8. The one who has it all together. While conventional wisdom tells me that this is more facade than reality, you’re annoying not because I dislike the idea of having it all together, but because I’m insanely jealous.
9. The wingnut. I don’t have to agree with my friends on every little thing – it’s cool if we don’t but man, you’re pretty vocal about a large number of things that I thought people had stopped believing decades ago. You’ll believe any thing your “news’ outlet tells you which is why you seem to feel so justified in your hate. Instead, you look kinda dumb
10. The liar. You don’t have to show us your bleek picture when life has you down, but there’s something grating about that friend who shouts from the roof top about how great life is, and then you find out that the posts are lies, the photographs are staged, and it’s all fake. Be real with me. Authenticity is not just a buzz word. Life is not always picture perfect. I embrace those imperfections because that’s what life really is all about.

The reality is, most of these people are the same person. THe other reality is that the election season is making it all worse. I’ve stopped watching pretty much anything related to the election but what seems to multiply in droves is ignorance, hatred and uninformed generalities spreading like wildfire on social media. Yay technology.