How everything I post on Facebook is the truth, honest!



Contributing Writer
Photo: Hand on Bible Credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert


I started using Facebook with the hope to connect with people I can’t talk to regularly.  It’s my version of being social without having to meet anyone.  I quickly found that Facebook was a great tool for weirdos to find me, save my photos and to pretend my photo was watching them as they play World of Warcraft (or other games).

It got weird.  It got invasive.  People even created profiles of me and harassed my friends and family.  Yet I’m still an addict.

So why do we (I) keep thousands of Facebook friends?  I don’t have that many friends in real life.  I find that the beautiful photo of the girl is oftentimes a very flattering representation of her five years ago.  Not so shockingly, people have a tendency to embellish the truth.  It’s easier to pretend to be someone else from behind a computer screen then it is in person.  Yet there’s something kind of special about keeping these connections, despite their idiosyncrasies.

I find some people are sharers.  They are probably this way in real life, too – except that the poor person that they corner at a party to spill their divorce details to and lament the time they didn’t follow their whim and go to Vegas with their book club is less likely to do anything with that than Facebook “friends.”  Oversharers exist because Facebookers are by and large a tolerant (or apathetic) lot.  But some of you are mean… cruel even.  And shame on you – she just wanted to let loose in Vegas after reading Fifty Shades of Grey – what could happen, right?

And I’m not sure you noticed but freaks feed on Facebook.   While chatting a Facebook friend is sometimes pleasant, I wouldn’t tell some guy at the bus stop where I live or let him follow me home.  He’d probably want dinner and wouldn’t even do me the courtesy of watching the kids while I cook.  And by the way guys, there is a threshold number for liking my photos beyond which I conclude that you aren’t really enamored with my photography.

Other than our spouses or people who live with us nobody knows us.  Thanks to Facebook (and our proclivity to share), people think they know enough to judge you , hire or fire you, divorce or disown you.  Some people feel empowered to tell lies and half-truths about you.   It makes me wonder why everything online is so sacrosanct.  Why don’t we take things with a grain of salt and judge reality when we’ve got a real world experience to judge it by?  Facebook problems.

So what exactly is my point?  Simply that Facebook is a hot mess anymore…. and I love a hot mess.

Uyen Thorstensen

Uyen Thorstensen

Full Time Faculty/Coordinator at North Seattle Community College teaching Pharmacy Techs. Part Time Technician at UW Medical Center

Uyen Thorstensen

  • http://leaderswest.com Jim Dougherty

    Uyen – you crack me! And what may shock people to know that you’re not making this stuff up. Thanks so much for taking the time to contribute – you made my day and I thought this was a really great post about how flawed Facebook is and how we still love it.

  • http://socialmediasun.com/ Adam Justice

    ”
    here is a threshold number for liking my photos beyond which I conclude that you aren’t really enamored with my photography.” – bingo. We have a problem Jim, a problem that a blogger recently coined a term to describe – booklicants. Our hyper-social friends are really normal, and they have a tendency to click buttons, whether they really like something or not. They’re collectors for one reason or another, and I think that understanding those friends will help us better understand the Facebook experience. 

  • jimdougherty

    Ha!  Adam – you are a social encyclopedia!  I’m in the middle of read a book about how the Oxford Dictionary was developed and you would have been featured prominently!  ”Booklicants” – love it!  Uyen is probably one of the more prolific Facebookers I know – so she probably knows a few of these folks!  Thanks for reading and commenting!

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