I recently mentioned on Facebook that I don’t like food photos. Other people agree with me – Incubus bassist Ben Kenney said that “food photos are the Comic Sans of Facebook”. I do appreciate that other people probably get equally bored with me posting photos of Missie (although she is really cute so the photos tend to get a lot of likes), and it has been pointed out that posts about Arsenal’s progress are as boring as I find posts about rugby.
For a bit of fun I posed the question on one of our internal Yammer networks “what are your top social media annoyances?” – most people took ‘social media’ to mean Facebook. So, here’s the cleaned up list. Bear in mind that I’ll take the credit for food photos, and one other is mine, but the rest are from other responders. I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. And also bear in mind that this is just a bit of fun – if you do frequently feel the need to share pictures of your lunch with the world it doesn’t make you a bad person.
- Food photos – the exceptions are beautifully-crafted cakes.
- People who post “good morning” or “good night”. You aren’t walking into a meeting or leaving your mates after a night out.
- People who post clichéd quotations.
- “If I get a million likes, whatever will happen”.
- “Pictures of my UK colleagues’ back gardens just because they’ve got a bit of snow on the ground”.
- Motivational exercise sayings on stupid pictures. I disagree with this one, they’re often funny. However…
- Over-sharing of funny pictures. When you have 400 friends, you’re likely to see the picture several times.
- “Social media”. Fair enough.
- “People who say The Onion isn’t funny any more and yet still continue to like it on Facebook”. That’s quite specific.
- “Ex-colleagues of another colleague who defend their reducing market share by repeating the FUD on Techcrunch”. I have no idea what this refers to.
- “People who send me a connect invitation when I don’t know them and when it’s just because we are in the same industry”.
- “Can you name an animal without the letter Z in it? It’s not as easy as you think”. Yes it is, and that’s the point. Everyone who responds is just encouraging the people who make up these stupid games to carry on.
- Dating ads. My profile says I’m married.
- Political rants.
- Farmville.
- “Happy birthday posts from people who had no idea it was your birthday until the site told them”. Hmmm, guilty most days of the year.
- People who type everything in uppercase. There’s no need to shout.
- “Pretty much any child accomplishment post is irritating as hell”. Someone else mentioned pictures of potty-training.
- “Parents that have their kids as their own picture – you still have your own damned identity people”. And as a follow-on…
- “I’m supposed to meet someone at a customer site I’ve never met before and, to identify them, all I have to go on is their resemblance to their Xbox avatar”. I guess that applies to Facebook but personally I use LinkedIn if I’m meeting someone – the photos on there tend to be more professional-looking.
Agree with all except 14. They can be really funny. Especially from American Republicans.
I was also considering when people post things and you have no idea of the context because they’ve posted something like “well, that went wrong”. What?
Should photos of “this is the beer I’m about to drink” get their own bullet point or are they included under food photos?
Apart from guessing that point 17 is yours ;-), those that feel compelled to use text speak on Facebook. I do find this irritating, especially from those over 18 years of age. Slightly off topic, something I do find amusing is when people say that their Internet has gone down. My response is, “What! The Internet has gone down? Perhaps we should inform the Pentagon”
You do come across as a bit of a grumpy old so and so, Darren!
Just like in real life – when you stand at a bar you end up in all kinds of conversations with people you’re not likely to share 100% of interests with – so it is on Facebook and Twitter…
Rather than get irritated, surely we should just smile or sigh and live with it, else get off the Social Networks…
(And yes, I know that’s rich coming from me!)
Stu, did I not say above “I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. And also bear in mind that this is just a bit of fun”? And also recognised that my friends are equally as likely to be bored with photos of my dog and comments how shit Arsenal are at the moment? As seasoned social media users we just learn to skim over the crap and ignore it, so nothing bothers me THAT much. Even if this being St Patrick’s Day I’m expecting a large number of “this is my pint of Guinness” photos later.
What you see above is the best of a huge number of responses in a Yammer conversation – I can ensure that some people were far more grumpy than me. I couldn’t even repeat some of them. I’ll add a ‘LOL’ here just for Pete Hampton.
Three words – Grumpy Old Men.
And I’m older than the lot of you.
To be honest, I’m probably guilty of all/most of the list, apart from foolball, about which I know ( and care !! ) very little.
Two other points: –
(a) One person’s meat, another person’s poison
(second) you can always ignore, delete or un-follow
In the meantime, keep up the ramblings, they’re why we love you 🙂
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to un-follow or un-friend someone just because they’ve posted a photo of their sandwich or invited me to Farmville (by the way, another responder said the Farmville one, not me). If we’re talking Facebook (and that’s what most of those refer to) I can just scroll past them and ignore them. Us veterans of the interweb have learnt to focus on what we want and ignore the other shite over the years.
And Dave, I think I may be older than you.
Let’s arm wrestle over our relative ages 🙂
Wrt Facebook, I stepped away from that about six months ago, and deleted my account, so I just live vicariously in Twitter, LinkedIn ( although I don’t post anything there apart from professional updates ) and, of course, Connections.
PS Nice sandwich, by the way
PPS Missie is very cute, but you probably know that
She is cute, shame about the small brain though.