The Fruitcake Magazine August Issue

What Grinds My Gears

What grinds My Gears:

As beautiful as the world may be, there is no shortage of things that it could do very well without. Complaining happens to be a specialty of mine and the subject which I have chosen to bless with my attention and skills today is the social networking gem of a website called facebook, or, more importantly, the myriad of intelligent beings that use it.

Is it just me or do people seem more annoying on facebook than they do in real life? It is like all the hidden characteristics of their personality are revealed on the computer screen.  In fact, I refrain from using that website because some of the things that appear on my newsfeed actually kill my brain cells. I am certain that I have a much lower IQ now than I did before I joined this social network, although that might still, thankfully, be considerably higher than some of my peers who use it ever so religiously.

There are many different kinds of users and each with their own personal ability to annoy the hell out of me.

Firstly we have the users who deem it absolutely necessary that the whole world know about their every activity. Hence, they keep us informed via incessant status updates about their every move.

“Thinking of buying pizza”

 “On my way to pizza shop to buy that pizza I was thinking about”

“Just reached the pizza shop”

“On my way back home from pizza shop.  Can’t wait to eat the pizza I just bought!”

 “Eating pizza!”

They want us to know every single detail of their fascinating lives, making sure that we are aware of what they’re doing every second of the day, and when and why they’re doing it.  I mean nobody is biting their nails with anticipation to learn about what you just ate and we don’t need to know where you go every single time you leave your house, so maybe should cut down the status updates somewhat.

Then we have our game junkies. These people are relentless. Not only do they have to play every single game that is available on face book, no, they have to make sure that everyone else plays them too. Hence comes an endless stream of game requests, from Candy Crush to Farmville, Fishville and God-knows-what-else-ville. And so 9 out of 10 times that I receive a notification, it is not important news or some old friend saying hello, no, it is the game junkies with yet another request inviting me to play a game that I am not even remotely interested in.

Then there are the educated illiterates. These people have never heard of grammar, spellings or punctuation and couldn’t write a proper sentence to save their lives. Their bold, stylistic and horribly painful approach towards writing includes replacing letters with numbers and capitalizing letters in the middle of the words so We h@V3 G3MS LiK3 Th3se eVeRyWherE ON thE n3wsfEed, anD iT T@Kes Y3@rx To c0mpreh3Nd wHat tHeY aRe tRyINg 2 sAy. Just looking at sentences like this gives me migraines. Please, people of the world, would it kill you to write like a normal person?

Finally on the list we have our love birds. These fragile beings with cotton-candy -for- hearts and soggy-noodles-for-wits have profiles full of love quotes and pictures of couples, with literally nothing else. They love to dedicate their statuses to their girlfriends/boyfriends. The drama in their life is endless, and you could write a soap opera based on their statuses alone. What is Brutus and Caesar to the betrayals they’ve had to face! What are Romeo and Juliet to the love they have experienced!

Their relationship starts with enthusiastic proclamations of undying love:

 “OHmygosh you are my teddy bear I love you SHOOOO much I don’t know what I would do without you, you make me complete <3 <3<3 “

And ends in morbid disappointment:

“You think you know someone but they turn out to be completely different” and “I trusted you but you broke my heart now I will never be whole again.”

 I mean seriously! Does that not make you want to throw up? I mean it’s great if you love somebody, but do you really have to parade it around for the entire world to see? And do you really have to be so excessively dramatic about it? I mean, it sounds like the world has never seen a bigger tragedy than a 12 year old breaking up with their “one true love”

Do the things people do on face book grate on your nerves like they do on mine? Or am I the only one who’s getting her brains fried with frustration at the stupidity of mankind here? What are some of the things people do on face book that annoy you? Share your views in the comments!