Things On Facebook That Bother Me Vol. 2

So among my first facebook post, I actually forgot the facebooker type that annoys me the most: The Chronic Misspeller. (According to the Firefox spellchecker, Misspeller should actually be spelled "misspell-er." That's dumb and I'm consciously ignoring it Even Webster spells it misspeller.) The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that the Chronic Misspeller merits is own post because there are three brands of the Chronic Misspeller.


The Text Speak Misspeller


I read somewhere that the average teenager sends 3,500 texts per month. That is outrageous. I dig texting. I use it all the time. However, if something requires 3,500 texts to convey, I will pick up the freakin phone and use my mouth. It's much faster than my thumbs anyway. Anyway, this copious use of texting has resulted in what's called "text speak." I use abbreviations in my texts occasionally, but most of the time, my texts are spelled correctly and use correct grammar. Why? Because I'm striving to be an English teacher. It's how I roll. Anyway, if you want to use text speak in your texts to your other teenie bopper friends, go right ahead. Do not let it leak into facebook. ESPECIALLY if you're facebooking from a computer. There's just no excuse for it then. What annoys me even more is when text speak is mixed with real words. It looks something like this:


"okay its my birthday 2morow ooo joy mayb this year will b better who knows but im not going to just give up because people r jerks!!!"


If you're gonna use text speak, take it all the way, none of this half-assing stuff. This should read either:

"Ok iz my bday 2morrow o joy mayb this yr wll b betr who nos but im not givn up bcuz peple r jrks!"


OR


"Okay, it's my birthday tomorrow. Oh joy! Maybe this year will be better. Who knows? I'm not going to just give up, though, because people are jerks."


The Lazy Misspeller


In the movie Easy A, Olive Penderghast's little brother exclaims, "I got a B+ on my spelling test." Then his mother responds, "That's great honey, everything has spellcheck these days." If you haven't seen the movie, you must. It is hilarious. Anyway, my point is, if you have misspellings in your facebook status, you are doing one of two things. One of those is just being too lazy to right click and find out what the correct spelling might be. You type out your status and think, "Oh there's a bunch of red squiggly lines under several words there. They must be misspelled. Oh well, I'd rather people think I'm an idiot than to find out how to actually spell them." *Clicks the Share button* 


The Atrocious Misspeller


This is the other possible thing that's going on if you still have misspellings in your status. Your spelling is so abhorrent that spellcheck cannot find the correct spelling of the word you're shooting for. This just makes me sad for the state of the United States education system. People on facebook are supposed to be at least 13 years of age. At the age of 13, if your spelling is so bad that spellcheck doesn't know what the hell you're trying to say, the educational system is failing you in some way. 


So some people probably think I'm a grammar and/or spelling snob. Go right ahead. I am. If it's wrong for me to expect teens to be able to write coherently with, at the very least, complete and correctly spelled words and complete sentences, then I'm guilty as charged. I know some people think, "Well it's just facebook. It's not a graded essay or anything." Here's the problem though, this leaks its way into those graded essays. I've heard about students turning papers in using text speak abbreviations and such. I'm telling you right now, that kind of thing will not be tolerated in my classroom. You know why? Because it wasn't tolerated from my teachers when I was that age. My mom recently discovered a card I made for my aunt when I was 9. There was not one single spelling or grammatical error in it. I was 9. I would expect a 13 year old to at least have the same proficiency I did at the age of 9. 


So there you are. The last class of flawed facebookers and an education gripe all in one fell swoop. :)

Things on Facebook that bother me

So, I know there are numerous versions of the "Things that suck about facebook" lists out there on the interwebs, but this is one is mine.

The Politician

We all have them in our news feed. They're the people that post nothing but political stuff. All. Year. Long. They use their facebook status as a podium with their own personal seal on it. And most of them are completely unreasonable. It doesn't matter which camp they fall under. Every person I know that focuses this much on politics are very very biased in their beliefs. You'll find them saying things like, "Obama is an un-American socialist terrorist nazi who is ruining the country," or "Obama is the coolest raddest most intelligent president that ever was. He is our savior." I disagree with both of these camps because I am very much not into politics and therefore tend to ride the fence a lot.

The Religiocious Person

I'm not talking about people that simply quote Bible verses or people that are simply honest about their faith. I'm talking about people that tend to inject religion in politics in an un-cool way. I am a Christian, and I'm not just one of those Christians that say I'm a Christian because I believe in God and leave it at that. The story of my relationship with God is very long, and I may share it someday, but not now. My point is, I have no tolerance for intolerance. People who think something like the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell or the beginning of gay marriage means that "this homosexual steamroller will crush all decent men, women, and children who gets in its way" because homosexuality is a sin can bite me. Yeah, it might be a sin, but so is lying, adultery, anger, gluttony, and so on and so on. 100% of the time, the person spewing judgment is guilty of one of these kind of things at some point. Unless Jesus is on facebook. Then that's a different story. Do you know that the divorce rate for Christians is the same as it is for non-Christians? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

The Lovey Dove

I love my husband. Very much. And when he does something totally awesome like give me flowers for no reason or make me a wonderful dinner or not take his uniform off in the living room, I might post about it on facebook. This accounts for maybe MAYBE 10% of my status updates. So those people who post nothing but crap about their significant other. . . I want to punch them in the face. I've always felt this way. I used to think it was out of bitterness over being single, but now that I'm married to a wonderful man that makes me very happy, I realize it's just effing annoying. Can you imagine if that's how you operated IRL?

Joe: Hey Betty, how's it going?
Betty: Oh great. I love my boyfriend Adam so much. He's the best thing that ever happened to me. I <3 you baby!
Joe: Ummm. I don't know how you vocalized <3 but kudos. Did you do anything over the weekend?
Betty: Oh, yeah, I spent the weekend with my awesome bf Adam. I love him so much. He's so awesome. He's the best. I <3 you baby!
Joe: So how's school going?
Betty: Oh, I quit school. It was getting in the way of spending time with my super rad lover, Adam. OMG he is so great. We've been together for 2 months, 1 week, 4 days, and 15 hours. 10/3/10 - Best day ever!!! I <3 you baby!
Joe: Don't you have anything else to talk about?
Betty: Oh, I can tell you how spectacular by boyfriend Adam is. He's amazing. I couldn't imagine life without him. 10/3/10. I <3 you baby!!!

STFU!!!!

The Oversharer

99% of the time, the oversharer is a parent. You get to read things like, "Yay! Little Hanky just pooped in the potty for the first time. It was only a wee little marble sized turd, but he finally did it!!" Because everyone really wants to know how big your kid's poop was. I'm fortunate enough to not really have much of these in my news feed. My facebook friends all seem to have that social filter installed.

The Vague Emo

"You have ruined me! I can't believe you did this to me! I don't know if I will ever recover from what you've done to me! My life is over!" So...who the hell are you referring to and what the hell did they do? Do I ever ask this this question? Absolutely not because that's exactly what the poster wants: attention. If it wasn't a cry for attention, we'd never know about it. They'd address this junk directly to the person and in a private message or an e-mail or *GASP* a phone call.There's also the direct version of this, when someone actually calls the other person out by name. This is just awkward for everyone. Don't do it.  There are actually many different flavors of vagueness though - mystery happy statuses, mystery countdowns, etc, but this one annoys me the most.

So these are just the top examples. There are others. But I'll just leave it with these for now.