Ramblings: Why Facebook Makes Me Irritable

Sitting around all day means spending a lot of time on the computer, which means spending a lot of time on Facebook, and I think that is causing a lot of unreasonable frustration and anger. I should probably take a break from Facebook.

Part of my problem is that as the days go by, and I'm not doing anything I consider truly productive, I get increasingly moody and irritable. And when I see status after status of happy-go-lucky attitudes, optimism, and people trying to be funny when they clearly aren't funny or never have been funny in the past, I get hit with feelings of unbridled misanthropy. I know that isn't fair. I don't want to be an asshole, really.

I don't mind when people share good news or events. I always like it when friends get jobs, or start relationships, or get promotions, or get into grad school, or finish moving to a new city. I mean it, I really do. I'm usually happy for them. It's when they decide that they have reassure everyone (mostly themselves) that they are content with their lives that it feels incredibly forced and insincere.

---"I truly have the best job in the world!"
---"My boyfriend is so nice to me, look at all the nice things he does or says!"
---"Sipping a beer, gazing at the sunset, could life get any better?!"
---"I am truly blessed that I'm able to effectively lead this entire team of miserable office workers every day!"
---"I broke my arm! Good thing that a sudden unforeseen occurrence such as this one isn't enough to dampen my affected cheery attitude!"

It's probably not intentional, but to me it just feels like outright unnecessary bragging. And if you know me at all then you probably know that if there's one thing I can't stand it's bragging. If someone tries to brag at me I always subvert their bragging with anti-bragging.

---"Hey, Tom, you know that I pretty much figured out this homework problem in 13 nanoseconds. This class is so easy. That's 0.013 microseconds, by the way. The professor and I are already good friends so maybe I can chat with him later about how to structure the lessons a little better for the rest of the class. I have some good ideas."
---"That's cool man, I can add 1-digit numbers together in my head on a good day if I try really hard."

Anyway, the overly saccharine cheerfulness of Facebook gets tiring quite often and I often find myself wondering if my tendency to be sarcastic is appropriate there anymore, especially since I got a Twitter. We're all fuckin' adults, aren't we? Why do I always feel like a lot of the ideas I have for statuses aren't allowed there?

Yesterday I came across two status updates that made me irrationally cranky. Cranky to the point where I dwelt on them longer than I needed to. Cranky to the point where I'm writing about it, I guess. One of them I decided not to include here, since there's a good chance it could find its way back to the offending individual. It basically involved someone who had a smug attitude about a certain word in an article that he/she obviously didn't know the definition of, but nevertheless felt that the author of the article was wrong. He/She got a few likes, some that came in even after he/she was exposed to be wrong. It smacks of willful ignorance, another trait that I cannot tolerate.

The other one I can post here because I don't know the person who posted it, yet it showed up on my newsfeed anyway since a mutual friend commented on it. Click to make it bigger.

OK, so, Person Red here posts a picture of a creepy-ass spider that he killed. He also answers questions about it, no big deal. I didn't think a single thing of this at the time.

About three hours later I find myself, incidentally, reading about spiders on Wikipedia. I was reading facts about something called the "Huntsman Spider" and then I decided to Google it.

The image results looked very familiar...

I go back to the Facebook to check on this status again. As it turns out, the spider picture posted on Facebook is identical to the one that can be found on this webpage. It's even dated 2002.

This guy seriously claimed that he himself took this picture. That is completely insane to me. "I eradicated it. I'm posting one of it on the ceiling." I spent MINUTES trying to figure out what would possess someone to lie about something so stupid and trivial. I tried to rationalize why this person would take a fairly easy-to-find image on the internet and pass it off as photographic evidence of his own heroic encounter with some sort of demon spider.

What did the real spider look like? WAS THERE EVER REALLY A SPIDER AT ALL?

What else is this guy lying about?

I confronted the friend who commented on this picture to let him know about the FARCE. I had to tell someone. I got no response.

Was justice ever served? Probably not.

I hope this makes you as irritable as it made me. That means we both have mental problems.