Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that Facebook is for the vacuous and banal

157 replies

FunnysInTheGarden · 22/09/2011 22:25

On the whole?

I mean it's worse than I thought. Am a recent convert, but the shit some folk post about their lives. I mean REALLY who is interested?

Pages and pages of my 'friends' most detailed stream of boring consciousness.

Mebeez I need to log off!

OP posts:
cerealqueen · 22/09/2011 23:31

YANBU. I'm hiding half the updates now as its either boasting or banal.

Whatmeworry · 22/09/2011 23:51

It's the virtual virtuous lives that wound me up, and their whole privacy policy shenanigans made me leave. Sadly it seems to be an essential tool for the kids.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 23/09/2011 00:35

2/3 of what's posted on here is vacuous and banal. You may think you're different because it's a thread not a status update but you're exactly the same y'know. I never understand why people come on here to do exactly the same thing as the friends they are complaining about do on FB.

Meteorite · 23/09/2011 00:41

Facebook is too "one size fits all". I'd much rather email each friend now and again, with an individual message based on things we have in common and their circumstances.

Meteorite · 23/09/2011 00:43

Oh and I'd be upset if someone declined my friend request so I'm far too soft to go on there anyway!

Original poster
FunnysInTheGarden · 23/09/2011 09:39

ah but GML the difference on MN is that you can actually say what you think without upsetting someone you went to school with in 1986 and didn't much like then anyway. I itch to post what I really think, but wouldn't in RL be that rude, so I come on here and do it instead.

Now if folk said what they really thought on FB it would be far more interesting.

OP posts:
Original poster
FunnysInTheGarden · 23/09/2011 09:40

oh and I tend not to hide folk becuase I'm always holding out for them to do something interesting which I can then laugh at.

OP posts:
NinkyNonker · 23/09/2011 09:41

I'm on there, but rarely use it. Most of my friends work abroad and my parents live a while away, we use it to share photos.

NinkyNonker · 23/09/2011 09:43

I am ruthless with it though. I decline people, have regular culls and hide anyone who annoys me temporarily.

KittyFane · 23/09/2011 09:44

If I wouldn't stop and talk to them in the street, I don't accept them as friends.
Spring clean your friend list, hide them or delete them. They probably won't notice If they are the type that has 500+ 'friends'

KittyFane · 23/09/2011 09:47

Ps- seems like your nosiness is getting in the way - based on your last post.... Why are you friend's with someone from 1986 who you don't and never liked? Get rid of them or stop moaning that they bore you.
Brew

Mumleigh · 23/09/2011 10:01

I love and hate Facebook.

Love it for allowing me to chat with my friends when I'm alone in the evenings, especially when we are both watching the same TV show and can discuss it.

Love it for making it so easy to keep up with the lives of my friends who now live abroad or too far away for me to see regularly. Even if it is just banal stuff about their everyday lives - they are my good friends and I am interested in everything they are up to.

Hate the constant friend requests from random people you sat next to in an office once. Especially the ones who were never very nice to you.

Really really really hate those copy and paste status updates. I have recently "unfriended" someone who posted some rubbish hoax about Poppy selling and then went on a very offensive racist rant. ( she was one of those not very nice ex colleagues)

I think the key is to cull any "friends" who you really wouldn't be bothered to spend time with in real life.

BluddyMoFo · 23/09/2011 10:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 23/09/2011 10:18

Are you just wanting to lash out at anybody who uses it? Look down on others? Make a pointed stab that anybody who uses it is pretty pointless? If so, you could say that about any forum, anywhere, this one and any other. But then again, it rather depends on what your motivations are to post there or interact with other people.

For myself, I don't 'chat' to vacuous and banal people or read their posts, here or on Facebook or anywhere else... I mean, it would be the ultimate in stupidity to waste my time doing that, right?

Do you really need people to support your view of whether you're unreasonable in your very specific viewpoint? Odd. Confused

oldenglishspangles · 23/09/2011 10:23

Facebook for me in no particular order is funny, sad, supportive, banal, irritating and informative. I like that you can have private or group conversations. You can share pictures etc quickly. Anything that allows people to communicate positively is good in my books.

bintofbohemia · 23/09/2011 10:28

My parents love to bang on about how FB is shite for idiots - but it's because a) they don't get it and b) they'd bloody love it, all the gossip and spying and stalking they could get up to, it would make their lives much easier.

I love it me. I'm in touch with people I wouldn't be otherwise and it's been a bit of a lifeline through the years of being at home alone with tiny children (and now working from home and seeing no one in real life!) I'm quite selective about who I befriend though and have a ruthless cull every so often.

FlouncyMcFlouncer · 23/09/2011 10:29

Facebook is great, you never have to actually SEE anyone any more.

AvaLafff · 23/09/2011 10:44

to think that Facebook is for the vacuous and banal

and MN isnt ?? Grin

whats for tea, pasta or couscous
my OH is having 23 affairs and doesnt pay the rent, what shall i do
shall i ask the nanny to wear knickers
why wasnt the Guardian delivered today, shall i complain to the newsagent

chill1243 · 23/09/2011 10:48

FUNNYS I have not done Facebook ....but cant you find someone who shares your interests on there? If not, the Mail used to have a good philosophy site. Seriously, when we all tire of message-boarding, face to face friendship will make a comeback.

MurielTheActor · 23/09/2011 10:51

I think this says it all

bintofbohemia · 23/09/2011 10:52

Life, is 90% about the vacuous and banal... Grin

PelvicFloorsOfSteel · 23/09/2011 10:55

I find fb funny and interesting but, as has already been said, it's about who your friends are not fb itself. I have almost entirely friends rather than 'friends' and keep a few people hidden because it would be rude to unfriend them but their updates are awful.

forrestgump · 23/09/2011 10:59

I am another lover and hater.

Hate - the martyr mum posts, how mum has struggled with 3 kids under 4 on public transport, at tesco on a saturday morning, ballets lessons, swimming, baked, then a birthday party, as hubby loves his saturdays to lie in and relax etc (mum cant drive, dad has a car) and everything Chickenshavenoeyebrows posted!

Love - I am nosey, I love catching up with friends i would no longer see!

Tho the whole etiquette thing send me into fits of rage.

marge2 · 23/09/2011 11:32

I set up an account a few years ago after somebody told me that I MUST go on it as it was awesome. I hated. What a faff. Had all sorts of people I hadn;t seen for years - since school even - contacting me, which I found a bit unsettling. I kept getting emails from facebook which I found intrusive.

Also there was some nasty bitchy stuff happening between people I knew and also a teacher at my DSs school had a hate campaign organised by a parent about him on facebook. So wrong.

I'm in touch with everyone I want to be in touch with in real life so I closed it down again. Just not interested in that crap.

issynoko · 23/09/2011 11:32

Am with PelvicFloorsofSteel re FB. Although wish I was with her on the Pelvic Floor front as well.