Getting annoyed at virtue signalling on Facebook local groups

[Floogal]

Ignoring the fussing questions everytime a police helicopter is on patrol or fireworks. Where I live it's usually the same thing. Always along the lines of;

" I've got a lot of old tat but want to donate it to charity"
" I brought the homeless guy on the high street a coffee and had a chat with him"
And, this " how many homeless people are there in town? My (photogenic well dressed) twin daughters want to give out Xmas packages" obviously hoping to appear on the local news or "and finally...' on ITV news. Usually the 'ooooh aren't you wonderful' gushing replies. Gives me the raging arsehole.

In the Yorkshire area where I live, there are a few local saints. One old biddy who claims she is a witch, rather than messaging someone to say did you get xyz puts it on the fwb group for all to see, and often inserts the fact she’s the fire warden at work too, cos that’s crucial.

Another one in a nearby town is a middle aged busybody, hyphenated Surname, think she’s posh, lives in 6 bed (rented but omits this) house, obsesses about how wonderful the area is etc etc (she lives in a dump area of a not great town)

Fb group lol not fwb

Todays gem. There was a man (shocker). An elderly man standing at the playground in our local park. Should someone report him?

Apparently the little girl he was with was in danger. And had been brainwashed to call him gramps.

Or. She could have been with her grandad. Having a nice time at the park. Which is perfectly normal.

Literally moments ago saw an fb post offering unwanted toys to the less fortunate 'my daughter was gifted these toys but we are already so fortunate so wanted to give to a less fortunate family' Even the word gifted nearly sent me over the edge. There are also several charitable organisations who are very well known in the area that he could have just dropped off to, without posting to Facebook to tell everyone!

[quote LittleRoundRobin]@NdujaWannaDance

I absolutely HATE it when people use facebook groups as a captive audience for their creative writing attempts. These things should be confined to blogs, so people can choose to follow them or not.

And I hate it when people who do have blogs are constantly posting links to them all over fb groups.

Pisses me right off. It's so attention seeking. If you want to be a writer then get on a be one, but don't spam groups with massive long posts that are all about you and your ego, trying to drum up business and followers.

Argh! I hate this too. On MY small market town facebook page, there's this one man who takes load of photographs, calls himself 'Photography by Dave' or some other twatty name, and posts between 20 and 40 photos a week in batches of 4 or 5.

Pics by the nature reserve, the canal, the river, the woods, daffoldils, poppies, cows etc etc (all half a mile to 2 miles from town.) He photoshops and adds special effects and filters and suchlike, and people rush to say 'OMG these are sooooooooo awesome,' and 'well done mate these are fab,' and 'I have never seen such wonderful photos' blah blah blah...

As I say, they are clearly photoshopped, and filtered (around half of them anyway,) and quite frankly, are no better than the ones me and my DH take around the area. We just don't post every fucking photo we take of red mushrooms, reeds, the canal, field of poppies, trees, cows, ponies, sheep, clouds etc etc etc, on the local facebook page for all the likes and huns and 'OMG that amazing' comments.

And yes, I also hate people putting their poetry and creative writing stuff too. Like, NO-ONE on facebook cares. NO-ONE![/quote]
We used to have exactly this except it turned out he was pinching other people's pictures. He was caught out as he used a fairly well known bird picture, which then sent the online sleuths into a frenzy of going over past pics which were also nature stock pictures!

Some posts can be quite funny though. On my local FB selling page someone advertised 27 used Henry hoovers, some of which were working, some not, but might be good for spare parts, free to whomever would take the lot of their hands.

Loads of funny comments and people tagging their mates.

DaveSmith: @JoshBrown

Mate, weren't you just saying the other day you were in the market for 27 possibly broken Henry hoovers?

JoshBrown: @DaveSmith

Thanks for thinking of me mate, but I really needed 28.

@NdujaWannaDance

“It’s all a front for money laundering!” Really? Do you have any evidence of this? No?

To be fair, if they insist they only take cash then it probably is.

Like nail bars and hand car washes.

At the very least they are on a tax fiddle.

Even Big Issue sellers take debit cards these days.

These are all long established businesses within the community that accept card, employ locals and do a lot of work with local food banks.

Their crime is they are asian.

@cobblers123 and @Gonnagetgoing, friends in coastal north Devon used to hear air/sea rescue helicopters on training flights at night.

A couple who’d only recently moved to the area wrote to the local paper, complaining bitterly about the noise. Apparently they (unsurprisingly) received so much hate mail, they put the house back on the market and left!

@Wisewordswouldhelp
We also have a photography Dave in our town he writes a blog too and it's possibly the most boring thing I've ever read 🤣

We also used to have a local councillor who got the absolute arse with anyone questioning anything the council we're responsible for... although she's stopped now as I think she was voted out

The lost keys left somewhere really annoy me. We had one the other day saying 'Found these keys on the bench by the pub near X Common this morning. Have handed them into Y Town Hall.' X and Y are about 20 miles apart. Why would someone in X be on Y's FB page looking for keys they lost 20 miles away? Why not just leave them there, or hand them into the pub instead of bringing them home?

I recently received a Christmas card, with my address, but the wrong post code (that doesn't exist but is fairly close to mine) and indecipherable handwriting so I couldn't read the surname. Innocently asked on ND (I should know better really) if anyone knew who it was for, only to receive about 50 replies saying "What's the surname?" And then 10 people giving possible variations on what it might be. The rest were people just reading my address and then telling me to put it through my own door, or saying "Must live on your road hun x"
Chucked it in the recycling in the end.

@cobblers123

There are some that make me laugh though, we have an airfield near us that is operational, it houses the coastguard helicopter plus some private planes and a spitfire.

It's been there for ever and was once a naval airstation.

Every now and then there is someone on FB or NextDoor complaining about the noise from the aircraft, especially the spitfire which is quite noisy but is a fabulous sight and many people love to hear and see it.

Cue many replies saying, if you live near an airfield, you must expect noise from aircraft and as the place has been there for so long, they must have known when they bought their house, there would be aircraft noise!

Idiots!

I grew up near an RAF base that's been on the same site since it was founded in 1918.
Night flying training is advertised well in advance on FB and in the local paper.

And yet we still get new folk to the area complaining about the jets (day or night).

JakeyRolling:

I guess it makes a change from people complaining about early morning birdsong, chickens, roosters or church bells when they move to the country or near me many years ago - well before FB - people complaining angrily to the local paper about the smell of silage, the new estate being built decades after the farm that was already there.

I guess they didn't look hard enough at the acres of farmland when they bought their properties.

@Wisewordswouldhelp

We used to have exactly this except it turned out he was pinching other people's pictures. He was caught out as he used a fairly well known bird picture, which then sent the online sleuths into a frenzy of going over past pics which were also nature stock pictures!

OMG what a cheek! Glad he got rumbled. That reminds me of a woman who was caught out on twitter with her 'had a lovely time in Dubai' pics (she wasn't on them, they were just scenic photos,) and within about 10 minutes people were flocking on to her post, with the original photos that some dude took a year ago when he was ACTUALLY IN DUBAI. Silly moo. Also, why do some people think it's so utterly impressive to go to Dubai? I wouldn't go if you paid me.

ALSO, just half an hour ago, I spotted a facebook post that was put on yesterday afternoon, where someone is saying 'does anyone want to buy my daughter's paintings?' with 3 photos featuring the 9 paintings. I mean, they are decent to be fair, but do look a little bit 'year 9 GSCE project.' (Like quite amateurish,..) Also, it just feels a bit cheeky to be using facebook in this way........ Unsurprisingly, he has had no responses.

@hangrylady

To be honest local Facebook groups are great for this. Lost pets, phones etc. I found some keys in the street and posted in my village group and the owner was located in about 10 minutes!

I have to agree with this. Although FB groups have some annoying twats, they can come in useful too. In the summer, a lovely young ginger cat wandered onto our property, and started noshing from our cat's bowl that was on the doorstep (our cat had eaten most of the food.) When we approached it, it shot into our garage and hid behind the chest freezer!

Straight away, I went onto the facebook page to see if anyone had put anything. The day before, a woman had submitted a post saying 'have you seen this cat, Tilly is only three years old and is on a course of anti-biotics and is quite poorly. We love her so much and have a heartbroken 10 year old little girl who has been crying for 2 days.'

It was the same lovely cat. She was so friendly and timid and adorable. I eventually coaxed her out, from behind the chest freezer, and managed to pick her up, and give her a few cuddles and some food. Then I popped her into the cat basket that we use for our cat when taking her to the vet. I phoned the woman, and told her we have her cat.

She was over the moon, and cried with joy when I told her, and she yelled 'Emily, EMILY! Tilly's been found!' I heard a scream of joy in the background.

Turns out this woman lived TWO MILES away from us, so kitty had travelled a long way! Two miles over the fields, and through the woods! The lady said she must have got spooked by something, and shot off and got disorientated, as she had never disappeared before, ever, and they'd had her since she was 3 months old.

Long story short, if not for that facebook page, it's very likely Tilly would not have been reunited with her owner.

Are you in East Yorkshire? This happened on our local group!

Wisewordswouldhelp sorry that question was for you

i am pmsl at this and i LOVE this kind of thread!!

i have NEVER lost a bank card/purse/etc and thought "before i cancel all the cards, let me scroll down facebook to see if anyone has got it".

ffs.

@sweatervest

i am pmsl at this and i LOVE this kind of thread!!

i have NEVER lost a bank card/purse/etc and thought "before i cancel all the cards, let me scroll down facebook to see if anyone has got it".

ffs.

@CerealKiller22

We used to have a rock painting hide/find thing in my old town, a bit like a community treasure hunt. It was a bit of fun for everyone but a few kill joy's were outraged that an adult might enjoy taking part and were occasionally labelled as weird, or strange. One poor person who is known to have MH/SN issues would often be seen walking around the usual rock hiding spots (usually very peaceful places that would really benefit anyone looking for a bit of calm) and the FB patrol were "scared that one's children may come into contact with them" "should they even be outside". It was seriously disgusting behaviour. I don't have FB/SM anymore as it has had such an awful impact on people's behaviour and attitudes. I can't really bare to watch anymore.

There is a rock group for my town too. The admin of the group took it upon herself to paint 100 stones, all with names on. She asked for requests by the members, then left them in one country park. It caused an absolute bunfight. Entitled parents telling their kids that the stone with their name on, that they have not yet found, belongs to them. So many "crying children", abuse at anyone who had found "their" rock and decided to keep it or rehide it elsewhere etc The admin, who spent time and money doing it, was constantly deleting comments. It got ridiculous. For some bizarre reason, she put herself through it again this year, with the exact same result.

@cobblers123

A few posters on local sites have been hauled over the coals for posting complaints or telling people not to use or go to specifically named businesses.

It seems people post on FB without directly contacting the offending business/person which many posters thought was very unfair and told them so pointing out they could potentially harm someone's livelihood with just one aggrieved person's whinge.

Yes, there's a very good admin person on a local page, who will not let posters badmouth local businesses like that. A recent thread was closed quick smart, with comments deleted - it could easily have become a witch hunt, just because some person was aggrieved with a business, when by the sound of it, she was the one in the wrong.

We do at least seem to have trained people not to include photo of the whole card they've found - think they left everything visible except the expiry date.

Having lost a card recently I just froze it and reported it as lost asap. I'd worry who had seen it and possibly taken down the details before the 'Good Samaritan' posted.

Someone else posted photos of car keys they'd found "I've left it in the wall at x and y street". She got so much grief from others saying every wannabe car thief was heading to that location to try their luck on all the cars in that vicinity that she had to go back and collect key and hand in to police.

Yes, there's a very good admin person on a local page, who will not let posters badmouth local businesses like that. A recent thread was closed quick smart, with comments deleted - it could easily have become a witch hunt, just because some person was aggrieved with a business, when by the sound of it, she was the one in the wrong.

The witch that runs our local Facebook group went on at the beginning of the pandemic absolutely slating a local firm for delaying her work. She was vile! She got her arsed handed to her on a plate. She after getting a load of very strong comments deleted the post. She then kept coming back over the next few days, saying I'm sorry .... followed by a but and then the reason why she was right. We then got the I'm a victim act and she took to her bed for three days as she was so upset, She then banned a load of people, so someone then opened up another group, for all the banned members. She decided they were bullying her by doing this and she was informing the police. No arrests have been made.

They moved her work by a couple of weeks because they had to isolate, they hadn't shot her mother. They in the end refused to do the work anyway.

@CharityDingle

Yes, there's a very good admin person on a local page, who will not let posters badmouth local businesses like that. A recent thread was closed quick smart, with comments deleted - it could easily have become a witch hunt, just because some person was aggrieved with a business, when by the sound of it, she was the one in the wrong.

Ours is the same. They have deleted a few posts this past few weeks, and deleted/blocked the user, (with a temporary one month ban,) for trying to start a witch hunt against a local cafe or small local pub because their chips were lukewarm when they got their meal, (or their coke was warm!)

The admin dude said 'take this up with the business itself, at the time, or afterwards, do NOT name and shame on here like this. A business can be seriously damaged with this kind of witch hunt.'

I HATE this shit, and cannot stand fucking 'cancel culture!'

The admin dude said 'take this up with the business itself, at the time, or afterwards, do NOT name and shame on here like this. A business can be seriously damaged with this kind of witch hunt.'

God I’m on some FB groups for a certain handmade homeware designer - the number of complaints about tiny tiny imperfections and questions about what people should do. You don’t like it - send it back!

I’m a member of a few local history pages, where people post photos of the area and how it used to look. As sure as night follows day you get people moaning saying ‘it’s not like the old days’, making thinly veiled racist remarks about immigration and refugees spoiling everything and how it’s always the Council’s fault because they’re all corrupt. On more than one occasion I’ve explained how virtually anyone can put themselves forward to become a councillor should they so wish, and if it’s all bribes, backhanders and stuffed brown envelopes, why don’t they have a go? Get on that gravy train, Malcolm!