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> Everyone has demons, but no one wants to air that to their peers. The only people who would think nobody bitches/whines/complains on FB are those that have n

> Everyone has demons, but no one wants to air that to their peers. The only people who would think nobody bitches/whines/complains on FB are those that have never used it.

serf 12y ago
It's not that people don't whine, it's that when they whine they are always in the right (obviously untrue). It's a part of the creation of an image that the participants want to portray to other participants, just like the cherry-picked photos and favorite media. A person who strongly follows particular trends and styles on facebook is much more likely to share the same favorite medias as those facebook participants who share similar interests; this is two-sided, though. On one hand, you could say that it's the interests that shaped the person into the trends and styles that they participate, but the other possibility is that the person is emulating people who have the styles and trends that they wish for themselves, and simply merging information from a suitable profile. Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book? They didn't.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book? Or maybe you just didn't know they were interested in the first place. I actually discovered thanks to Facebook that I share interests with many of the people who I didn't ever suspect on being interested in the same things as I. I'm an active Facebook user with 500+ friends, most of whom I know in real life, and I'm pretty sure almost none of them is consciously trying to "build a better image of themselves" in any other way they don't already do in real life. Seriously, everybody is "building their image" in "real life" all the time. If you go over to a friend to see the photos from a mountain trip, they will show you the nice one, not the ones when they sleep drunk under the table. Facebook actually makes it somewhat more difficult, because unlike face to face conversations, everything you wrote or posted is there to stay.
  - Stefanrio 12y ago
    It troubles me that there actually are people who think like you. I'm pretty sure your definition of a friend is different than most people. I'd label your "friends" as people who are in the same social circles as you because of their socioeconomic status. You, as the hollow facebook drone who has never actually experienced friendship, think that real people socialize by posting pictures of themselves online to boost their image, they don't. Your life must be lonely and sad, but hey, as long as 500+ people know what you had at that new sushi place last night, who cares, right? #culture #sushi #nightout #selfie #misusedhashtags
    - notastartup 12y ago
      What's worse is when people take pictures of the receipt from a sushi restaurant to show off how much money they blew but they will not post anything negative that happens afterwards. #mercurypoisoining #yolo #expensivesushi I see such people with 500+ even in some cases 1000+ friends on facebook. When talking with them in real life, you can feel that these type of people are social butterflies, placing quantity over quality of relationships. Not placing judgement on this style but when you have so many people on on facebook, it'd be a wonder how one can keep up with all of them, they probably don't. They probably constantly place people in different levels of relationship, far more often than someone with average or little friends on facebook, to filter out the social noise. It's so easy now to make connection with someone you barely knew in university or college. It's suddenly overwhelming when you like someone's post and he/she has never been close to you. A constant battle for likes, as many as possible, from whoever possible. It's like highschool but you interat with each other with a yearbook only in separate rooms. I can't even talk to 500 customers in one week by myself, if it was just through email by email basis with carefully thought out custom messages tailored to each individual written on the spot, it would take forever. 500 people alone is a staggering figure, I just don't know how people keep in contact with all 500 people with all the time. It must be exhausting.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        You sound like someone who's not a Facebook regular ;). Facebook for people like me is a kind of glorified address book. You don't interact with all your 500+ friends all the time. But it helps you keep in touch with various "weak ties"; people who you don't interact with on a daily basis, but you might want to talk to every couple of months. That cool barista from Starbucks you used to chat with before she changed her job. This guy with interesting ideas about technology you met on some conference. A person you used to borrow homework from in your high school. Etc. Think of it as a big party for 500 people who all met each other at least once before. People naturally form small groups and talk within those groups. But every now and then, someone overhears an interesting conversation from the other group, so he might join them for few moments, and sometimes maybe a few groups get together to have a conversation on a common topic. It's how Facebook feels, except "to overhear" means "an interesting post from one of your 'weak ties' somehow ended up in your news feed".

> Everyone has demons, but no one wants to air that to their peers. The only people who would think nobody bitches/whines/complains on FB are those that have never used it.

serf 12y ago

It's not that people don't whine, it's that when they whine they are always in the right (obviously untrue). It's a part of the creation of an image that the participants want to portray to other participants, just like the cherry-picked photos and favorite media. A person who strongly follows particular trends and styles on facebook is much more likely to share the same favorite medias as those facebook participants who share similar interests; this is two-sided, though. On one hand, you could say that it's the interests that shaped the person into the trends and styles that they participate, but the other possibility is that the person is emulating people who have the styles and trends that they wish for themselves, and simply merging information from a suitable profile. Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book? They didn't.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book? Or maybe you just didn't know they were interested in the first place. I actually discovered thanks to Facebook that I share interests with many of the people who I didn't ever suspect on being interested in the same things as I. I'm an active Facebook user with 500+ friends, most of whom I know in real life, and I'm pretty sure almost none of them is consciously trying to "build a better image of themselves" in any other way they don't already do in real life. Seriously, everybody is "building their image" in "real life" all the time. If you go over to a friend to see the photos from a mountain trip, they will show you the nice one, not the ones when they sleep drunk under the table. Facebook actually makes it somewhat more difficult, because unlike face to face conversations, everything you wrote or posted is there to stay.
- Stefanrio 12y ago
  It troubles me that there actually are people who think like you. I'm pretty sure your definition of a friend is different than most people. I'd label your "friends" as people who are in the same social circles as you because of their socioeconomic status. You, as the hollow facebook drone who has never actually experienced friendship, think that real people socialize by posting pictures of themselves online to boost their image, they don't. Your life must be lonely and sad, but hey, as long as 500+ people know what you had at that new sushi place last night, who cares, right? #culture #sushi #nightout #selfie #misusedhashtags
  - notastartup 12y ago
    What's worse is when people take pictures of the receipt from a sushi restaurant to show off how much money they blew but they will not post anything negative that happens afterwards. #mercurypoisoining #yolo #expensivesushi I see such people with 500+ even in some cases 1000+ friends on facebook. When talking with them in real life, you can feel that these type of people are social butterflies, placing quantity over quality of relationships. Not placing judgement on this style but when you have so many people on on facebook, it'd be a wonder how one can keep up with all of them, they probably don't. They probably constantly place people in different levels of relationship, far more often than someone with average or little friends on facebook, to filter out the social noise. It's so easy now to make connection with someone you barely knew in university or college. It's suddenly overwhelming when you like someone's post and he/she has never been close to you. A constant battle for likes, as many as possible, from whoever possible. It's like highschool but you interat with each other with a yearbook only in separate rooms. I can't even talk to 500 customers in one week by myself, if it was just through email by email basis with carefully thought out custom messages tailored to each individual written on the spot, it would take forever. 500 people alone is a staggering figure, I just don't know how people keep in contact with all 500 people with all the time. It must be exhausting.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      You sound like someone who's not a Facebook regular ;). Facebook for people like me is a kind of glorified address book. You don't interact with all your 500+ friends all the time. But it helps you keep in touch with various "weak ties"; people who you don't interact with on a daily basis, but you might want to talk to every couple of months. That cool barista from Starbucks you used to chat with before she changed her job. This guy with interesting ideas about technology you met on some conference. A person you used to borrow homework from in your high school. Etc. Think of it as a big party for 500 people who all met each other at least once before. People naturally form small groups and talk within those groups. But every now and then, someone overhears an interesting conversation from the other group, so he might join them for few moments, and sometimes maybe a few groups get together to have a conversation on a common topic. It's how Facebook feels, except "to overhear" means "an interesting post from one of your 'weak ties' somehow ended up in your news feed".