1. Hint, Hint, Hint: People who use their tweets or status updates to send not-at-all-subtle messages to someone on their friend or follow list make me extremely uncomfortable. For example:
“I’m thinking about you. Yeah, you. You know what you did. And I won’t ever forget it.”
This move is not only passive-aggressive, but it’s downright weird and creepy.
2. Become A Fan (Of Me!): Here are some of the things I am a “fan” of on Facebook: Barack Obama, The Beach, Breakfast Tacos, Ryan Gosling, and I Heart Sleep. I am not a fan of my best friend from first grade or my mom or my boyfriend, so why the hell would I be a fan of you, person with no discernible talent who I don’t know nearly as well? People who create fan pages for themselves, even though they don’t do anything, make me crazy. I get a little shiver of delight every time I enthusiastically IGNORE these requests.
3. Manic And Excessive Retweeting: Really, you loved four dozen 140-character tweets by other people so much, that you had to retweet all of them within the span of an hour? I get the occasional retweet, when something someone says makes you laugh hysterically, or a link totally strikes your fancy — but seriously, do not retweet every single thing from The New York Times and your great aunt Mildred because it litters my feed, dammit.
4. Bragging: This one is a personal beef of mine, linked directly to my own jealousy. I wish I got two weeks off and went on vacation over the holiday, but I didn’t and that’s cool, whatevs. But on Monday my Facebook feed was littered with braggy, annoying messages like:
“Ugh, I SO wish I was back in Peru smooching my boo on the beach instead of at work. Can I have another month off, like, now? Guess life could be worse, right?”
Right. I’m so happy for you.
5. “Excessive” Use Of QUOTES And ALL CAPS For “Emphasis”: This was posted as a status update over the holidays by a member of my own immediate family:
“Where the hell did the last TEN YEARS go?!?! Oh well…”au revoir” ’09…I won’t miss ya! 2010, I’ll rise again! (No, uh…not “Jesus”…ME! I’ll “rise” to meet the challenges instead of lettin’ them BEAT ME this time!)”
Being this is my kin we’re talking about, I cannot defriend him or her, though I suppose I could gift him or her with an AP Stylebook for Christmas next year.
6. Twitter Is Not Your Fitness Diary: “Just ran five miles, off to yoga!” “Wow, can’t believe I did 20 pull-ups five days in a row!” “Ugh, so sore from yesterday’s three hour triathlon training sesh. Gonna take it easy today and just do Bikram.” Your constant tweets about how much you work out are giving the rest of us fat slobs a complex and we are unfollowing you so that we can eat cheese doodles in peace. Buh-bye.
7. Tweeting During A Crisis: This one goes out to Tila Tequila, who is so distraught about Casey Johnson’s passing, that she has tweeted about it continuously ever since finding out. She’s even mid-Twitter war with Perez Hilton as I type. Girl, put down your phone and go grieve like a normal person.
8. That’s TMI: There’s a lot that falls under the umbrella of “too much information,” but in no particular order:
Baby’s First Everything: “Little Anna ate her first bit of solid food and made a big poo-poo in her diaper right away. So cute! Being a mom is the best job ever!”
Health Emergencies/Procedures: “Off to see the gyno to have an ingrown hair lanced! Wish me luck!”
I’m Heartbroken, Feel Sorry For Me: “Amelia doesn’t want to get out of bed, because her stupid (ex!) boyfriend totally dumped her last night and she knows no one will ever love her again.”
Lady Issues: “Second hot flash of the day — menopause seriously sucks!”
9. Conducting Your Entire Life Via Facebook: And, more specifically, assuming everyone else does to. Guess what, we missed your super awesome party because you posted a status update about it instead of sending a proper invite and because we don’t check your Facebook page every hour on the hour, we didn’t see it. Not everyone keeps a browser window open on Facebook all day, everyday. Likewise, when we actually see you in real life, we may not remember every single obscure article you posted to your page, or which YouTube video you found particularly hilarious two weeks ago. A friend of mine complained about this, saying, “It’s just assumed that I have to keep on top of their Facebook activity in order to carry on a dialogue with them. And then I have to hear about the minutiae of what it means that someone ‘liked’ or ‘didn’t like’ their post and dissect the subtext. Get a flippin’ life.” Indeed.
10. Photo Tagging: Listen, even if you think the photo of your friend is awesome, don’t tag her. Share the album with her and let her tag herself if she would like to. This one is simple, but it never fails to amaze me that someone who actually likes me would tag a photo of me with drool on my (double) chin.
11. Let’s Play Catch-Up: “Hey, how’s it going?” is a question that should be asked via email, over the phone, or in person, NOT on someone’s Facebook page. What are we gonna do? Fix some Cosmos and gab about old times via wall messages?
12. If Narcissus Had A Twitter: These people generally are snide and pretentious and, as my friend noted, they’ll “call out a typo in an article in The New York Times or talk about how they thought the lead character in BAM’s staging of ‘Elektra’ was underdeveloped. Save it for your college thesis, dudes.” Each tweet tries way, way too hard, to convey that the person’s life is just so incredibly fabulous and exciting. My friend continued, “They get all name-droppy, like ‘Gosh, this is the THIRD party where I’ve run into Dave Eggers. He must be STALKING me!’ Loser.”
13. If Harry Carey Were On Facebook: In my world, Hawks are birds, Jets can fly, and Angels are in Heaven. Tweeting or updating your status to express your enthusiasm that your favorite sports team won some super important game is one thing. Giving all of your followers and friends the minute-to-minute play-by-play — “THAT WAS INTERFERENCE. Come ON!!!” — doesn’t make you the greatest fan ever, it just makes you the most annoying one.
YOU ARE READING
99 Ways to get Rid of Annoying People
HumorWelcome and beware this book may change your life :3 CAUTION: Please keep in mind that this book is purely fiction and anything deemed inappropriate in this book is purely for laughs. I am not trying to offend anyone.
