This Facebook status above recently appeared on a friend’s status. I think we could make the argument that bragging about your good manners is, in itself, bad manners, and people raised to be tactful do not go publicizing this in a way that is not tactful. It could be argued that people have the right to make whatever declarations they wish from the pulpit of their Facebook status as well. I draw the line of free expression at using it to manipulate people into taking action that serves the purposes only of the manipulator. I cannot begin to say how offensive this Facebook Status is. To declare that people who do not re-post the statement into their own statuses must be proof of their poor upbringing is over the top in guilt manipulation and wrong assumptions. It casts aspersions on every parent out there. I do not see any positive value that would edify people who read it. It furthers nothing but arrogance and disdain.
I’ve finally opted to block the person on my friend list who keeps publishing these manipulative declarations to her Facebook status. A prior private appeal to stop has gone unheeded and to be honest, I choose to not expose myself to people who seem intent on promoting the negative as opposed to being a positive influence.
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I see these frequently, but not quite as rude as this. Often a FB friend will post for support for a particular disease, problem, condition, such as diabetes or cancer.
There’s no problem with this, except for the statement, “maybe 2 % of my friends will cut, paste, and repost this message, but 98% won’t and they know who they are.”. That’s going to make people re post- unless they feel guilty?
Sometimes I will re post, leaving out that snarky challenge, and hope they notice. I don’t think they catch on!
It drives me nuts!
The most offensive case of this that I’ve ever personally seen came from not one, but two of my Facebook “friends”. They posted an image that read (I’m paraphrasing), “If you love Jesus, repost this. If you love the Devil, move on.” My first thought upon reading this was ‘Really? Those are my only two choices?’ I found it particulary offensive because I’m agnostic and don’t worship any particular deity. But I certainly don’t love Satan! I can only imagine how people of non-Christian faiths reading the same post must have felt. Seriously?? Because we don’t share your faith and worship the same God, that means we must all be evil Satan worshippers? In any case, I refuse to recycle your offensive and xenophobic status. That does not make me a bad person!
Considering that she’s got this holier-than-thou attitude about it, I’m laughing because she’s incorrect: she was reared. You raise cattle and corn, and you rear children. Kind of hard to sound high and mighty when you don’t use correct English.
I laugh at people like this, ignore them, and go about my day. I really cannot fathom how seemingly intelligent people lose their minds regarding Facebook and did I post today and “I’m a horrible parent because I forgot to post that my baby is 4 months old today,” and the myriad of idiotic musings that I’ve read in funny websites like STFU Parents. And I cannot figure out if people are getting dumber or we’re just more aware of the staggering numbers of stupid people in the world. Honestly. Nothing bad will happen if you don’t repost and it really doesn’t mean anything if you do.
For some reason most of these repost spams that appear in my feed always seem to include the phrase “I know the ones who will” in regards to who will repost their status update. Every time I read it, I twitch a little. I know that in most cases people are reposting others’ words but I don’t understand why they don’t “get” that their status update reflects on themself. It’s hard not to be a little offended when the phrase basically puts everyone into two categories: the ones who “care” about said cause/issue and the ones who “don’t care” about it. I had to restrain myself once from posting a snarky reply to a cancer spam, saying “my aunt almost died of cancer, my uncle DID die of cancer, and a number of other people I know have died/are dying of it. Please don’t imply that just because I don’t repost your stupid status update, I don’t understand the impact of cancer OR contribute to a cure in TANGIBLE ways.” Of course, many of the people who post these spams are people I would not wish to alienate for various reasons, so I suppose blocking them is the best recourse. I guess I just wish I didn’t have to and people would just smarten up??
I recently saw this posted by a FB “friend” and thought exactly the same things. Very hypocritical, pot calling the kettle type of post. Not appropriate at all….and, as with many online comments people make, I’d be surprised if they’d stand up in a room of friends in real life and make the same pronouncement. Not likely.
Indeed, I’ve often found that those quickest to throw the word “rude” around are those most guilty of thoughtless and unkind behaviour themselves. Politeness is more than just socially approved actions, to be real it has to grow out of a real compassion and attentiveness to others. It’s more than holding open a door, it’s not making the person rush to come through the door so that you can hold it open for them. It’s not expecting anything back, certainly not demanding it and imposing guilt if the other person does not respond perfectly. Real politeness leaves everyone feeling better, the awkward exchanges flow more easily, the space shared fairly.
I concur. Facebook posts appear and make the rounds with vehement political opinions, personal comments, and solicitations to post statements honoring victims of cancer, people against conservatives, people against the current administration, etc. In this election time, a little restraint will go a long way. We can all get mightily weary of hearing another person’s summary (direct or implied) of how we are just “wrong” or “less than” because we don’t post something or hold to an opinion that aligns with the commentator’s. Even watching the charts that summarize debt spending, rebuttals of the original, and ancillary comments is hard. I don’t know exactly where all the limits are, but a little restraint and an awareness of your audience is helpful.
This is exactly why I never, ever re-post these. I don’t re-post the disease ones, the dead parent ones, the fantastic husband, sibling, children ones, or (especially) the religious ones. I don’t even post the ones that make me laugh like “if you lost someone on the Death Star.” If anyone asks, it’s a policy and I don’t have to go into which ones I do or don’t agree with. Only a few of my friends re-post these, anyway. I know all of them get these posts from time to time, so I assume they also have the same policy.
I guess I don’t see anything really wrong here, OP. First, FB is an open forum, allowing people to express their opinions, and this FB poster certainly has that right. To actually ask the people to cease and desist on an open forum like that seems more rude, imo. Nobody ever really feels hijacked into believing they must repost that stuff, most of us get a little chuckle out of it and move on.
The winner for me last year was when my cousin, whom I had a rocky relationship anyhow, wanted me and all her friends to change our profile pictures for one day to support her “cause.” When most of us didn’t, I at least (and probably the others as well) each got a personal message begging us to do it for her “please, it isn’t that hard…” type thing. I, of course, ignored this and she didn’t speak to me for a long time afterwards.
Hear, hear!
Also, you’re a little heavy-handed with the exclaimation points anonymous FB poster.
Just like the Facebook Charity Wars post from the other day, I refuse to repost these “repost this or you aren’t _____” statuses. It’s not so much that I’m offended by them, I just don’t want to have to read them every single day. As for the bragging nature of this particular status, yeah, completely negates the entire point the status is trying to make.
If I reposted all the status requests (demands!) that I get, I’d be changing my status numerous times a day just to comply with all of them. And I don’t even have 200 friends on FB! Imagine what the demands must be like for those who have 500 or 1000 “friends”!!
I ignore these. If people base their opinions of my on my reposts of these, that’s their problem.
I, too, have a FB person who loves to post similar annoying declarations. I finally blocked her–I consider this a form of bullying–not the worst, but a form of it none the less. These strike me as a lazy man’s form of chain letters, except now the person bugging me doesn’t even have to pay for postage. And while the one you shared is rude, the ones implying non-posters don’t care about loved ones lost to cancer, diabetes, etc. are, in my opinion, even worse. Delete and block!
Unfortunately I was not raised but grew up. My models for life were television shows which were much more calm and realistic than today’s reality shows. My mother was mentally ill and there were no other adults in my world. I tried managing her until I gave up at age 8, fired her and took over the house. Not everyone can be raised by Ozzie and Harriett. I curse the system that sent me to live with her a after she was released from the mental hospital simply because she was my mother.
I saw that one too. I politely did not inform the poster that according to a good friend of mine whose family worked a farm for years: children are reared; pigs are raised.
Anything where you are guilted or threatened to re-post it is very, very bad, and I’m not going to do it. If it was truly witty or useful or funny, one wouldn’t have to resort to the shame at the end to get it passed on.
These, in my humble opinion, are just as bad if not worse, as the emails compelling people to forward them if you really care about the cause. If you don’t, you are depicted as cold, callous, and uncaring. I’ve started blocking the repeat offenders as well.
Ahhh, facebook statuses, the ultimate in passive aggressive attacks. What is the purpose of this type of post, really? Just like the ones that want you to support various diseases and causes, all they do is promote the poster as” better” than you, because they cared & reposted, and you didn’t. It’s ridiculous and I cannot imagine what anyone feels they are accomplishing for doing it.
This is one of the reasons I don’t “do” Facebook, despite my daughter’s pleading and begging. I don’t want a Facebook page, and refuse to allow her to make one for me. In addition, I find it hilarious that all of the kids in high school, who despised her and would have nothing to do with her, have now tracked her down and are begging her to “friend” them on Facebook. (She’s 32.) In reality, I’m terrified the same thing will happen to me.
Kitty
Couldn’t possibly repost the status in the OP – I am not a farm animal or crop, so I cannot have been ‘raised’.
Chocobo hereby declares that anyone who does not respond directly to my comment here will have bad luck for a bajillion years. This includes people who overlook my post entirely! Not seeing my ranting is no excuse, so hop to it!
P.S. Ms. Violet Grantham — I hope your name references what I think it does! I love that show!
I would be so tempted to post “I was raised to use exclamation marks appropriately.”
This is why I have my facebook account open directly to my page and rarely if ever look at my newsfeed. Most of the time I just post about funny little things in my family and go to the pages of some of my closest friends and family who usually have interesting things to say and rarely if ever post spam status.
I don’t want to read those, or see who is requesting what on farmville.
blueyzca, it’s funny that you mention STFU because as I read this post, I also thought of that site! That blog recently had a similar post called, “Why I Hate Chain Letter Updates”; same theme, but specifically about FB posts that end with something like, “post this as your status if you love your children.”
I despise those types of e-mails & those type of Facebook posts. My opinions of God, my country, certain diseases etc is NOT based on my ability to forward e-mails or re-post stuff on FB. And I certainly don’t believe I will have good luck, be extra-blessed, or win the lottery simply because I can e-mail or post such nonsense. I sincerely hope that what I do in the real world (acts of Christian behavior, pay taxes & vote, etc) are sufficient to prove what my core beliefs are. I ignore them.
I have actually just posted a status on Facebook:
“Hi, this is a personal plea. I know about life-threatening diseases and how they affect families. Just let me say this once and once only: anyone else posting pseudomanipulative statuses, ending with “98% of people will ignore this, only 2% who really care will post it, I think I know who will and who won’t” sort of thing, will be deleted from my friends list. I do care, and I did repost one of these myself before I read the end bit and realised how patronising and self-justifying it sounded. This was pointed out to me and deleted. So please, please, don’t post that sort of stuff. I don’t usually bother but for some reason tonight, that appears to be all anyone is doing. Please appreciate why reading that sort of thing is hurtful. Thanks xxx”
It seriously seems tonight that all anyone wants to do is post this stuff. I can ignore 2 or 3 with the best of them, but 9 in the space of less than an hour is just quite frankly ridiculous. I have tried mocking them to make the people who post them think twice about posting that sort of rubbish, to no avail. I have tried private messages to the people who do it most often, to no avail. This was a last resort. It seems to me that this sort of post is becoming an epidemic and it needs stopping, now.
I am not unfeeling, neither am I insensitive. I care a great deal about illnesses, especially Alzheimer’s and cancer. I support charities, I have been to call centres to help take donations from the public and I do donate clothes/books etc to charity shops. I just don’t see what good people think they are doing by posting this type of status…fine, if that’s what folks want to do. They should just not expect me to sit around reading it! Facebook for me is a chance to show my friends photos of my baby. That’s it.
I don’t think I was rude, just at the end of my tether!!!
I know this sounds a little off but I don’t think this was meant in such a terrible light. People often repost things like this just because they agree with some of what it says. I think defriending is harsh. Yes, that is silly but not rude. If you defriend me because I won’t change what I post on my FB then good riddance to you, I suppose.
Admin, you kept this person as a facebook friend, though?
…And this is one of the many, many, MANY reasons that I refuse to use FaceBook… Too much opportunity for all and sundry to let the “inner idiot” out for all to see. The past two entries have done much to seal my resolve to avoid FaceBook and its clones for the forseeable future. Egad.
Where’s the “like” button?
Haha, I saw this chain status earlier today on Facebook, posted by someone who always posts such silly and unoriginal statuses. Actually I saw the beginning of it and moved on because I am so used to not reading them that I didn’t even notice the little insult at the end until I came on this site. So there’s the moral, in my opinion. Do constant chain letter statuses and people won’t actually pay attention to them.
I’d be more impressed by someone who admitted to being rude, crude, and socially unattractive at times, realizing it and apologizing.
This is why I taught my theology classes to confess sins of omission-when one could have been kind, supportive or helpful and didn’t bother to do so. It’s also why nuns have a Chapter of Faults in which they acknowledge the good things they didn’t bother to do. It’s a good way to keep yourself in contact with who and what you really are instead of always making excuses for yourself or blaming someone else and then telling people how perfect you are.
@ blueyzca: I vote for “we’re more aware of the staggering numbers of stupid people in the world”. With the wonders of the internet available to everyone now, people can easily post their stupidity for the world to see at the mere click of a button.
Personally, I conduct my relationships with people the good, old-fashioned way: face-to-face, over the telephone, with snail-mail, and (reluctantly) with eMail.
There is absolutely no requirement that anyone has to use a social media website to facilitate their relationships. Personally, I think this leads to real silliness: how on earth can a person possibly have “friends” in the dozens, at least the way I define friendship? You can have acquaintances in the dozens, but unless you regard a very superficial level of interaction that involves impersonal mass-messaging and mass-responding “friendship,” most people cannot realistically have a personal friendship with as many people as they “friend” and are “friended” by on their social networking website.
Which leads me up to how you treat these particular kinds of offensive chain-letter postings and the people who send them to you: these people are not friends, because if you find receiving these kinds of postings offensive, that is something a real friend would know. And a real, true friend in the definition of the word would therefore never deliberately or callously send you something they know will offend you.
Which puts these people squarely in the category of acquaintances: the same category of acquaintanceship that you have with people who send you junk mail through the post office via “snail mail.”
How much courtesy you owe someone who is an acquaintance versus a complete stranger is a personal decision. If the thought had occurred to you that this person might be someone you would like to know better, who might eventually become more than an acquaintance, might actually become a friend, then you might want to give them the benefit of the doubt and contact them personally– through a non-mass message, such as a personal eMail, phone call, text, or face-to-face, and politely tell them that you found the chain-mail message they sent you to be offensive. Politely tell them why you find it offensive, and see what they have to say. That can determine whether you want to continue with your acquaintanceship, or advance them to friendship, or demote them to the category of people you consider to be just faces in the crowd.
If you already know that the person is not someone with whom you can see yourself advancing into friendship– for example, the high-maintenance person who aggressively denounced other people’s charities cited in the column a couple of days ago– then you can feel free to treat them, and their postings, the way you would treat any other pesty “junk mail” you receive: throw it away (delete it unread) and take steps to remove yourself from their mailing list.
I just don’t understand why people give the weight they do to mass-postings from people who are merely acquaintances on social media websites. People only have the power to annoy you that you choose to give to them; if the annoyance directed your way is an impersonal mass broadcast, then there is no reason to take it personally. Ignore it and save your angst for things that really truly matter.
On the subject of the guilt-ridden religious ones, I did reply to a “If you don’t post this you don’t love Jesus” post, “Gee, I wonder what the Good Lord did to measure our faith before Facebook came along!” The whole idea is just stupid, and I NEVER repost trash like that. I think it cheapens our faith, and I’m sure non-believers laugh at us. Are we that paranoid that we think God is looking over our shoulder, waiting to damn us to hell if we don’t forward or update our Facebook status? We’ll count me in the 3% who “won’t post this message.” Funny, these posts almost always say “I’ll be watching to see”… or, “I know who will…” but I never see mutual friends repost!
I have to agree with Wyntershere, facebook (and similar sites) is an open forum, all you have to do if you are annoyed is either block that individual, ignore the post, or as Kitty Lizard has opted, do not join! I believe everyone needs to breathe; these individuals are posting on their “page,” on their status. None of these seem to be posted on the walls of the complainers, unless that has happened I would recommend the motto live and let live.
I never repost these statuses, and I do find them annoying and presumptuous, but I don’t think it’s worth being offended over. Many people seem to have absolutely zero control over what they write in their status updates –
“Out of bread.”
“Going to the store to buy bread.”
“The store is out of the type of bread that I want – GRR!!”
“Stuck in traffic on the way home from the store.”
“Mmmmm, bread! So happy.”
I also don’t need to know about your insomnia, your pets being spayed or neutered, your toothpaste running out, or (twelve times a day) the fact that your significant other is the best person on the planet. Keep some things to yourself. I think the “98% of you won’t repost this” type statuses are just an extension of the entitlement and self-centeredness people feel when they’re hiding behind a computer screen. Rude and ignorant, but not outright offensive.
If you don’t like reading someone’s status updates you can “unsubscribe” from them, and their posts will no longer show up on your news feed, without deleting them as a Facebook friend. I have many Facebook friends who I love to catch up with every so often, but whose status updates irritate me to no end. This is a good solution.
I just ignore guilt trip posts and don’t take them personally.
Thing is, wyntershere, FB isn’t exactly an open forum in the sense you mean. It’s a forum used to connect specifically with friends and family. The real-life analog, as someone mentioned, would be to walk into the room at your next reunion and loudly announce the same things — complete of course with passive-aggressive contempt for everyone who doesn’t agree with you, and/or agree to assist you in spreading the word precisely the way you want them to.
It gives many the impression that — exactly contrary to the actual situation — the medium is more important than the message. Not to mention the impression that the poster doesn’t actually know, or worse refuses to recognise, any actual and possibly quite sensitive feelings the people they’re exhorting may have on the subject.
That is hilarious is it’s irony.
Also, there are rude parents who have polite kids, and polite parents who have rude kids. Saying politeness comes from being raised well is over-simplifying. Often it’s true, but not always and we shouldn’t always blame parents (or credit them) for a child’s behavior.
I don’t mind that people post these little stories. Sometimes they are amusing. And really, I don’t know ANYONE who actually reposts them JUST BECAUSE the post said to repost it — you do it if you think it was funny or clever or relevant and you want other people to read it.
When I was in elementary school, sometimes at lunch, someone would start saying things like, “If you are sitting down, you like ____”, so everyone would feel obliged to stand up because they did not, in fact, like ______. Even at that age, I figured out that just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true, and I started ignoring them. I think those “repost this” comments are pretty much the equivalent. It’s not even that they are rude — they are just entirely childish. As I said, if it strikes a chord with you, then you will repost. If it finished with, “If you agree, kindly consider re-posting this,” would that be okay? It’s not as rude, but I still think it is entirely pointless.
Ugh, I hate these! Especially the ones about religion and charities. I am a Christian, and most of my Facebook friends are Christian. But it’s very annoying when my wall is cluttered with posts and pictures saying that if you truly love Jesus, or if you’re proud of being a Christian, you will add to the chaos and re-post. One of them didn’t even try to make it sounds nice, it just said “Share this if you love God. If you do not share this it means you love the Devil.”
>_<
The ones that describe murder victims and psycho ghosts who will kill you in your sleep if you don't re-post are at least entertaining to read.
Can I click ‘like’ on The Elf’s comment?
Shoebox said: “…the thing is, wyntershere, FB isn’t exactly an open forum in the sense you mean. It’s a forum used to connect specifically with friends and family. The real-life analog, as someone mentioned, would be to walk into the room at your next reunion and loudly announce the same things — complete of course with passive-aggressive contempt for everyone who doesn’t agree with you, and/or agree to assist you in spreading the word precisely the way you want them to….”
But what engenders the rudeness in postings on social media websites and cyber media in general, is the absence of consequences and the quality of anonymity or semi-anonymity.
The person who walks into a reunion and announces that this is what they believe, and that anyone who doesn’t believe the same thing and repeat it to other people is boo-bad evil nasty and suffers from halitosis of their karma and cooties of their character, has to deal with the actual face-to-face reactions people have. The disapproval is actual and palpable. This is what keeps most people who are tactless, mean-spirited and bossy in the cyberworld from behaving that way in real life: the consequence of disapproval are real, immediate, and can be very painful.
That isn’t true in the cyberworld, where things can degenerate into “flame wars” and trolling and there is no real, tangible, palpable consequence for behavior that would be an etiquette felony beyond redemption if it occurred in person.
People feel the immunity from consequences in the cyberworld, and so they say and do things that they would never have the courage to do in person. We behave with courtesy and are mindful of etiquette in face-to-face situations because shame and fear of disapproval keeps us in bounds. If you spew hateful speech in person, you’re right there looking at the consequences of this: you can immediately see the disgust, repulsion, disapproval on the faces of people. When you post something rude and hateful and hurtful on your social networking page, the consequences just aren’t as immediate and dire as they are in person.
I don’t know what, exactly, the answer is, except that what people post on-line is just another piece in the puzzle of who they are. If you don’t like what you see and the person is not someone who you really care about, just walk away from them. On line, it isn’t that hard to do.
I actually have friends who post things like these, minus the last two sentences. And honestly to me that is where all of the trouble starts. Don’t tell me I’m a bad person because I don’t repost a message that’s been traveling around the internet for the past decade. If I’m feeling it that day I’ll repost with a funny little message, if I don’t it’ none of your beeswax.
I’m lucky that none of my friends have ever added on the caveat that I’m a bad, godless, child hating, rude, person simply because of my refusal to repost.
I am the 98 percent…
I’m afraid I did repost this one – only because myself and 70 friends (forum friends) had been having a debate that this one related to. However, I also put an addendum saying I would not usually repost stuff like this and I certainly didn’t expect anyone else to, and to please ignore the ‘repost if you agree’ bit – don’t you just hate that stuff? If I knew how to keep the rest and edit out that bit then I would have. Thinking about it I was probably out of order to repost it anyway, I just knew my friends would find it amusing because of our debate. Am I now cast into the flames?
These statuses are so boring. I’m always surprised people think they’re worthy of reposting, and assumed they were too afraid not to because they were intimidated by it. One of my friends simply goes to the Mash and posts their daily horoscope on her page, which I find rather weird.
I’d just ignore this. I don’t think anyone has the right to ask someone not to post something like that on their wall though. So it’s not to your taste? It’s not your wall. Maybe they don’t like half your statuses either.
What I really hate about these sort of status’s is the pure lack of imagination. People who do the copy/paste thing just seem unbelievably lazy. You really couldn’t have rephrased that in your own words? It’s so sad! It’s like those chain e-mails that say things like “we r best friends!!!! send this back if u luv me 2!!!” I take issue with those. If we’re best friends and you want to tell me that, couldn’t you write something directly? Forwarding a chain e-mail doesn’t tell me you love me, it says you are lazy and I’m saved in your address book. Seriously, if you have something to say, say it in your own words!
Perhaps it’s a good idea to purge one’s Facebook friends from time to time. Most of the people I’m with on Facebook are family members, friends I see on a regular basis, former neighbors, or former teachers. I think all in all, I have less than 30 friends on Facebook, which means I don’t often receive a lot of these types of emails. I don’t see how people keep up with the feeds from over 100 friends on a daily basis.
Ironically, most of the “if you care about this cause you’ll forward this” comes through my work email, not my personal one. Unfortunately there I can’t do anything about it since to say anything to the sender would undoubtedly cause offense, no matter how carefully worded, and they are the “clients” so to speak.
P.S. Chocobo, yes, it does. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near as entertaining as she is in real life. But I do adore her character.