Facebook Gah!

[Nurvingiel]

There nothing better than a car A hundred miles
per hour in the dark I close my eyes and take my hands off the
wheel No better way to find out who you are

This is cryptic because unless one is familiar with the song and recognizes it, one doesn't really know what it's about. You know what it's about, but your friend didn't and that's quite understandable. It just seems unfair to be annoyed with her for misunderstanding when the update wasn't clear in the first place.

[Audrey Quest]

I have a friend who almost always posts lyrics as her status.  She adds music notes throughout the text though (which is handy for me because I have no idea about music and would almost never know it was from a song).  I'm not sure how she does it.  I'll find out.

I bet she copies and pastes these characters from Character Map: ♪♫

That is a very good way to go about it.

I agree with Shores. You probably didn't mean it to be, but unsourced lyrics are a cryptic update and they ended up causing drama. Why not just put in some music notes or the name of the song next time?

In my circle of friends it is common practice.  Thank-you for the "notes"--at least I can actually get those to work because I have tried to no avail to get paragraph breaks.
 
Talk about cryptic.  I was trying to use the shift-return and it seemed to freeze the page, so I just left it--it then posted and my DH sitting a few feet away says to me: "One Two Three Paragraph??!"
 
All my unsuccessful "tests" trying to get it to give me paragraph breaks had posted!  Ooops!

But, seriously, no on attributes--they just do lyrics all the frickin' time.
 
I once made a similar mistake with my son's then GF.  She had posted something on his page and I took it as her words and was kind of shocked by it--she was, however, quoting "The Mighty Boosh"  She deleted my comment and I realized my mistake.
 
Now, I realize that other circles of friends might not do things this way, but mine does.  It is what it is.  And if someone says something that concerns me, I send them a private message because if I am going to question someone's sanity, I do it privately.

[Audrey Quest]

There nothing better than a car A hundred miles
per hour in the dark I close my eyes and take my hands off the
wheel No better way to find out who you are

This is cryptic because unless one is familiar with the song and recognizes it, one doesn't really know what it's about. You know what it's about, but your friend didn't and that's quite understandable. It just seems unfair to be annoyed with her for misunderstanding when the update wasn't clear in the first place.

What I am annoyed about is that she would post publicly that she is doubting my sanity.  She could have easily sent me a PM.  In fact, I was online when she posted her first comment and I contacted her on chat.  She said--wait a minute, I am replying (while she was writing this: well, if you're wanting to go 100mph in the dark and take your hands off the wheel to find out who you are, it sounds as if you already know that you are ready to fly into the arms of death)
 
So essentially, I was right there in real time with her asking what's up and instead of replying to me, she posts it publicly on the page.  My comments back to her had to be on the page as well because after she finished posting that I sounded as if I knew I was ready to "fly into the arms of death" she posted in chat to me the many multitudes of tasks that she was in the midst of and "had to go" so I just wrote "bye" on the chat and posted my comments to the page.
 
I guess normally, it would be a ha ha, that's annoying, that person didn't "get" what I was doing.  But, with her, as I said, its more than that and that is bleeding over into this being more annoying.
 
Had anyone sent me a private message and said "Hey, what's up with you, that sounded kind of dark" it would not have been annoying AT ALL.
 
I don't mind people misunderstanding, being misunderstood, or having people care about me.  I guess, I just get annoyed when people do not realize that comments are seen by more people than they even know.
 
There have been times on FB when I have had to tell other people (via private message, of course) "Hey, do you realize that we can all see what you are saying--I don't think you want that to be public."

FB--fraught with all sorts of danger!

[Zilla]

No advice and OT, but I told my 15 year old bil about my favorite metallica song and he loved it too.  He was in class doodling the lyrics on his paper while the teacher lectured.  Teacher thought he was writing a note to someone and confiscated the paper.  Bil told me about it when he got home from school pissed that the teacher did that.

I got a call the next day from the school and had to come in to a room of counselors and teachers concerned about his suicidal note....

LOL  I had to bring up the lyrics on my blackberry to show them it was just a song!

[Nurvingiel]

What song was it? I love Metallica.

Audrey, I agree that the comment would have been better in a private message, but it does seem that this comment is in the grey area of what is okay to write as a comment on status. (You can delete her comments though IIRC.)

If she just wrote that on your wall out of the blue it would be bad, but she was responding to your status update and the comment itself wasn't rude at all (Yikes!  Call me!) The ensuing conversation between both of you was also not rude, I actually wouldn't even delete the comments (though you can). (FTR I personally wouldn't defriend you over this.)

I do think we should all start a trend on Facebook of putting the source in posted lyrics, mostly because the artist deserves credit for the lyrics.

[Zilla]

It was One. 

[Roe]

Yeah, it is annoying when people post words that aren't their own without giving credit.  

[Shores]

Shores: Good grief. You'd seriously defriend someone over that?! To each his own I guess. I've posted song lyrics for my status every now and then. And my younger brother does it all the time. I don't always know what on earth they mean, but I'm not going to defriend him over it. I have to say to me that's an overreaction.

Ed.

Good Grief? Nice.

I would indeed. It's not about the posting of song lyrics. It's about dramatic cryptic status messages and then being defensive when people publicly question their public message. I suppose if they were somebody interesting, I'd just hide their statuses, but 9 out of 10 people, I'd just defriend. I don't use facebook to wallow in other people's drama, real or not. And if someone was constantly posting random things like the OP's example without spelling out that they're song lyrics, I would think they were an overly dramatic person.

[familyfun]

If I really thought someone was suicidal I would phone them immediately, not make a public comment. (As a PP said.)

Exactly.  And I'd call the police if I couldn't reach them. An article on a Facebook status & suicide:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/02/20/2009-02-20_facebook_status_update_becomes_suicide_n.html  

And I agree with previous posters re: attribution.

[cbcb]

Shores: Good grief. You'd seriously defriend someone over that?! To each his own I guess. I've posted song lyrics for my status every now and then. And my younger brother does it all the time. I don't always know what on earth they mean, but I'm not going to defriend him over it. I have to say to me that's an overreaction.

Ed.

Good Grief? Nice.

I would indeed. It's not about the posting of song lyrics. It's about dramatic cryptic status messages and then being defensive when people publicly question their public message. I suppose if they were somebody interesting, I'd just hide their statuses, but 9 out of 10 people, I'd just defriend. I don't use facebook to wallow in other people's drama, real or not. And if someone was constantly posting random things like the OP's example without spelling out that they're song lyrics, I would think they were an overly dramatic person.

Agreed. You post to your wall, others will respond there - why should they think to respond privately, when you already posted publically a message that, if one doesn't know the song, could be distressing? Honestly, this person was showing concern for you - isn't that what we do for friends? Having her respond publically is the danger of posting ambiguous status messages.

[Audrey Quest]

I have a friend who almost always posts lyrics as her status.  She adds music notes throughout the text though (which is handy for me because I have no idea about music and would almost never know it was from a song).  I'm not sure how she does it.  I'll find out.

I bet she copies and pastes these characters from Character Map: ♪♫

I cut and pasted those little notes and now I have 20 people wanting to know how I did that!

[LollyBee]

It was One. 

I thought it must have been.

[Nurvingiel]

Agreed. You post to your wall, others will respond there - why should they think to respond privately, when you already posted publically a message that, if one doesn't know the song, could be distressing? Honestly, this person was showing concern for you - isn't that what we do for friends? Having her respond publically is the danger of posting ambiguous status messages.

I totally agree with Cbcb on this. If her comment makes you uncomfortable, it's not rude to delete it, but she wasn't rude to post the comment in the first place.

I have a friend who almost always posts lyrics as her status.  She adds music notes throughout the text though (which is handy for me because I have no idea about music and would almost never know it was from a song).  I'm not sure how she does it.  I'll find out.

I bet she copies and pastes these characters from Character Map: ♪♫

I cut and pasted those little notes and now I have 20 people wanting to know how I did that!

You can obtain the characters from Character Map, a very handy program for getting letters and characters not found on a standard English keyboard. In Windows XP, go to the Start Menu > All programs > Accessories > System Tools.

Mac probably has a similar program (and a shorter way to get to it). (I just pinned the darn thing to the Start Menu.)

In Character Map, the music notes are located after all the shapes and before the Arabic letters. (Make sure to have a normal font like Times New Roman selected as opposed to Symbol or Wingdings, though those last two give you a lot more options for fun characters if Facebook supports those fonts.)

It was One. 

I thought it must have been.

I love this song, but... that poor teacher.

[jimithing]

Shores: Good grief. You'd seriously defriend someone over that?! To each his own I guess. I've posted song lyrics for my status every now and then. And my younger brother does it all the time. I don't always know what on earth they mean, but I'm not going to defriend him over it. I have to say to me that's an overreaction.

Ed.

Good Grief? Nice.

I would indeed. It's not about the posting of song lyrics. It's about dramatic cryptic status messages and then being defensive when people publicly question their public message. I suppose if they were somebody interesting, I'd just hide their statuses, but 9 out of 10 people, I'd just defriend. I don't use facebook to wallow in other people's drama, real or not. And if someone was constantly posting random things like the OP's example without spelling out that they're song lyrics, I would think they were an overly dramatic person.

Agreed. You post to your wall, others will respond there - why should they think to respond privately, when you already posted publically a message that, if one doesn't know the song, could be distressing? Honestly, this person was showing concern for you - isn't that what we do for friends? Having her respond publically is the danger of posting ambiguous status messages.

I completely agree with this. And frankly, I don't think that even attributing a quote to someone would make me take it any less serious. I have a lot of friends who will use quotes to express their state of mind or how they are feeling in that moment.

If I were your friend, I would have PMed you to make sure you were OK. But I don't think it's fair to be annoyed that she responded publicly, to your public status. Posting a status isn't like writing in your private journal. It's putting it out there for your friends and family to see and to respond to.

[Sharnita]

Well, I don't use Facebook myself, but I think some people tend to use it for everything.

I've got to admit, I think that a good number of people reading the initial post would be very worried. I don't think the *friend's response* would be what would cause the embarrassment.

The status was up there for two days before she posted...    not one single other person made a single comment on it. 
 
People put lyrics up all the time as their status on Facebook.  It's part of the culture of Facebook and almost no one cites the source--you either know the source because you know the person or you Google it to see what its source is.

It's kind of like playing a game.

It can be informational, and communicative.  But, as I said, I never put up cryptic messages about my state of mind and I quite often put lyrics.
 
I think I am thisclose to defriending her not only on FB but in real life.  Too much drama!

 

A friend of my DH got arrested for lyrics to a song.  He and my DH wrote a song about 6 years ago about that jerk in the midwest who put pipe bombs in people's mailboxes--the effect he was going for was that when you mapped out all the bombings it formed a "happy face."  So, they wrote a song called "The Ballad of the Happy Face Pipe Bomber" and wrote the words really large on a blotter so he could see them while he sang and played drums.
 
Fast forward to last year--he and his wife are going through a nasty divorce.  She comes across this blotter paper with these lyrics on it and calls the police telling him that he left it as a threatening letter to her.  It even had the words "Repeat chorus" on it!
 
But, that didn't matter--the police actually arrested him for communicating a threat.  He had to produce in the CD in court that had been put out years before to show that it was indeed lyrics to a song.
 

I think you overstate your case.  I can't think f any postings of lyrics I've seen and a whole lot of people on here say that they do attribute any lyrics.  Your statement about facebook is a bit broad. 

I have to say that it is easy to theorize about how we would handle a possible suicide threat but I think if we were to really come across something like that most of us would be thrown and might not be thinking real clearly. 

I have to say that it doesn't sound like the drama is all on her side.  SHe made an honest mistake and responded with concern.  For that you think she should be dumped as a friend.