Question about facebook statuses and responses

[Larrabee]

A lot of people on my friends list seem to use their facebook status to let the wotld know if they're feeling down, if they've had a bad week or are just generally feeling sorry for themselves.  I'm not a huge fan of these statuses, they seem to be attention seeking and whiney and not really the best way to make yourself feel better!  

So I just don't respond to these statuses at all, but I've noticed that some people feel the need to try and make the poster feel guilty for feeling bad! An example from yesterday

Status:  Lucy is feeling really down, can't wait for this year to finally be over
Comment 1:  If you saw the people I see everyday at work you'd realise how lucky you are
Comment 2:  Yeah, try to remember there's always someone worse off.

These comments really rub me the wrong way!  They're not helpful, they're not supportive.  Are they rude?  Or is the original status rude?

[Nurvingiel]

I hate that type of comment with the fire of a thousand burning white-hot suns.

If I say, "I am sad." And someone says, "So many people have it worse, you're lucky!" I will then think, "Oh my God I am lucky. What is wrong with me that I'm sad? Right now there are homeless people sleeping outside and it's -10C!"

Then I feel really badly for the people worse off than I and I end up feeling worse.

I beat myself up enough about how I have no right to be depressed, I don't need any help.   <-- at myself.

This is the least comforting comment ever. It should never be said. Better to say nothing at all. (This is one of the many reasons I don't post "I am sad" updates.)

[Fluffy Cat]

Its really hard to judge rudeness if you don't know what the relationship between two people is like.  I have witnessed someone taking offense to their friend's friend before on a wall post, and it was not pretty.  I make it a habit not to get into any type of debate on anyone else's wall.  So basically, all you can do is ignore, and don't make assumptions.

[Larrabee]

Oh I do ignore, I very rarely comment on anyone's status actually and usually only my closest friends and when its safe ground, nothing too personal or charged.

I just feel a bit sorry for the original poster, we all know there are always people worse off but everybody still has the right to be sad sometimes. 

[Bob Ducca]

It is so easy to just scroll past without comment, I do think it is rude to intentionally say something offensive or pot-stirring unless that particular friend likes debate.

I think, though, it is inherently rude to respond to an expression of emotion with "You shouldn't/don't have any right to feel that way."

I'm angry: You can't be angry, that's just how he is.
I'm sad: You can't be sad, you have a good life.
I'm bored: You can't be bored, there's too much to do.
I'm happy: You can't be happy, there's too much wrong with you.

So, I'm going to say this particular example was rude x2.  I don't like terribly personal or "whiny" status updates, either, but there are some people who may genuinely need the support of their Facebook friends.  I probably won't respond, but what purpose does "You shouldn't be sad, your house has electricity!" serve?

[Nurvingiel]

I have to confess, I recently had to block a friend on FB entirely due to an overwhelming abundance of these whiny/sad updates. 

I'm still not sure it was the right solution, but at the time I'd about had it.  Thankfully I didn't feel any urge to tell her to cheer up because people had it worse but I'd love to hear alternate solutions.

     - saphie

Blocking someone is appropriate. This is loads better than making a regrettable comment, and why should you have to see all these updates that bug you anyway?

You can hide someone from your news feed (so you don't see their updates) without blocking them if you want.

[Alex the Seal]

I hate that type of comment with the fire of a thousand burning white-hot suns.

If I say, "I am sad." And someone says, "So many people have it worse, you're lucky!" I will then think, "Oh my God I am lucky. What is wrong with me that I'm sad? Right now there are homeless people sleeping outside and it's -10C!"

Then I feel really badly for the people worse off than I and I end up feeling worse.

I beat myself up enough about how I have no right to be depressed, I don't need any help.  <-- at myself.

This is the least comforting comment ever. It should never be said. Better to say nothing at all. (This is one of the many reasons I don't post "I am sad" updates.)

Exactly. Not just on Facebook, either.

[Bob Ducca]

I have to confess, I recently had to block a friend on FB entirely due to an overwhelming abundance of these whiny/sad updates. 

I'm still not sure it was the right solution, but at the time I'd about had it.  Thankfully I didn't feel any urge to tell her to cheer up because people had it worse but I'd love to hear alternate solutions.

     - saphie

Blocking someone is appropriate. This is loads better than making a regrettable comment, and why should you have to see all these updates that bug you anyway?

You can hide someone from your news feed (so you don't see their updates) without blocking them if you want.

I hide people from my feed all the time because I don't like their status updates.  Nothing wrong with that at all.  The last straw with one of them was when he posted, "Why do I have so much drama in my life?" and I had to physically restrain myself from writing, "Because you keep making the same stupid mistakes and even though you ask for advice you never take it and then you expect your friends to pick up the pieces!"  Removing him from my feed was much easier.

[NutMeg]

Yup, if I notice that certain people have updates like that a lot, and I'm getting annoyed on a regular basis... Yes, I could just scroll past, but it's so much nicer to block them from my feed and not have to see it at all!

[gibsongirl]

Well...I see the larger problem as the fact that instead of feeling compassion for a sad/sick friend everyone seems to want them to go away.  I'm not trying to be snarky, but could we all think about that for a second?  If you wouldn't want to help them feel better or find out what's wrong, why are you friends with them? 

Yes, absolutely people should keep the whining to a minimum.  However, just as an example, I'm at the tail end of a very hard semester, in which I've been doing quite well.  A few days ago, a monkey wrench got thrown into a few of my projects, and it looked like I was going to have to work twice as hard next semester.  I posted, ..."says this semester can't be over soon enough."  and got a few sympathetic comments from classmates, and a few moral support comments from other friends. Yes, I post other things, and the majority of my posts are happy, but then I'm generally a happy person.  If you friended someone without realizing that they were going to turn into an emotional vampire, isn't that kind of on your own head?  Just quietly unfriend.  To me, blocking seems a sneaky way of keeping up your friend count while not needing to actually give a crud about the people on the list, or needing to let them know that you don't want to hear from them.

I guess what I'm saying is that doing that, as long as the people on your friends list are ones you actually consider friends, is no different than posting in the 'hugs' folder here.  And we wouldn't dream of suggesting that the people who do that stop whining...

[Nurvingiel]

I think it's constant sad updates from one person that make their FB friend want to hide their newsfeed. Personally I've never done that, but none of my friends have constant sad updates.

Look, if you're really down Potential Sad Friend, let's talk by email, FB message, phone, or in person. Basically, privately. I'm not going to be an ear for you or give you advice on your wall where all 180 (or however many) of your friends can read it.

I can see why someone would find a constand barrage annoying. Same goes for an abundance of silly updates, or crude updates, or whatever bugs the news feed-hiding friend. If it bugs you, quietly hiding it is better than one day snapping and making a rude comment or just sitting there annoyed, when you can avoid annoyance.

I don't minimize someone's right to be sad, or feel unsympathetic, or want my sad friends to go away or pretend to be happy. But I also don't want a lot of sad updates in my newsfeed. For me, FB is a fun place that I use to escape from my own troubles. I don't want to help someone else with their troubles on their public wall. It would just be uncomfortable for me.

Edited to add more details.

[Bob Ducca]

Well...I see the larger problem as the fact that instead of feeling compassion for a sad/sick friend everyone seems to want them to go away.  I'm not trying to be snarky, but could we all think about that for a second?  If you wouldn't want to help them feel better or find out what's wrong, why are you friends with them?  

Yes, absolutely people should keep the whining to a minimum.  However, just as an example, I'm at the tail end of a very hard semester, in which I've been doing quite well.  A few days ago, a monkey wrench got thrown into a few of my projects, and it looked like I was going to have to work twice as hard next semester.  I posted, ..."says this semester can't be over soon enough."  and got a few sympathetic comments from classmates, and a few moral support comments from other friends. Yes, I post other things, and the majority of my posts are happy, but then I'm generally a happy person.  If you friended someone without realizing that they were going to turn into an emotional vampire, isn't that kind of on your own head?  Just quietly unfriend.  To me, blocking seems a sneaky way of keeping up your friend count while not needing to actually give a crud about the people on the list, or needing to let them know that you don't want to hear from them.

I guess what I'm saying is that doing that, as long as the people on your friends list are ones you actually consider friends, is no different than posting in the 'hugs' folder here.  And we wouldn't dream of suggesting that the people who do that stop whining...

I have no problems with occasional pleas for sympathy or hugs.  It is when it becomes constant that I block it.

A comparison to the "I Need a Hug" folder isn't really analagous, in my opinion.  We have an entire folder set aside, so people really can just skip it if they don't want to deal with that sort of thing.  Even a really good person doesn't necessarily want to deal with that all the time, it doesn't mean you are any less of a good friend iF you block someone from your feed who is constantly negative.

edited to add:  In the example I gave, this is a person I have known and loved most of my life.  I have invested days and days of time and emotional energy trying to help him.  It never works, but every time I see him or her, I end up worrying about the newest tragedy and trying to help, only to have my help ignored as he goes back to the same behavior.  It isn't that I don't feel compassion, and blocking that person from my feed doesn't mean I don't love them or want to help them.

[gibsongirl]

I think it's constant sad updates from one person that make their FB friend want to hide their newsfeed. Personally I've never done that, but none of my friends have constant sad updates.

Look, if you're really down Potential Sad Friend, let's talk by email, FB message, phone, or in person. Basically, privately. I'm not going to be an ear for you or give you advice on your wall where all 180 (or however many) of your friends can read it.

I can see why someone would find a constand barrage annoying. Same goes for an abundance of silly updates, or crude updates, or whatever bugs the news feed-hiding friend. If it bugs you, quietly hiding it is better than one day snapping and making a rude comment or just sitting there annoyed, when you can avoid annoyance.

I don't minimize someone's right to be sad, or feel unsympathetic, or want my sad friends to go away or pretend to be happy. But I also don't want a lot of sad updates in my newsfeed. For me, FB is a fun place that I use to escape from my own troubles. I don't want to help someone else with their troubles on their public wall. It would just be uncomfortable for me.

Edited to add more details.

I guess to me, hiding seems kind of insulting.  Yes, I'll keep you on my friends list in the hopes that one day you'll cheer up/stop being crude/stop being silly, but in the mean time, I'm going to put you on the facebook version of mute.  You can talk, but I won't hear you...

And the fact that they won't even know...just rubs me the wrong way.  If they're your friend, talk to them about the problem.  If they're not your friend, then what are they doing on your friends list??

I had a friend who would post philosophical musings, and then get ticked off when people would argue with him and with each other in the comments.  I noticed that the situation was making no one happy, especially not him, so I sent him a message explaining what I saw as the problem, and saying, hey, if you are getting so ticked off, perhaps you shouldn't post this stuff!  Turns out, he'd never thought of it that way, and he changed what he was doing.  Everyone is much happier now.  I didn't defriend or ignore him.  I talked to him.  Surely the act of a friend...

[Larrabee]

I think it's constant sad updates from one person that make their FB friend want to hide their newsfeed. Personally I've never done that, but none of my friends have constant sad updates.

Look, if you're really down Potential Sad Friend, let's talk by email, FB message, phone, or in person. Basically, privately. I'm not going to be an ear for you or give you advice on your wall where all 180 (or however many) of your friends can read it.

I can see why someone would find a constand barrage annoying. Same goes for an abundance of silly updates, or crude updates, or whatever bugs the news feed-hiding friend. If it bugs you, quietly hiding it is better than one day snapping and making a rude comment or just sitting there annoyed, when you can avoid annoyance.

I don't minimize someone's right to be sad, or feel unsympathetic, or want my sad friends to go away or pretend to be happy. But I also don't want a lot of sad updates in my newsfeed. For me, FB is a fun place that I use to escape from my own troubles. I don't want to help someone else with their troubles on their public wall. It would just be uncomfortable for me.

Edited to add more details.

I agree with this.  If my friends are truly sad, or if I am, we call or text each other or send private e-mails.  Or I talk in person to my OH or family, I don't put a little 'woe is me' message out into the world and wait for sympathy.  I'm not annoyed by people who do it only occasionally or who seem to be going through something genuinely horrible but there are lots of repeat offenders!

Anyway, my original point was that its the responders who belittle the posters who really bother me.  I take the view that yes, its annoying when people seem constantly whiny and expect everybody to fall over themselves in sympathy but you never know if this is the one time that something truly dreadful has happened and the 'it could be worse' statements could cause real hurt.

[Bob Ducca]

Anyway, my original point was that its the responders who belittle the posters who really bother me.  I take the view that yes, its annoying when people seem constantly whiny and expect everybody to fall over themselves in sympathy but you never know if this is the one time that something truly dreadful has happened and the 'it could be worse' statements could cause real hurt.

I agree.  I've seen vaguely worded status updates, like "So sad today," be greeted with tasteless jokes or inappropriate questions because the commenters didn't really understand that there was a serious problem (like death, breakup, miscarriage, etc.).  To be safe, one should either respond appropriately or not at all.