By Katie Stobbart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 27, 2013
Is it embarrassing or cool to set your Facebook language to Pirate English? Is there a limit on the number of captioned pictures I can post? To poke or not to poke?
Facebook is still a relatively new addition to our lives, and it seems that protocol for how to use it is still drenched in mystery. So, let’s take the plunge (like in the iced tea commercial) and see if we can’t make the virtual world a less annoying, less confusing place.
(1) Pirate English is definitely cool. (And you know you’re going to set your Facebook to Pirate English right after you finish reading this, if you haven’t already.) Upside down English is also cool.
(2) I’m not opposed to the occasional captioned picture. But posting pictures with funny captions 62 times a day is not okay. Sending a mass swarm (like bees) of pictures decreases the effectiveness of each individual picture—it’s like you’re that person at the party who keeps telling jokes—no one’s laughing. One or two per day is an acceptable ceiling for funny caption picture posting. (This rule is an umbrella rule which also governs pet pictures, pictures with captions that are not funny, links to videos, links to websites and/or memes.)
(3) Don’t be that person who posts the lyrics to a song and expects everyone to realize that the song applies to your current state. (Posting “I Honestly Love you” is probably not going to reveal your undying love for Jimmy – maybe you just like that song.) There are some exceptions to this rule, like posting “Walking on Sunshine.” That’s a pretty clear indication of happiness.
(3b) On that note, posting song lyrics 62 times a day also qualifies as a mass swarm.
(4) Don’t post things you don’t want people to read. “Facebook stalking” is a misnomer. Stalking is when you persistently and stealthily pursue someone – and it’s creepy. Viewing information that someone has published online is not creepy. It’s just reading.
(5) Facebook also has these great things called “privacy settings.” By changing your privacy settings, you can selectively disallow people from viewing the material you have posted without “unfriending” them (so you can run into that person at the grocery store without having to dodge and knock over a can pyramid in the process). Privacy settings are a great gift: use them.
(6) Special tip for applications—if you have to post requests for farm tools, spools of thread or magical fairy dust, please wander over to your privacy settings and customize who can see posts from that app—select only people who actually want to see those posts (people who also play the same games as you do).
(7) If, three weeks after sending it, someone has not responded to your friend request, they probably don’t want to. There’s usually no need to ask them in person about it, because they will tell you that they didn’t see your notification because their dog ate their computer, or that they contracted a virtual virus that enables them to post what they’re having for breakfast and to like someone’s kitten picture, but not to see that little red flag that tells them they have a friend request.
(8) This shouldn’t need to be stated, but sometimes you have to break the hard truth to people: when you “like” someone’s every post, it means you “like” them. It’s the modern version of braid-tugging.
(9) Which brings us to the mysterious “poke.” It used to be pretty common to poke (at least when I first started to use Facebook) but the action is no longer as widespread, so it’s difficult to know whether or not to respond to the occasional rogue poke. If you don’t know the person, you probably shouldn’t respond. If you do know the person, you probably should respond (but be warned that your response may start a poking war). If you can’t remember how the person got to be your Facebook friend, that’s at your discretion. Don’t poke strangers – that is creepy.
(10) Finally, there is one thing that is still a total mystery to me: “Like for confessions.” It’s just completely baffling. So if you can enlighten me, please let me know.
