Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Raising Awareness of... something...
OK, just before I start, I'd like to point out that I know this is the second Facebook-based rant that I have posted in two days, but it happens to be things that are bugging me....
So anyway, I was on Facebook a few days ago, when women started changing their status' to a colour. This intrigued me, especially as if you asked any of the women in particular then they'd send you a private message if you were another woman, but if you were a man (like I am) then they just wouldn't tell you. After a little investigation (one of the many situations where Google is your friend), I discovered that the colours being listed were bra colours.
OK, fine. True, this gave me information about some people I didn't really want, but fine.
Then I read this, and got thoroughly confused. So this was all part of a scheme to promote breast cancer awareness? Surely the fatal flaw with this plan is that it didn't post awareness, because unless you googled it (or alternatively until the press picked up on it) you had NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON!
Seriously, isn't the point of promoting awareness to, you know, promote AWARENESS, not confusion?
And now, there appear to be other status' bouncing around Facebook. In the last two days I've seen people putting up things like "Soft and Slow", "8", or "3 1/2 inches :(".
And in all these cases I have absolutely no idea what is going on.
I don't care that much, but the strangest thing is that I find it sexist. I don't like being excluded from things because I'm a guy. I don't mind being excluded because I don't know what's going on, or I don't understand, or I don't care, but this "Women only" attitude is irritating.
What, may I ask, is the point in not telling us men? Would it have had a knock-on effect where less people would have had awareness raised of your bra colour? No. It's just stupid.
Having just spent a few minutes on google I've uncovered this which tells me that the three things that have been posted so far are Bra Colour, Shoe Size (with inches written after it), and Hair style.
I'm not knocking the approach, I'm all for new methods of advertising / information (just look back at viral marketing campaigns for films such as the Dark Knight), but surely if I have to go and dig up the information, then it's not so much raising awareness as TYPING IN RANDOM CRAP.
I'm done now.
Oh and in case you're wondering... Red.
:)
So anyway, I was on Facebook a few days ago, when women started changing their status' to a colour. This intrigued me, especially as if you asked any of the women in particular then they'd send you a private message if you were another woman, but if you were a man (like I am) then they just wouldn't tell you. After a little investigation (one of the many situations where Google is your friend), I discovered that the colours being listed were bra colours.
OK, fine. True, this gave me information about some people I didn't really want, but fine.
Then I read this, and got thoroughly confused. So this was all part of a scheme to promote breast cancer awareness? Surely the fatal flaw with this plan is that it didn't post awareness, because unless you googled it (or alternatively until the press picked up on it) you had NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON!
Seriously, isn't the point of promoting awareness to, you know, promote AWARENESS, not confusion?
And now, there appear to be other status' bouncing around Facebook. In the last two days I've seen people putting up things like "Soft and Slow", "8", or "3 1/2 inches :(".
And in all these cases I have absolutely no idea what is going on.
I don't care that much, but the strangest thing is that I find it sexist. I don't like being excluded from things because I'm a guy. I don't mind being excluded because I don't know what's going on, or I don't understand, or I don't care, but this "Women only" attitude is irritating.
What, may I ask, is the point in not telling us men? Would it have had a knock-on effect where less people would have had awareness raised of your bra colour? No. It's just stupid.
Having just spent a few minutes on google I've uncovered this which tells me that the three things that have been posted so far are Bra Colour, Shoe Size (with inches written after it), and Hair style.
I'm not knocking the approach, I'm all for new methods of advertising / information (just look back at viral marketing campaigns for films such as the Dark Knight), but surely if I have to go and dig up the information, then it's not so much raising awareness as TYPING IN RANDOM CRAP.
I'm done now.
Oh and in case you're wondering... Red.
:)
Monday, 11 January 2010
Seriously - are people stupid???
OK, today I'm going to have a bit of a rant about an old favourite with a new twist...
Chain Letters
Now I am aware that these are as old as the hills, being as I used to receive them regularly by e-mail (and still do very occasionally), and I'm told that they used to be sent on real paper back in the pre-internet days (which of course I don't remember, being too young... honest :P ) but this weekend, whilst browsing around Facebook, I've discovered them popping up in comments all over the place. And they're hilarious. And stupid. People would need to be really messed up in the head to believe in these things.
So I thought I'd look at one in detail, and see how stupid it could be...
"In 1997 a girl named Lauren was walking in a forest and suddenlydisappeared; she hadn't been discovered untill 2000 when a young girlnamed Mary found Lauren's body which had chest markings that said, "Iwasn't pretty enough.""
So this is the opening, the setup if you will, attempting to tell you a scary story to freak you out. Except it's not particularly scary. Forgive my jaded 21st Century mind, but while girls vanish while out walking more often than we would like, it's not a rare occurrence. And there have been much more disturbing things found carved into corpses than "I wasn't pretty enough." Also, the lack of specificity in this example is breathtaking. No place, surnames or any hint as to where this happened. Also, you will notice that the person typing this has a specific lack of skills as far as spelling, grammar and use of the space bar is concerned. Moving on...
"Lauren's ghost will appear in your mirror,telling you that you're not pretty enough and ................................. See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See More... See MoreSee More"
OK, firstly (and I hate to ruin this for anyone) GHOSTS DON'T EXIST! Secondly, even if they did, I'm damn sure that the ghost of a murder victim would have better things to do than appear in mirrors to random girls (and I'm not being sexist here, this specific chain letter appears to be targeted towards girls as I can't think of many boys who would care that they were "not pretty enough". Except maybe Carl :P), and I like the fact that the first part of this threat is so lame. Oh, she's going to appear and say "You're not pretty enough?" I'd turn round and reply "At least I'm not dead!" And what's with the repetition of "See More"? It's to fill up the comment box because, on Facebook, if you write more than a certain number of lines, (I think it's four or five) then you have to click on a "See More" button to reveal the rest. It's basically the same dramatic effect as they used to achieve by putting loads of line spaces in an e-mail. Let us read on...
"she will kill you. She'll will repeatedly tell you, "See more,see more, see more.." The same happened to Mary, and she died shortlyafter."
This seems like an awfully stupid plan to me. She'll kill you and THEN tell you "See More?" or she'll tell you "See More" first? It seems awfully strange that she'd say it anyway, being as she was murdered in a time before Facebook, so the phrase would mean NOTHING to her!! This section ends the story, as Mary, our inquisitive non-specific young lady has been killed. So what can we do to avoid this terrible fate?
"To save yourself, copy and paste this into five other band'scomment boxes. THIS IS TRUE! Since you have started reading this, donot stop. Keep in mind that you need to send this to five other bandsin 143 minutes."
This is where what little reality was left is torn up, stuffed in a box and casually tossed out of the window of common sense and run over by the dustbin cart of fantasy. Firstly, the page I found this on was NOT a band's comment box, so that girl's dead anyway... Secondly, anyone who feels the urge to state "THIS IS TRUE!" in capital letters is overcompensating. It's not true, it's bollocks. And why 143 minutes? They could at least have used some number that corresponded to something in the original story... Also, on a purely logical note, how on earth did this story get out if Mary died without posting? (Which she can't have done, because Facebook didn't exist at that time) And does this ghost have a giant server permanently tracking every iteration of this message to check everyone's doing it correctly? Sounds like a lot of work to me...
"When you're finished, press "F6" and your crush's namewill appear on your computer screen in big letters as a "reward" forpreventing yourself from being killed."
Oh dear god. Where to start? Press "F6" and your crush's name will appear? What kind of programming whiz is this ghost? And why would she want to tell you something YOU ALREADY KNOW?? Are you seriously suggesting that she is floating around in her ghostly way, checking everyone who's posted it, reading their mind and then reprogramming the source code of Facebook with a specific name so that when you press F6 you can see it? And what kind of reward is that anyway?? I'd much rather she programmed next weeks winning lottery numbers into my computer so that when I pressed F6 i could see that instead! Why do I want to see something I already know?
"This is scary because itactually works"No it isn't. Because no, it doesn't. You bunch of fucking retards.
End Rant.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
A follow up...
While my previous rant was about the uselessness of Facebook Groups, there are ones that set out to achieve things, which is good.
In particular this one, which is encouraging people to club together and buy "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine next week, so that it can defeat the pointless X-Factor winners single and become Christmas Number One!
It's all just a bit of fun - plus it's a good song!
I shall be buying it any time on Dec 13th or later, feel free to join me!
In particular this one, which is encouraging people to club together and buy "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine next week, so that it can defeat the pointless X-Factor winners single and become Christmas Number One!
It's all just a bit of fun - plus it's a good song!
I shall be buying it any time on Dec 13th or later, feel free to join me!
Simply clicking on a button is not (usually) a valid form of protest
It's time for that infamous question - What's been annoying you today Brawny?
Well, apart from the usual (lack of money, annoyance with job, still no concrete plans to move back to Poole, still worrying about the Christmas presents I ordered online weeks ago that haven't yet arrived), there is one thing that's been irritating me in the last few days...
Facebook groups.
For those few of you who don't have Facebook, groups are exactly what they sound like, people united under a common banner or cause. When Facebook started (although I obviously mean when I started to use Facebook, as I have no previous knowledge of what it was like before I used it. For all I know it could have been a site which flashed up an image of Santa Claus knifing a small child while a loop of a distorted version of "Santa Claus is coming to town" played in the background. I think it unlikely, but one never knows for sure (Incidentally, can you tell that I'm having a strangely festive day, due to the large amount of Christmas influence in that metaphor? Thought so)) then groups seemed to primarily be for people to show appreciation of films, TV, music etc., or to group up with some of your friends (groups for organisations you belong to, etc.). Now, since they created pages for which you can become a "fan", most music/TV/Films have graduated to those, (Although there's still no Norwich and Saggers page, shamefully) and groups have become the subject of "comedy".
Now when I say "Comedy" I mean it in the lowest sense, the comedy usually coming from funny group titles or strange situations. (Yes I am aware that sentence makes me sound like a comedy snob, but tough (Do you get comedy snobs? I guess you do, being as I am one of them))
Now this is fine - it's annoying when people invite you to join groups that you don't want to join, and I don't understand why you'd join a group which just had a funny name but nothing else - and therefore no reason to have a group rather than simply writing the joke in your status or anything else, but it does occasionally throw up such amusing titles such as the one I joined yesterday, purely to honour the title "Girls, stop flicking your bean to Twilight, and go make me a Bacon Sandwich", which is, quite frankly, hilarious.
But the types of groups which annoy me the most are the "If [enter stupidly large number] of people join, then [enter task / achievement]"
(By the way, I attempted to make the post easy to understand for those who don't use facebook, but I don't care anymore, so apologies if I end up alienating any of you)
These types of groups can be easily divided into two sections: The personal, which are challenges made by people, and the ones I like to term the NFW groups (if you don't understand what I mean by NFW, then tough, I'm not explaining it here), in which the result of the challenge is something completely out of the control of the person who made the group.
Having just searched Facebook groups for the key words "If people join" (Which, incidentally has returned a horrendous number of results) then I can see that the vast majority of these groups are personal, which while they may be stupid, I have no problem with. If you want to turn your house into a pirate ship, or tattoo Facebook on your neck, or legally change your name to Edward Cullen, and you feel that getting a million people to say you should do it somehow justifies the idiotic decision (talk about peer pressure) then fine. The point is that these tasks are achievable because the only idiot who needs persuading is the person who put it up in the first place. As soon as you involve other people, however, you know that it won't happen. For example there's a group entitled "If 1,170,000 people join, My Girlfriend will Marry Me!". I have news for you my friend, no she won't. If she doesn't want to marry you now, getting a load of strangers to click on a button won't change that.
The other type of group, however, which is still in the minority, gives examples of such things as "If 10,000,000 people join this, they will make an all Family Guy channel!", "If 1,000,000 people join then the original Facebook will stay" or "If 10,000,000 people join, Emma Watson will date me"
These are the types I hate - because they are blatantly promising something that they have no control over (OK, I grant you that the Emma Watson one is probably a joke) but people seem to think that just by clicking a button they can create a TV channel, or change the minds of people who have redesigned something for a reason. WAKE UP! NOTHING WILL HAPPEN!
Having just spent my time scrawling through some of my search results to find examples, what has also disturbed me slightly is how many comedy groups there are that say "If [insert number here] join then NOTHING WILL HAPPEN [Or some other comic witticism]" Whilst I hold no issues with their viewpoint, being as it is similar to my own, the number of groups with slight variations on that name now seem to vastly exceed the number of groups created by people being serious - so the parodies and sarcasm is now enveloping the original subject, until eventually the sarcasm and parody will be all that is left. Also, if you hate such groups so much, then why spend the time creating a group moaning about it? That just seems silly to me..
Although I have now spent time blogging about it, so maybe I'm just as bad...
Anyways - I shall return with another blog at some point soon. Maybe the next one will be interesting, you never know...
Well, apart from the usual (lack of money, annoyance with job, still no concrete plans to move back to Poole, still worrying about the Christmas presents I ordered online weeks ago that haven't yet arrived), there is one thing that's been irritating me in the last few days...
Facebook groups.
For those few of you who don't have Facebook, groups are exactly what they sound like, people united under a common banner or cause. When Facebook started (although I obviously mean when I started to use Facebook, as I have no previous knowledge of what it was like before I used it. For all I know it could have been a site which flashed up an image of Santa Claus knifing a small child while a loop of a distorted version of "Santa Claus is coming to town" played in the background. I think it unlikely, but one never knows for sure (Incidentally, can you tell that I'm having a strangely festive day, due to the large amount of Christmas influence in that metaphor? Thought so)) then groups seemed to primarily be for people to show appreciation of films, TV, music etc., or to group up with some of your friends (groups for organisations you belong to, etc.). Now, since they created pages for which you can become a "fan", most music/TV/Films have graduated to those, (Although there's still no Norwich and Saggers page, shamefully) and groups have become the subject of "comedy".
Now when I say "Comedy" I mean it in the lowest sense, the comedy usually coming from funny group titles or strange situations. (Yes I am aware that sentence makes me sound like a comedy snob, but tough (Do you get comedy snobs? I guess you do, being as I am one of them))
Now this is fine - it's annoying when people invite you to join groups that you don't want to join, and I don't understand why you'd join a group which just had a funny name but nothing else - and therefore no reason to have a group rather than simply writing the joke in your status or anything else, but it does occasionally throw up such amusing titles such as the one I joined yesterday, purely to honour the title "Girls, stop flicking your bean to Twilight, and go make me a Bacon Sandwich", which is, quite frankly, hilarious.
But the types of groups which annoy me the most are the "If [enter stupidly large number] of people join, then [enter task / achievement]"
(By the way, I attempted to make the post easy to understand for those who don't use facebook, but I don't care anymore, so apologies if I end up alienating any of you)
These types of groups can be easily divided into two sections: The personal, which are challenges made by people, and the ones I like to term the NFW groups (if you don't understand what I mean by NFW, then tough, I'm not explaining it here), in which the result of the challenge is something completely out of the control of the person who made the group.
Having just searched Facebook groups for the key words "If people join" (Which, incidentally has returned a horrendous number of results) then I can see that the vast majority of these groups are personal, which while they may be stupid, I have no problem with. If you want to turn your house into a pirate ship, or tattoo Facebook on your neck, or legally change your name to Edward Cullen, and you feel that getting a million people to say you should do it somehow justifies the idiotic decision (talk about peer pressure) then fine. The point is that these tasks are achievable because the only idiot who needs persuading is the person who put it up in the first place. As soon as you involve other people, however, you know that it won't happen. For example there's a group entitled "If 1,170,000 people join, My Girlfriend will Marry Me!". I have news for you my friend, no she won't. If she doesn't want to marry you now, getting a load of strangers to click on a button won't change that.
The other type of group, however, which is still in the minority, gives examples of such things as "If 10,000,000 people join this, they will make an all Family Guy channel!", "If 1,000,000 people join then the original Facebook will stay" or "If 10,000,000 people join, Emma Watson will date me"
These are the types I hate - because they are blatantly promising something that they have no control over (OK, I grant you that the Emma Watson one is probably a joke) but people seem to think that just by clicking a button they can create a TV channel, or change the minds of people who have redesigned something for a reason. WAKE UP! NOTHING WILL HAPPEN!
Having just spent my time scrawling through some of my search results to find examples, what has also disturbed me slightly is how many comedy groups there are that say "If [insert number here] join then NOTHING WILL HAPPEN [Or some other comic witticism]" Whilst I hold no issues with their viewpoint, being as it is similar to my own, the number of groups with slight variations on that name now seem to vastly exceed the number of groups created by people being serious - so the parodies and sarcasm is now enveloping the original subject, until eventually the sarcasm and parody will be all that is left. Also, if you hate such groups so much, then why spend the time creating a group moaning about it? That just seems silly to me..
Although I have now spent time blogging about it, so maybe I'm just as bad...
Anyways - I shall return with another blog at some point soon. Maybe the next one will be interesting, you never know...
Friday, 2 October 2009
Facebook - A Revolution?
So I've been thinking recently (braces self for jokes as witty as "I know, I saw the smoke coming out of your ears" or the ever-popular "Well, there's a first time for everything"), particularly about Facebook (and online social networking in general, but Facebook is my poison of choice as it were)
For me, as someone who has friends (and indeed, a girlfriend) living in different areas of the country to myself, it is incredibly useful, providing an easy method of contacting people who I don't see often. However, it does lead to some slightly wierd occurances. One that happened to me today was as follows:
A colleague at work (who I know has read this occasionally, so hi Sarah if you're reading, and hi John if you're reading over her shoulder) was having a casual conversation with me and happened to ask if the T-Shirt I was wearing was the one that I had got Sharpie on the other day. Which confused me, as I didn't remember having a conversation with her about it. Then I realised - I'd written a facebook status about it!
So it's good, because people can be kept up to speed with other peoples lives (and if you're a stalker, it's brilliant! Apparently... I wouldn't know... honest... I'm no stalker .. (runs off to hide restraining order within multiple sets of brackets (is it here? (Or here? (Too late, you'll never find it) No it wasn't ) Nope) - That confused you didn't it? Back to the rambling) but there's a flip side to this. For one thing, it means that all of those people on your friends list can see what you are in the mood to write, so I do occasionally find I have to self-censor, so that I don't have to deal with peoples objections to my opinions of things... Also, as I have mentioned before, facebook can lead to people getting the wrong idea about your life...However, none of this is as bad as that most awkward of things, the Facebook meeting...
I have (as I am sure many others of you who have facebook) a lot of friends who are people I have known and who I have, for one reason or another, lost touch with. Not that I dislike them, just that I last saw them ten years ago and our lives have taken us in completely different ways... So last summer (08, not the one just gone) I bumped into one of these people in a queue in a shop. Now, if I hadn't seen a picture of her on her facebook profile, I would never have recognised her, but recognise her I did, and she recognised me. So we opened with conversation "Oh hi, haven't seen you in ages! How are you?" ....
Approximately 90 seconds in, I realised our mistake. We had nothing to talk about (we never really had much in common 10 years ago!) and we were stuck in a queue which seemed to be never-ending and moving at a pace that would not trouble an arthritic snail who was getting on a bit and hadn't been out for a week... So we attempted to have casual conversation.. and it was horrendous. I'm not good with conversation at the best of times.. let alone casual conversation in a queue!
The flipside of all of this, of course, is those people who DON'T have facebook, who end up feeling left out of conversations, events and general tomfoolery because everyone contacts each other through the magical interweb nowadays...
So I don't particularly think that Facebook and social networking in general is a revolution, it's simply a different way of communicating, and does some things better (geographical location for example is unimportant, you can let everyone know what's going on at once) and does some things worse (still ends up forming cliques and groups (especially the have-Facebookers and have-not-Facebookers), and the fact that you can let everyone know what's going on at once!)
What do you lot think? Essential website? Or superfluous rubbish? Draw your own conclusion. I know for me, that I would have trouble doing without it... but is that just me?
(And we'll ignore for a moment the fact that for the last couple of weeks, it's been acting up incredibly badly, crashing, showing multiple chat windows etc..)
For me, as someone who has friends (and indeed, a girlfriend) living in different areas of the country to myself, it is incredibly useful, providing an easy method of contacting people who I don't see often. However, it does lead to some slightly wierd occurances. One that happened to me today was as follows:
A colleague at work (who I know has read this occasionally, so hi Sarah if you're reading, and hi John if you're reading over her shoulder) was having a casual conversation with me and happened to ask if the T-Shirt I was wearing was the one that I had got Sharpie on the other day. Which confused me, as I didn't remember having a conversation with her about it. Then I realised - I'd written a facebook status about it!
So it's good, because people can be kept up to speed with other peoples lives (and if you're a stalker, it's brilliant! Apparently... I wouldn't know... honest... I'm no stalker .. (runs off to hide restraining order within multiple sets of brackets (is it here? (Or here? (Too late, you'll never find it) No it wasn't ) Nope) - That confused you didn't it? Back to the rambling) but there's a flip side to this. For one thing, it means that all of those people on your friends list can see what you are in the mood to write, so I do occasionally find I have to self-censor, so that I don't have to deal with peoples objections to my opinions of things... Also, as I have mentioned before, facebook can lead to people getting the wrong idea about your life...However, none of this is as bad as that most awkward of things, the Facebook meeting...
I have (as I am sure many others of you who have facebook) a lot of friends who are people I have known and who I have, for one reason or another, lost touch with. Not that I dislike them, just that I last saw them ten years ago and our lives have taken us in completely different ways... So last summer (08, not the one just gone) I bumped into one of these people in a queue in a shop. Now, if I hadn't seen a picture of her on her facebook profile, I would never have recognised her, but recognise her I did, and she recognised me. So we opened with conversation "Oh hi, haven't seen you in ages! How are you?" ....
Approximately 90 seconds in, I realised our mistake. We had nothing to talk about (we never really had much in common 10 years ago!) and we were stuck in a queue which seemed to be never-ending and moving at a pace that would not trouble an arthritic snail who was getting on a bit and hadn't been out for a week... So we attempted to have casual conversation.. and it was horrendous. I'm not good with conversation at the best of times.. let alone casual conversation in a queue!
The flipside of all of this, of course, is those people who DON'T have facebook, who end up feeling left out of conversations, events and general tomfoolery because everyone contacts each other through the magical interweb nowadays...
So I don't particularly think that Facebook and social networking in general is a revolution, it's simply a different way of communicating, and does some things better (geographical location for example is unimportant, you can let everyone know what's going on at once) and does some things worse (still ends up forming cliques and groups (especially the have-Facebookers and have-not-Facebookers), and the fact that you can let everyone know what's going on at once!)
What do you lot think? Essential website? Or superfluous rubbish? Draw your own conclusion. I know for me, that I would have trouble doing without it... but is that just me?
(And we'll ignore for a moment the fact that for the last couple of weeks, it's been acting up incredibly badly, crashing, showing multiple chat windows etc..)
Friday, 15 August 2008
The Stupidity of Facebook and the Nosiness of People
Hey all, I know I haven't written much in a while, but that's because I've been on holiday! :D
Granted, only in Poole, but still, it's kind of a holiday :)
So why are you writing an entry now? I hear you all ask...
Well, something quite amusing happened to me and I thought I would share the information. A few days ago now, I made the decision to remove my "Relationship Status" from Facebook. For those of you who don't know about such things, there is a section on facebook where you can list "important" information about yourself including your relationship status. When i set my account up a year ago or whenever it was, i filled in all the information, because I felt like it.
However, in the"News Feed" section of Facebook, which lists alterations that your friends have made to their accounts etc., it didnt say "Michael Braunton has removed his relationship status" it just said "Michael is no longer listed as single".
And didn't that open a can of worms! I recieved lots of questions via Facebook, text and phone, basically asking me if I had a new girlfriend.
So let me underline the reason for my decision.
Firstly, I am single. FACT.
Secondly, if I were to get into a new relationship, I'm not entirely sure I would want to tell everyone on Facebook that I was in one, certainly not all at the same time, as I have been part of many conversations that people have as soon as someone changes their relationship status, discussing who it is, whether its a good idea, etc. etc. and I don't really want to put myself and any possible new person through that.
Thirdly, unless I choose to tell someone, then they won't know :P
So I decided, that since I am not in a relationship at the moment, I'd use this time to remove the status, so that as and when things do happen, I don't have to tell anyone or justify myself.
Is that clear?
Should write another blog soon
Granted, only in Poole, but still, it's kind of a holiday :)
So why are you writing an entry now? I hear you all ask...
Well, something quite amusing happened to me and I thought I would share the information. A few days ago now, I made the decision to remove my "Relationship Status" from Facebook. For those of you who don't know about such things, there is a section on facebook where you can list "important" information about yourself including your relationship status. When i set my account up a year ago or whenever it was, i filled in all the information, because I felt like it.
However, in the"News Feed" section of Facebook, which lists alterations that your friends have made to their accounts etc., it didnt say "Michael Braunton has removed his relationship status" it just said "Michael is no longer listed as single".
And didn't that open a can of worms! I recieved lots of questions via Facebook, text and phone, basically asking me if I had a new girlfriend.
So let me underline the reason for my decision.
Firstly, I am single. FACT.
Secondly, if I were to get into a new relationship, I'm not entirely sure I would want to tell everyone on Facebook that I was in one, certainly not all at the same time, as I have been part of many conversations that people have as soon as someone changes their relationship status, discussing who it is, whether its a good idea, etc. etc. and I don't really want to put myself and any possible new person through that.
Thirdly, unless I choose to tell someone, then they won't know :P
So I decided, that since I am not in a relationship at the moment, I'd use this time to remove the status, so that as and when things do happen, I don't have to tell anyone or justify myself.
Is that clear?
Should write another blog soon
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