It astounds me, and I giggle inside and do that little 'Oh, I am so much better than that' head shake when I look up old friends and their only facebook pictures involve long-necks, red cups and ping pong balls.
Let's make fun of all the other types of pictures first, just to bring things into a bit of perspective. First there are the people who have albums and albums and thousands upon thousands of pictures of someone who has been on the planet for less than three years. Yes, do the math. I am talking about babies. While it is subsequent to proclaiming that you have very little else going on, I think most people would agree that, whether or not you want to do it yourself, it's a pretty freaking big deal to add a new person to the world. So they have an excuse. And you can discern the nature of one's current life situation if you haven't seen them in eight years and then BAM! Eight thousand pictures of a little ball of fat skin rolling around on an overpriced, monogrammed play mat.
Same damn thing with pets. And I am not going to undermine the pet parents at all here. Once upon a time, I scoffed--as I am scoffing at other people now--SCOFFED, I tell you, at the Denver yuppies who doted on their Poodles and Germans and Vislas like they were children. Scoffage. Well, I will state right here and now that I was wrong. My scoffage was baseless and unjust, and I apologize to those I scoffed at, although I do most of my scoffing in my mind, or in the shower, so they didn't know.
Here is why I was wrong: PUPPIES ARE FREAKIN' HARD! Yes, I said it. And yes, I am yelling in cyber land. I have kept a human alive on this planet for three years now. No big deal, right? But can I house train a puppy? HELL NO! Most animals are like that. The level of care is mind-numbing, and definitely on the same level as having a child, so you may as well spoil and brag about the damn thing because you're putting in about the same work as the mother with the eight-hundred-thousand pictures of her two month old.
Cats are a different story. Cats are badasses who could survive on their own, but choose to be lazy and make us do all the work. They have telepathically discovered our human weakness for all things fluffy, and they exploit this knowledge to gain entry to our shelters and manipulate us into feeding them. Real Housecats of Miami is what that shit is. So if you happen to own a cat, this in turn makes you a) a slave, and b) a person with awesome taste in animals, so post those cat pictures with pride!
Wedding pictures: This is probably the most important thing to happen to this person, and it probably cost them a ton of freakin' money, which I guess can be justifiable, as long as you have shit tons of pictures to remember it by/prove it happened. By looking at these pictures I can see 'alright, this person is starting a life with another person, yada yada yada.' It's cool. Not saying you have to get married to start your life, so don't yell at me. Just saying--this is an obvious marker for cyber-stalkers (which is everyone at some point, don't shake your head at me) to see where their frenemy from high school, who was really pretty but then got chubby in college and you always secretly knew she'd never get a better job than you, is in her life right now.
Work pictures: You love your job. You have a job! Congratulations. Or all of your pictures of you are job-related because you spend all your time at your job. I really have nothing to make fun of here. Jobs are cool, and I love to hear about people's jobs. I like to know what other people do for a living and how they feel about it. Nobody on this planet will ever get to experience everything without the help of some serious alien mind-melding, so if you can live vicariously through people's facebook albums about their life as a professional dancer, or photographer, or superhero, or running a dude ranch, do it. I'm for cereal right now. You all know that you had a list of at least ten careers you wanted when you were younger, and you are now in one that likely wasn't even on your list until you were twenty. Shit, that got depressing real fast. Let's get back on track.
So you are doing the creep, because facebook pretty much wants you to when they flash that little sidebar that says "Lookie who I found.....all of your friends are friends with them....oh, it's your ex? Well, cool, I'll let you decide how to handle that, but you should at least look at their pictures just to see what they've been up to for ten years." So you listen to facebook, and you look at the pictures, and every single picture of your ex, or former best friend, or high school crush, involves a party.
At first you are thinking, "Cool looking party." Then "Wow, Sherlock* (*names changed for stalker protection) likes to party."
"Sherlock* really likes to party."
"All Sherlock* does is party!"
"How old is Sherlock*?" ....... "How old am I?"
You do the math, and Sherlock* should definitely have a wider variety of photos by this point in his life, right? Trust me, I am not propagating some perfect, picket-fence way of life here. That's the government's job. I am just saying I may lose a few crumbs of respect for you if you are a third of the way through your life and all you've done and all you like to do is pound cheap beer on the weekends and come up with shweet nicknames for your group of drinking buddies (no, not individual nicknames, nicknames are badass--I'm talking coming up with a team name for partying and I probably just gave a few people some ideas of what to do this weekend).
Not like you need my respect. Not like you even want it. Obviously, you have descended to a point of 'fuck what other people think' when you begin scouring joke shops for matching costumes you and your buddies can wear for your beer pong tournament on Saturday. And then you find them and you wear them and you take pictures and you proudly post them on social media networks. You have literally given your whole life the middle finger. You'd rather post pics of you and "The A-Team" in matching penis-outfits and strobe light hats, looking totally out of your tree with a bottle of Boone's farm in each hand than post a picture of your significant other, your family, your pets, your latest work gathering, vacation, whatever. And you obviously don't care if your current or future employer sees it.
To the world of social media, which is basically the world as you know it, if all or a majority of your pictures are of one type of activity, you have pronounced that as THE ONLY THING YOU DO. This is your portfolio, people. Diversify, lest your ex-girlfriend start spreading rumors that your sexuality is in question because you are still throwing Tom Cruise-themed cabana parties seemingly once a month.
Well, there you have it. My first little 'make fun of everything' rant. Soooooo glad I don't have pictures like that all over my facebook....
Shut up.
Fakewords: #facebook, #BAM!, #Vislas (wtf, vislas are totally real), #scoffage, #badasses, #freakin', #frenemy, #Housecats, #Lookie, #shweet
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