Um, Really?

Despite its penchant for privacy invasion and time-wasting, I have found Facebook to be a valuable tool since the pandemic began, allowing a streaming platform for our church's services and a means of keeping in touch with our people. As well as being a kind of substitute newsletter for folks to see what's going on.

However, every now and again Facebook feels a need to remind us that it is stupid. Recently small ads have begun appearing on the right-hand side of the page when one checks one's newsfeed. These ads are, like most of the ads the platform runs, dumb. A rough estimate suggests more than four-fifths of them are bogus, designed to lure a reader primarily through thumbnail photos of attractive and mostly undressed women who have nothing to do with what is supposedly being advertised.

As it does with the ads that clutter its feed, Facebook offers us the chance to hide these ads too. And as it does with the other ads, you are given a list of choices about why you want to hide the ad in question. I always choose "Irrelevant" as my response, since "fake cash grab and pack of lies" is not one of the options. For some reason, the order of the responses changes around, so that rather than be in the same place according to alphabetical or some other order my preferred choice migrates. Perhaps FB designers think that I will not see it and I will choose one of the other answers, which will probably give the algorithm data to use in pushing an entirely different sets of ads on me. This is stupid.

After I have clicked on "irrelevant," a second dialog box opens up that asks me if I would like to learn more about this advertiser. Yes, I certainly would like to see other advertising from a source that I have labeled irrelevant. Whoops! No, I wouldn't. And the question is stupid.

If Mrs. Gump was right, stupid is as stupid does. Which is why Facebook is, despite its utility in certain areas, stupid.

Ad-verse

Last week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media platform will ban "a wider array of hateful conduct" in its advertising. Some speculation suggests that the move comes after some large companies decided to either end or take a break from advertising on social media. Rumors are that the website felt these moves came because the companies didn't want their ads to be on FB next to what they considered hateful ads or postings, so they took initiative in making sure there would be fewer of those ads around.

Zuckerberg said the company is also expanding its protection of "immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers" from ads or posts that suggest those groups are inferior.

However, following its previous adherence to the Hypocritic Oath, the company will not take any stronger initiatives against ads for fake weight loss products, ads that scam credit card numbers, ads that hide the actual shoddy quality of the merchandise for sale, ads that repeat fifty-seven times in five minutes and ads that come from a country that's trying to erase an entire population as a distinctive people group.

Go stub a toe, you sanctimonious twerp.

Social Medium

The title refers to the person folks may have to employ to reach a big chunk of the people who will be on Facebook in 2100 -- because by that time, according a research study, there will be more dead people or "zombie profiles" on the social media site than living ones.

The study was conducted by two researchers at Oxford University, which means that a whole bunch of my particular belief bubbles have burst. If the trends they observed continue, then there could be as many as 4.9 billion dead Facebook profiles as the 22nd century dawns. I have no idea if they are right. I do know that even if the situation somehow happens as they suggest and it is for some reason a problem for someone, it won't be one for me because I'd be 136 years old and whether breathing or not, I'll probably have a lot more important things on my mind.

Pass the Smelling Salts!

So a social media marketing firm decided to see how likely it was that you would change your political views on a topic because of a Facebook post. Turns out the answer is not very. Good thing the internet's relatively anonymous, or you all might start suing me for all of the shock I just caused you.

The only surprising note in the story is that the marketing firm's name is not Unbelievably Obvious Stuff.

Hold Still, Windmill

On our Facebook pages, there is a small section labeled "Trending," which features topics that lots of people have either searched for or clicked on when they appeared on a news feed.

Now, I should be clear. When I say not a darn thing in that section holds the slightest interest for me, I am only offering an approximation. Since the section rolled out however long ago, the number of times I have clicked on one of its items is in fact a non-zero integer. But it is not a large one.

Most of the time I click the little "X" next to it and select from the different choices offered to me as a reason I don't want to see whatever the item is. The only two I remember are "I don't care about this" and "I want to see something else." I use the former far more often, because it is accurate. When something crops up that I do care about -- a death, some kind of disaster, or another tragedy, I will use the latter. My goal is to zero out the trending topics section as something of a hint to the Facebook people that I think the trending section is stupid.

I've yet to succeed, and Facebook occasionally taunts me. Several minutes ago, it tried to tell me that among the topics trending among site users was a signal outage experienced by Direct TV customers. Surely we are approaching the end, I say to myself. Surely there can't be that many trending topics things on the internet that are less consequential!

I was, of course, wrong. A new list, full of celebrity "news" and international cricket match scores, appeared at the next refresh. So it appears my keyboard Rocinante and I must try again...

Random Birthday Facts

Because I used to work at a college, I have a lot of friends listed on my Facebook. This is not bragging; this is what happens when you work with students who like to add nearly everyone they meet to their Facebook pages. And you have friends who make up Facebook profiles for their cats.

I somehow feel it would be rude to "un-friend" them since they've not done anything that merits it. So I cyber-trudge around with a ridiculously long list of people linked on the page compared to the short list of people with whom I regularly interact. It also means I often have no idea when some of them look at their own lists, say "Brett who?" and de-list me. I decided to use that list as an aide to a charitable cause to which I donate. I donated money per month based on how many people on my list had birthdays that month. Some random facts I learned through this experience:

1. If you try this out yourself, put a couple of extra bucks away to get ready for October. For some reason (cough - New Year's Eve nine months earlier - cough), that month featured about 17% more birthdays than its closest competitor. My apologies to those of you with birthdays in October who were just traumatized by what you may not have considered before right now.

2. And second place was September. Again, my apologies to those of you who have had to contemplate certain aspects of the way your folks celebrated Christmas that you'd been suppressing. My birthday is in September; I am one of you.

3. January has by far the lowest total. People pay their taxes in April.

4. I know a freakishly large number of people who share my birthday. In fact, it tied October 23rd as the day with the most friends' birthdays on it at 7. I'll give the nod to my birthday because I know at least two more people who are not on Facebook who share it and because it's my birthday and I'm an incredibly biased judge. A few days featured six birthdays and there was a pretty good collection of those with five.

5. There were probably between 15 and 20 days throughout the year on which none of my friends had birthdays. Tomorrow, for example.

6. Whenever your birthday is, hope you enjoy it and the new year of 2010!

Status: Updated?

PC World offers a guide to Facebook status updates. I found it interesting to read, but as a very infrequent status updater -- I tend to treat it like an answering machine message, saying whether or not I'm in or out or whether or not internet's available where I'm staying -- I don't know how much help it will be for me.

There are a number of people to whom I'd recommend several of the messages, such as the TMI updater or the "I'm so sleepy" updater. But if I sent this to them, I might see another kind of update, the "passive-aggressive" one, like "(Insert name here) is really tired of smug so-called friends who think they know so much and can tell other people what to do."

Then I would have to update mine with something like "Brett is really tired of people who don't understand the difference between helpful advice and mean criticism." Then they would say "(Insert name here) doesn't think some people should think they have any business offering advice to other people." Then I would say, "Brett wishes people would approach him directly with issues instead of using oblique Facebook status updates as some sort of mind-reading prompts to hint at real underlying matters."

Hey -- I think I've had dates like that.

Play that Funky Music Game

I can resist most of the "notes about yourself" memes on Facebook, but the music ones are way too tempting. A friend recently did one of the usual ones, which is that you put your music program on "shuffle" and answer the questions with the song title that appears. Here is what I posted, somewhat edited:

What do your friends think of you?
"Soon" (Mesk Elil, Souad Massi) -- My friends seem to have a case of the old pronoun trouble.

If someone says, “Is this okay?” You say?
"Flathead" (Costello Music, The Fratellis) -- Seems I don't like to be asked that question.

How would you describe yourself?
"One Foot in the Honky-Tonk" (One Foot in the Honky-Tonk, Jason Ringenberg) -- Really?

What do you like in a girl/boy?
"Your Phone's Off the Hook But You're Not" (The Best: Make the Music Go Bang, X) -- Must be a pre- "call waiting" song.

How do you feel today?
"Headed for the Ditch" (Brand New Year, The Bottle Rockets) -- It's because one foot's in the honky-tonk instead of on the brake.

What is your life’s purpose?
"Fire of God" (You Remain, The Sonflowerz) -- The Lord is apparently in a playful mood with my shuffle button today.

What is your motto?
"Rusty Cage" (Unchained, Johnny Cash) -- A song that could put hair on Phil Donahue's chest.

What do you think about very often?
"Stay" (Pray for Rain, PFR) -- I might have a hidden desire to be a dog trainer.

What do you think of your best friend?
"Adagio-Allegro from Dietrich Buxtehude's 'Sonata in D, Op.2'" (Baroque, Eroica Trio) -- Apparently words can't express what I think.

What do you think of the person you like?
"Thundercrack" (Tracks, Bruce Springsteen) -- Nah, I ain't goin' there.

What is your life story?
"Three Years Blind" (Feelin' Kind of Lucky, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys) -- The other reason I'm headed for the ditch (See #5).

What do you want to be when you grow up?
"Annie Get Your Gun" (Singles - 45's and Under, Squeeze) -- Seems whatever I want to be will require a shootin' iron.

What do you think of when you see the person you like/love?
"Just Playin' Possum" (Don't Rock the Jukebox, Alan Jackson) -- Women have rejected me in a lot of ways, but I don't think playing dead has ever occurred to them. Until now, of course.

What will you dance to at your wedding?
"Dust on the Bible" (Real Men Cry, Lost Dogs) -- Dust? In my line of work? Are you kidding?

What will they play at your funeral?
"You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives" (Sticking Fingers Into Sockets, Los Campesinos!) -- Guess it might not be just my funeral.

What is your hobby/interest?
"Highway Delight" (You Can't Fix Stupid, Ron White) -- Ah, no.

What is your biggest fear?
"Sugar Coated Love" (Born to Play the Blues, Larry McCray) -- You know, the video for that Def Leppard song always did scare me a little.

What is your biggest secret?
"Wicked Ride" (Some Lessons, Melody Gardot) -- I've owned a '68 Impala, an '87 VW and a '96 Toyota Tacoma. If I've ever had a wicked ride somebody's been keeping it secret from me.

What do you think of your friends?
"Through These Eyes" (White Light White Heat White Trash, Social Distortion) I may have some pronoun trouble, too.

What will you post this as?
"Here's to the Morning Glory" (Greatest Hits Vol. VIII, The Bilge Pumps)

Priorities?

Like I said on my Facebook status, I'm a proud graduate of Northwestern University: Losing bowl games -- and graduating the people who run the companies you work for -- since 1949.

(Well, yes, technically NU won the Rose Bowl it played in early 1949, but we haven't won any since).