Sometimes, what happens online should stay online... And for good reason
1 Following Strangers
In the ’Twitterverse’, having hundreds, thousands or even millions of followers is a badge of honour, a mark of your worth. People want you to follow them. Offline, that same attention-grabbing behaviour would, at best, attract funny looks and insults... but for the follower, it would probably land them in the dock. Yes, for some reason being online makes following complete strangers okay, and somehow the word ‘stalker’ never comes into it.
2 Poking People
Thankfully, the ‘Poke’ feature in Facebook has long since reached Peak Poke and subsequently fallen into decline. These days, no one really bothers with it, do they? Yet, for a while, everyone was poking everyone else willy nilly; it was chaos. It also made no sense whatsoever. Sure, if you want to get the attention of someone who isn’t responding to your vocal prompting or a you waving hand in front of their face (and you don’t mind being considered rude and willing to invade someones personal space, then you might resort to a poke. On Facebook, however, people were just clicking the Poke button for the hell of it. Imagine how annoying that would be in the real world.
3 Vocally Leaving
For some reason,from time-to-time, you will come across people who feel the need to publicly declare their reasons for leaving Facebook, with a long post outlining their gripes in case you were in any doubt, and/or cared. Maybe it’s just us but, in the real world, when we leave, say, a party, we do our utmost to resist the urge to stand up in the middle of the room and explain exactly why we’re planning to make an exit. So, you won’t hear us saying, “Excuse me, everyone, but please all shut up and listen to me. I’m now leaving, because I feel like some of you are far too critical, and anyway, this whole party thing is taking up too much precious time, when I really should be at home doing something more productive. Good bye.” Of course, part of the reason we don’t do that is because we never get invited to parties any more.
4 LOLling
On the internet, no one can hear you laugh. Well, not unless you record it and put it on YouTube. Assuming you don’t do that, though, then the LOL is one popular way to let other people know you find something they’ve written amusing. To be honest, we’re not that keen on it, but we’ll allow it. What we won’t accept, however, is people saying it in real life, instead of, well, laughing. It just goes to show, though, some people can’t differentiate from web and the actual physical world. A depressing thought, indeed, which makes us feel very frowny emoticon.
5 Pictures Of Food
Personally, we quite enjoy seeing dishes our friends and family have made, or things they’ve eaten in restaurants. Even though some people find it annoying, it’s just one of those things that you have to accept about social media. Doing it in the real world, however, is a complete no-no. For some reason, people find it unusual when you pull out a photo book and show them page after page of cakes, roast dinners, hamburgers and cocktails. Not that it’s ever stopped us trying anyway, of course.