I Wonder How Many People Will Delete Me Now

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you were somehow referred through Facebook. Whether it was from me incessantly begging you to read and you saying “what the hell I have nothing better to do” or somebody who liked my writing recommended it to you (unlikely at best), you are here because of the most powerful social networking tool.

I’m not here to give you a history of Facebook because that’s what Aaron Sorkin and Jesse Eisenberg are for. Nor am I here to tell you about all of Facebook’s features; it’s assumed you know them. So if you don’t know anything about Facebook, this post probably isn’t for you; I’m sure there’s something good on TV Land though.

Now, I’m not the most prolific Facebook-ite. Contrarily, I only possess a meager 200 or so friends, which is dwarfed by anyone not named Kip Drordy. The main reason for that is because I don’t friend request every name I recognize or any name that is trochaicly appealing. As it is, I probably only regularly communicate with 30 of the 200 people anyway. That’s not good or bad; that’s just the way it is (as Andy Puzder might now say; by the way I bet he hates hamburgers; and if I got you to Google Andy Puzder then Mission Accomplished). Most of that communicative breakdown is due to my agoraphobic tendencies.

With that said, I’m still on Facebook. All the time. Chances are I bother you with my relentless sports posts or posts where I’m obviously trying to be funny or sarcastic just for the sake of trying to be funny or sarcastic. However, I’m not alone in sharing annoying habits. While logged on, I see stuff that bothers me on Facebook, cyber tendencies that the perpetrators don’t even realize they’re doing. That’s where I come in; here to consult those that probably don’t want consulting.

What I’m here for is to provide tips on how we might cohabitate Facebook in a more harmonious manner, i.e. do less annoying crap. So here is a list of some of my Facebook pet peeves and rules I’ve created to make Facebook less MySpace-y (it should be noted I’ve done all these so I’m not on my soapbox…well maybe a little; by the way my girlfriend thinks I sound like an old curmudgeon and should turn on TV Land myself; duly noted)

1)      Don’t post about the weather. Simple enough. Since I live in Southern California and most of my Facebook constituency also lives in So Cal, any time the weather varies from Sunny And 78, the Facebook world blows up. If it’s hot: “Wow it’s so hot today!!!!! What happened!!!!?” If it’s cold and rainy: “I hate the rain :(.” God forbid there’s an earthquake. It’s essentially a race to the computer to see who can ask “did anyone feel the earthquake?” first (yes, yes we felt the earthquake).

Look, I get it. We’re all getting old. The weather is suddenly cool to us. We use it to fill in awkward silent gaps. But let’s keep that to real world speaking. If small talk (which weather talk certainly is) is agreed to be annoying, then why do we engage in it on Facebook? So please, unless there’s a tornado carrying an erupting volcano, let’s try to eliminate the meteorology.

2)      (special rule for females) Cool it with the exclamation points. I know half-off Frappuccinos are, like, the best thing ever. But there’s no need to use punctuation that is basically intended for shouting. Unless you normally shout when announcing you’re going to the beach. My brain will appreciate quieter punctuation. Thanks! (Girlfriend interjection: exclamation points put a cheery spin on any, otherwise monotone, phrase. So shut up you old crank!!)

Whatever.

3)      Maybe this just bothers me because I majored in English, but please try to have some semblance of grammatical structure when posting something. I’m not even talking about capitalizing proper nouns. Just try linking coherent thoughts together with some form of punctuation. Example: if you like the Miami Heat, and you are smack talking people on a thread and you want people to shut up, as well as say “go team,” then don’t say “shut up TEAM LEBRON!!!” or else I will point out that you just told your team to shut up, especially when you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about (and yes this happened). It’s called a period. I’m not really a stickler for punctuation, but there are some cases where it’s necessary….

3a) If you are quoting a song or a passage or whatever, use quotes. You aren’t Oscar Wilde.

3b) For as much as I sound like a snoot, as David Foster Wallace would say, I don’t really care about spelling. So don’t be That Guy who wants to be a moderator at the next Scripps Howard Spelling Bee and corrects everyone’s spelling on a thread (unless it’s funny or they are being a jerk, then it’s acceptable). It’s a typo dude. It happens. Sorry I don’t run each post by President Obama’s speech writer. Plus, given Facebook’s pervasive nature, many people post stuff from their phones. And for anyone that texts a lot, you will know how easy it is to screw up when typing on your phone.

4)      If you are going to pick a fight (and I suggest you don’t, but given that many Facebook users need to posture and act like intellectual college students, it happens) at least know what you’re talking about and use evidence to support your argument, not just visceral beliefs. And no, posting a link to your favorite New York Times article does not count as evidence. It just means you are a pompous jerk for pretending to read the New York Times and know that nobody cares enough to read the article, thereby meaning they are unable to retort (Not that this happened to me and I deleted a “friend” or anything because of this. What??? He was an a-hole).

5)      If I haven’t seen you in real life in 5 years, I probably don’t want to chat with you. I promise, it’s nothing personal. It’s ok to not keep contact with everyone you’ve ever been acquainted with. It will save the awkwardness for us both.

6)      The “like” button should be used as a substitute for “lol” if the post is funny. If the post is serious, it should be used as a replacement for “I agree” or “good point.” You could even use it for “I’m acknowledging that I read your post but can’t really think of anything to say so I will just click this button and be on my merry way.” Unless you want to come off as a jerk, don’t “like” posts such as “my dog got ran over by a car, but Max was the best dog a girl could have” and “my grandma is dying of cancer but she finished her will.” Yeah, it’s great that the girl finds a silver lining in her dog’s tragic death and that the poster can now have granny’s windfall, but the dog died and the grandma has freaking cancer. If you “like” those you are risking potential misunderstandings for what you are actually “liking.” But I guess now I should get to the root of the problem…

7)      Don’t post downer things. Facebook is an escapist activity. Nobody wants to hear about how much your girlfriend has screwed you over or how you can barely pay the bills. I understand that Facebook can work as a support system for you. But to those that don’t really care (depending on how many “friends” you have, potentially hundreds) it just sounds like you are throwing yourself an attention-craving pity party. Trust me, if you post about some weird foot fungus you developed and now your leg may need to be amputated, it’s going to unnerve people and irritate them more than draw sympathy. And I know I’m not alone in this belief.

8)      If you travel, that’s great for you. I would love to travel Europe at some point in my life. But you don’t need to let us know how awesome travelling is compared to being home. This may shock you, but not everybody has the financial means to decide they want to party in Greece for a week.

9)      If you live in a “popular” area (think LA or New York) you don’t need you to remind us in every post you live in LA or New York. We get it. You live in LA or New York. Hate to break it to you but some homeless guy probably just pissed on that 5-star hotel.

10)   Don’t litter my home page with music videos. If I wanted to listen to Sugarland, I would seek them out for myself. The last thing I want is to log on and be greeted by 9 Daughtry music videos.

11)   Please, no trolling. Trolling is usually malicious but the variety typical on Facebook is not malicious at all. If anything, it’s overly friendly. For example, if somebody posts some generic, banal thing like “I just washed my car,” don’t respond on that thread by saying “we should hang out sometime.” This completely kills the initial thread the poster created. Now I will look stupid if I say “I also washed my car today” after a back-and-forth dialogue about the need to physically socialize (obvious hypothetical because my car hasn’t seen water of the non-rain variety since I thought Lindsay Lohan was hot). That’s why Facebook allows you to cut out the middle man and post directly on someone’s wall.

12)  Don’t click on obvious spam links. This tip is real. Don’t do it. If it seems odd, then don’t click it. And why are you so curious as to who’s stalking your profile anyway? This form of spam wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a market for it, so obviously people are interested. Let me give you a hint: if you’re attractive, probably a lot of people. If you’re not, then less people. Sorry ladies but just because guys have computers now doesn’t mean they are more chivalrous than ever. If you don’t want people looking at your profile, delete it.

13)   No I don’t want to go to the concert you invited me to. I know I know. Hard for me to resist when you so personably invited me and 1300 other friends.

14)   Be as politically ambiguous as possible. Nothing good has ever come of talking politics, especially when slightly buzzed and bored sitting at the computer. You will likely have one less friend the next day. Which brings me to the most important rule of Facebook use…

15)   DO NOT USE FACEBOOK WHILE DRUNK. Same applies to text messaging. You will regret it in the morning. Who knows what heinous things you will say to people with a little liquid courage? You could cause a riff in friendships, post Daughtry, reveal your secret crushes (more for the high school audience I suppose), or kill all your Farmville crops. But worst of all, you could write an 1800 word diatribe on the ways Facebook annoys you. So please, be careful.

From What I Understand, the Players Will Also be Dancing

For some reason, I remember this event more vividly than other moments of my college experience. It’s probably because it irritated me more than most exams or annoying frat guys using their beefcake frames to muscle past me at bars.

I was watching an important Lakers game with some buddies in my dorm room; the Lakers were playing awful at that moment and, as I tend to do during important Lakers games, I got dramatic and acted as if that game was the most important thing in my life. At that time, some girl from the floor walked by and asked what my friends and I were complaining about. When we explained the gravity of the Lakers’ current situation, she remarked “who cares, it’s only a game,” then sauntered off.

This wasn’t the first or last time I’ve heard this criticism of sports. But just because I disagree with the sentiment doesn’t make it easy to argue against. My usual retort is some lame, ill-conceived thought that if sports don’t matter, then all other hobbies and leisure activities share in the irrelevance. But that argument isn’t going to convince anyone that sports hold great importance in our society, even with the irony being we all engage in some sport of competition every day. While we are taking college courses, whether we want to admit it or not, we are competing with our class members. Competing for respect, and competing for future job markets. However, that analogy has negative connotations.

The idea of sports brings to mind many things, most of them bad. Currently, it could bring to mind bulbous contracts or the impending NFL lockout, where owners want to nickel and dime their players and underpay them in a game where careers are significantly shorter than any other sport. On an average day visiting an average sports website, one can look at the collage of negativity in the headlines and assume all athletes are self-absorbed individuals that hang out at strip clubs and drive drunk due to their perceived self-invincibility. The decay also seeps into the stands, evident with the recent brutality at Dodgers Stadium, where a Giants fan was beat mercilessly because he prefers the Giants over the Dodgers.

But if we choose to focus on these headlines, headlines featuring constant depravity and greed, we then also choose to overlook one of sports’ great qualities: its innate communal connection.

In a cheesy example, I recall seeing commercials for the World Cup several years ago (probably for the 2006 Cup) on ESPN. The narrator explained (while U2 was most likely blaring “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in the background) that during the World Cup, small African nation Ivory Coast ceased their civil war to watch the World Cup and hold hands and make s’mores (ok I made up the hand holding and s’more making but you get the point). This progress is encouraging and displays how sports, unlike most cultural fascinations, can bring an end to violence. However, it’s also momentary. Once that tournament ends, the bloodshed will continue.

I would bet that few people believe sports can bring about any sustainable change towards “the greater good.” And that’s what brings me to Buena Park High School.

***

Last September, OCVarsity writer Jeff Miller wrote a column about the current rebuilding process for Buena Park High School’s football program, a perennial loser that made great strides back to relevancy last season. The article, which you can and should read here, basically discusses the adversities the coaches and players face. And the adversities go beyond simple Xs and Os. Rather, many of the players come from broken homes and see playing football as their outlet to normalcy and family; the article mentions the term “brothers” on more than one occasion.

Meanwhile, Susan Karcher (my stepmom, by the way; I can assure you no journalistic biases were taken when writing this piece, although I did have to finish this post before I could eat dinner) heads a Polynesian dance group called Ohana O Ke Akua (don’t worry I can’t pronounce it either), a ministry group that spreads its message through Polynesian Dance and Worship.

And if upon reading the word “ministry” you are quickly trying to exit your browser, I would implore you to resist because I’m not going to get preachy. I’m only here to report the facts (ma’am), facts of how one little article about one little obscure Freeway League football team can positively affect the lives of young men that use football to forget, if only for a couple hours, domestic troubles.

Anyway, so Susan stumbles upon this article and decides that Buena Park’s football team should be integrated into her group’s performance, with proceeds from ticket purchases benefitting the team (note: the proceeds are going only to the football program and not home necessities; if you read the Miller article, you will know that the team has a shortage of equipment and any equipment they do have looks like Greek relics).

To sum up a long story, Ohana O Ke Akua (a group that severely tests my “hunt and peck” typing abilities) has teamed up with La Habra High School, Buena Park’s league rival, to hold a dance performance along with a football camp. If you are unfamiliar, La Habra is Buena Park’s football antithesis, a program that wins the Freeway League title on an almost yearly basis. Yet, even with the dominance and rabid fan base, La Habra is not beyond lending support to Buena Park, evident in allowing this event to be held on their campus.

The camp and dance takes place Saturday, May 7 (and much to your disappointment, yours truly will not be performing in the dance numbers). If you would like to purchase tickets or just send a word of support, Susan can be reached at susankarcher@earthlink.net.

***

I think when people watch sports, they only see the sheer violence and competition of it. And that certainly is an element of the games. But people don’t see the friendship and the bonds formed through on-field trials shared together and the off-field trials the athletes try to overcome.

Often, after great athletes retire, you will hear them say that the thing they miss most about playing is the comradery they felt with their teammates. Buena Park’s football team is just a micro example of that. It’s courageous to play football in general, what with the threat of severe injuries on each play. It’s even more courageous to play football, and play it with pride, when everyone expects you to lose. But even greater than that is the bravery they play with in the midst of off-the-field issues they didn’t ask for.

But they won’t complain. They won’t ask for your pity. They won’t even ask for your respect, as they are audacious enough to believe that a perceived misfit football program will go out and win, thus earning their own respect.

They aren’t asking for your money either. This benefit in their honor was not requested. Rather, this benefit is born from the generosity of others, others that don’t see sports as irrelevant, but see sports as a way to build friendships and connect bridges.