Ok, this trend irritates me to no end.

[vivas.will]

I am 25 years old. I log on to Facebook to keep in touch with friends in different countries, for certain groups etc. It's really useful in a lot of ways. But there's this trend among people my age. I don't know how to explain it. Everyday there's some damned inspirational quote, or they are giving advice to the world, or writing some cryptic message so that others will ask "what does this mean?".
Here's some examples:
"Catch a fallen star and put it in your pocket. Save it for a rainy day."
"I ask those questions n I'm not afraid cuz it's not coming out of a bad place."
"Admit your faults, don' try to cover them up and the right ppl will respect u for it. In turn, they'll give u a head start. Mark my word."

And multiply this hundreds of times a day, some people posting this advice or inspirational stuff 10 times a day. Why? We're in our 20's, we have next to nothing figured out...it seems so ridiculous to me.

Now that my frustration has been vented, I just want to ask: why? Why these inspirational quotes and advice and cryptic messages? Is it to look worldly? Smart? To grab attention?

Have any of you noticed this??

Just wanted to vent my frustration. And see if anyone else has noticed this trend.

[Volya]

I personally think you should quit whining and deal with it. Some people like sharing what they find motivational. If you don't like it you can just 'un-friend' them.

[vivas.will]

Is there a way to delete a thread? I want to delete this. No one will add anything constructive here, just tell me to quit whining and delete people and stop going on to facebook. I made a mistake thinking this was a forum for discussing general (and random) topics.

[Volya]

I'm just one guy, I'm sure other people on the forum have different opinions.

[cacian]

Is there a way to delete a thread? I want to delete this. No one will add anything constructive here, just tell me to quit whining and delete people and stop going on to facebook. I made a mistake thinking this was a forum for discussing general (and random) topics.

hi vivas I thought about what you said but I am not sure what you actually mean.
where do you get these quotes? are they send to you or put somewhere on a page like an ad?

[liza]

Because the are people who need this .. sharing quotes and everything .. is like psychotherapy .. or going shopping .. or going to the gym .. they miss something .. is not bad : )

[Delta40]

My daughter gets an insight into the kind of porn her stepfather likes. Each time he likes a pic it shows up on her wall. She doesn't want to unfriend him so I imagine she should point out how public his tastes are.

[Calidore]

My daughter gets an insight into the kind of porn her stepfather likes. Each time he likes a pic it shows up on her wall. She doesn't want to unfriend him so I imagine she should point out how public his tastes are.

Um, how old is your daughter?

[Delta40]

23. I don't have a FB account myself but my kids are always spying on each other and family members and giving me the Goss. I don't feel safe or trustful in that kind of environment.

[kiki1982]

:lol: wow that's courageous! Does he actually know he's basically broadcasting his private tastes to all his friends (including poss. colleagues and things)?

I know what you mean. The abundance of useless writing on Facebook is quite daunting. I've got an FB account now after years and years of resistance, and I'm anonymous because I don't want any 'friends' from my professional life for obvious reasons. It's not their concern what I think or like. Their only concern is that I do my work well. They can add me on LinkedIn. People who know me know it's me because they know what observations I usually make, but others don't. I like to keep it that way.

But wait for the killer: if you have any female friends, wait until they get kids. You'll get updates on the silly things they do like the last one I got: 'X is beating on the computer table out of protest, because I want to look at other things instead of his photo of grandma.' Uhm, am I supposed to find that funny? Also the fact that your little one has done his first poo in the potty does not really interest the rest of the world.

My husband always says, Imagine your child one day will become a celebrity or an important figure. Would he/she want that the whole world potentially knows when he/she wet his/her pants for the last time? I guess no. Stop posting it.
We've got other gay friends who post about their two Jack Russels in answer. :D

I just don't see what I would be able to tell the world that's important. I'm a realist.

[Helga]

I don't have a facebook account and I never have. Post like these, both the OP and that horrifying image Delta gave of how some people use this site are the reasons why I don't want an account.

I have seen a few comments like these on my friends FB pages.

When I became single many people told me I should get an FB page 'to find love' that just made me want it even less.

[Calidore]

23. I don't have a FB account myself but my kids are always spying on each other and family members and giving me the Goss. I don't feel safe or trustful in that kind of environment.

Phew, I'm just glad she's an adult. I'm assuming he doesn't know what she's seeing, so he would probably appreciate being told.

[papayahed]

Aye I have some friends that have different religious and/or political beliefs than I and some of their post and motivational crap is quite daunting. Most times I can ignore those posts but sometimes I have to fight the urge to post.

[SilentMute]

Facebook is a great way to really start hating the people you know. I never really wanted a Facebook account, but sometimes it is the only way to keep in contact with friends--and forums can be a great place for sellers like me to connect with customers.

I don't always mind inspirational quotes, but sometimes the people themselves bug me. Sometimes you feel like they think they feel like they are more spiritual than everyone else.

I had one friend who was a crossdresser. I didn't really mind that. However, I did mind the vulgarity and smut he put up--and his concept of being a girl was rather offensive. "OH, I'm a pretty little whore, aren't I? Like my t***ies? Want to suck them? Free rape in the parking lot!" It was a real shame because he was a nice guy and very talented, but day after day of seeing this made me start regretting that I had friended him. He also wanted a lot of attention, and if people didn't respond to a post--then he felt like nobody loved him. But seriously, what can you say to post like these?

Then there are the people who always are wallowing in self-pity. I feel sorry for them, for I too am prone to self-pity...but I usually try to refrain from posting it, because I have realized (from my friends) just how it makes you look. It can get irritating when someone posts this day after day, and saying something encouraging never seems to make them feel better. And if you wallow in self pity yourself, then they usually make you feel worse.

Then there are the activist types, and they are annoying because they always are posting about everything that is wrong in life...and so if you feel happy before, you feel depressed afterwards...and it is so hard to be happy these days.

As I have gotten older, I have really started to appreciate the superficial social etiquette of days of old. Remember when we used to say, "How are you doing?" and people knew that you didn't really want to know? They just wanted you to say, "Fine!"

[cacian]

I had one friend who was a crossdresser. I didn't really mind that. However, I did mind the vulgarity and smut he put up--and his concept of being a girl was rather offensive. "OH, I'm a pretty little whore, aren't I? Like my t***ies? Want to suck them? Free rape in the parking lot!"
haha this funny. I have many friends cross dressers and live with one and they are the most genuine kind and interesting I have ever met. i feel very safe in their company in fact i enjoy being around them.
i think this is just a show and no harm was meant by it albeit i agree a bit over the top silly.
however but did you say something to correct him? there's opportunities in everything we do even in wrongness. i say that because i think may be he did that a lot but no one corrected him which is a big shame.

[JBI]

Could be worse. People in China like to post negative things, which I thought (until reading this) was considered against the norms of proper status updates in the west. I thought we were supposed to pretend we had the best lives in the world on facebook for everybody to marvel at. Nothing negative, nothing not super. Posting such self-help motivational nonsense shows an insecurity.

[Volya]

Could be worse. People in China like to post negative things, which I thought (until reading this) was considered against the norms of proper status updates in the west. I thought we were supposed to pretend we had the best lives in the world on facebook for everybody to marvel at. Nothing negative, nothing not super. Posting such self-help motivational nonsense shows an insecurity.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought Facebook was blocked in China...?

[SilentMute]

haha this funny. I have many friends cross dressers and live with one and they are the most genuine kind and interesting I have ever met. i feel very safe in their company in fact i enjoy being around them.
i think this is just a show and no harm was meant by it albeit i agree a bit over the top silly.
however but did you say something to correct him? there's opportunities in everything we do even in wrongness. i say that because i think may be he did that a lot but no one corrected him which is a big shame.

Hmmm...I didn't think about that. It gets rather touchy. I didn't want him to think I was rejecting him for being a cross dresser or for being gay (I know not all cross dressers are gay...but he was). If I said something, I was afraid he'd think that. Would anyone believe, "I'm not disgusted because you like to wear dresses or because you are gay. I just find what you are saying and how you are portraying women vulgar and rather offensive." I'd find it offensive with a heterosexual too who wore gender appropriate clothing.

That is where it gets sticky with prejudices. Sometimes people claim they object to skin color or lifestyle choice, but I sometimes think people just aren't reflective enough to know what really bothers them. A friend the other day showed a cartoon about a woman who tenses up when a black guy stands next to her on the bus. They were saying the woman was being prejudiced. Perhaps she was, but I also know that in white culture, there is often a concept of personal space. Blacks and other cultures who tend to live in extended families don't have a concept of personal space, so they will get so close to you that you can feel their breath on your neck. When you grow up with the concept of personal space--and that people who violate it mean you harm--it is hard not to react when you come across people that don't have the same concept. Of course, I've had to re-adjust my white person sonar to acclimate to our multi-cultural society.

[AncientSunlight]

I encounter these frequently too; often they supposedly quote Twain or Nietzsche or Dostoevsky, but they always lack a source and usually the mentioned author did not actually write any of it. What one does with people like that is introduce them to maxim writers. Give them the maxims of Rochefoucauld, Goethe, Chamfort, Vauvenargues, Hazlitt: anyone! They'll find everything they ever liked in those inspirational quotes, and it's no longer merely unfounded optimism.

I gave a person that habitually posted 'motivational quotes' a copy of Emerson's essays. She loves them, and now I happily encounter 'every thing is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect' on her wall, instead of 'when life gets hard, it makes you stronger.'

People are recognizing beautifully expressed sentiments in simple, textual statements - and there's much more where that came from. So I rejoice when I see another person quote a motivational quote: it is another person who loves the written word, if in a somewhat aphoristic form.

[Basil]

Until Facebook, I had no idea that every single inspirational quote ever made about our imaginations was said by none other than Albert Einstein. I'm surprised that guy had time to get anything else done in a day, so much time did he devote to making meaningful, poignant utterances about the power of our imaginations.

[kiki1982]

Did you know Wodehouse already knew how facebook worked in 1915 no less?

" - Do the Mammoth [Publishing Company] publish you too? Why, we are comrades in misfortune - fellow serfs. We should be friends. Shall we be friends?

- I should be delighted.

- Shall we shake hands, sit down and talk about ourselves a little?

- But I'm keeping you from your work.

- An errand of mercy."

by PG Wodehouse, Something Fresh, 1915

That's so true! Just because people happen to have seen each other once, they think they can tell each other their dearest secrets. tssssss

[MANICHAEAN]

I tried, and am still on Facebook but with mixed views. I get easily irritated by people I really don't know and with whom likely I have nothing in common, wanting to be my friend and then asking for a job.

I'm also a bit surprised by friends I have known for years sending me daft inspirational messages. Perhaps as they get on in years there becomes an increased emotional need to support one another. It's either that or I have developed into a hard son of a *****.