My 8 Least Favorite People On Social Media

We all have at least one Facebook friend whose posts we immediately screen-capture and send to our best friends so they can validate our disgust. Below I have compiled the offenses of my least favorite people on social media. Everyone is guilty of at least some of these crimes (myself included), so let’s all laugh at ourselves and make a joint effort to be less obnoxious.

1. The Excessive Selfie-Taker

Ah, what to say about the people who post 10 selfies per week? I’d ask them to stop, but they are too busy taking pictures of themselves to read this. Listen, I think it is awesome to be confident and feel attractive, so I am not knocking anyone for having a positive self-image. However, when all you do is post pictures of yourself, you come off a bit narcissistic. Trust me, we haven’t all forgotten what you look like in the past week, so unless you’ve lost 50 pounds or have undergone major plastic surgery, keep the selfies to minimum. FYI, men are just as guilty of this as women, if not more.

2. The Hashtag Abuser

Hashtags are a privilege, not a right, and some of you take the hashtags to a whole new level of horrendous. There is absolutely no need to include #party on a picture of your dog, unless of course your dog is wearing a party hat, in which case I stand corrected and you may proceed. I’ve seen captions on Instagram that lead me to believe that the person posting has some form of Tourette’s syndrome. I don’t need to see a lovely picture of you and your mom plagued by #mom #parent #parentalunit #miracleoflife #icameoutofherwomb #myparentshadsexandnowhereami #gladtheydidntwrapitbeforetheytappedit #nolikeiliterallygrewinsideofherstomach #scienceisweird #VIP. I know that the VIP one doesn’t make sense, but hashtag abusers are always claiming that they are VIPs. Believe it or not, we get the point sans hashtags. Post your picture, choose a witty caption, and then sit back and obsess over how many likes you get LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.

3. The Game Inviter

AKA the person who sucks at whatever game they are playing so they need to beg me for extra lives. You people are the termites of Facebook in the sense that you eat away at my soul. I wake up in the morning excited to read my new Facebook notification and all I find is your annoying ass inviting me to play a game that I already obsessively play (Candy Crush—those damn reproducing chocolates, man). Just when I thought the nightmare was over and I could come out of hiding from Farmville requests, Farmville’s even more annoying cousin showed up: Candy Crush. Maybe if your invitation was coming from a place of, “Oh, Lindsey would love swiping left, right, up and down to match three pieces of candy! That’s so Linds!” then I could find a way to forgive you. But you don’t even care about my enjoyment of the game. You just are too damn impatient to suffer the consequences of sucking at Candy Crush and wait the 30 minutes it takes to remind you to participate in real life. I also suck at Candy Crush, but I take my punishment like a champ and wait until my new lives are restored like a civilized human being. I will not burden my friends and acquaintances with my failures. And I don’t even know what the hell Criminal Case is, but if I get one more invitation for it, I will turn into the criminal and the case will be that I hunted you down and smashed your phone.

4. The Gym Preacher

If you exercise regularly and eat healthy, that is wonderful. I’m not even being sarcastic. That really is great and you should feel good about that. But Facebook is not a church or synagogue and no one signed up to hear your unwanted sermon on lifting, running, and food prepping. Your 700 acquaintances do not need to know every last detail of your diet plan and workout regimen. But while we are sharing, my diet plan is to eat a lot of sugar cookies and then complain that I’m fat but never do anything about it. It has proven to be quite effective thus far. NOTE: Marathon, 5K, or tough mudder pics are totes fine though—good job, you guys.

5. The Constant Complainer

The only thing more irritating and boring than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic is reading about someone else sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. You want to know the funny thing about traffic? Other people are dealing with it, too. This is not an issue exclusive to you. The same goes for complaining about your job. Unless you are a male porn star, you most likely would rather be doing anything else than going to work every day. On a serious note, if traffic and a shitty job are the worst things going on in your life, consider yourself lucky. Allowing small inconveniences to ruin your entire day is doing yourself a major disservice, because someday when something unfortunate actually happens to you, you will have no coping skills. If you made it through the day without hearing life-altering news, being abducted, losing a loved one or accidentally “liking” one of your exes’ Instagram posts from seven weeks ago, count your blessings and find a way to be happy. When there are terminally ill people with more positive attitudes than you, reevaluate your priorities and find a way to be grateful that your problems are minuscule in the grand scheme of life. Or do what I do and call your mom to complain.

6. The Aspiring Sports Announcer

Even though I’m about as interested in sports as I am in root canals, I fully understand the love of sports. When you are that passionate about something, it will most likely come through in your posts on social media. Despite my disinterest in sports, I still can relate, as all season finales of Scandal are my personal Super Bowls. That being said, we do not need to read your play-by-play account of every game. If I wanted to know every last detail of a game, I’D BE WATCHING IT. Also, next time you are ripping someone a new asshole for their views on sports, remember that you’re fighting about which guy in tight pants can throw a ball better than the other guy in tight pants. Sports commentary and thoughts on a game’s results are completely acceptable. But for those of you who update the score every 10 minutes or just post vague statuses like “WOW WHAT A PLAY”…you’ve been flagged. Look—I even used sports lingo there.

7. “Current Pop Music is not Real Music” Guy

There is always some pretentious douche on my timeline going off about how pop music sucks and Justin Bieber is the spawn of Satan (which in fairness, might be true). Let me guess—you love The Beatles? How original. They are only the most famous band of all time and basically the One Direction (in popularity, not talent) of the 60s. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. I don’t like the Harry Potter series but I’m not denying that it is indeed a real book series. Anything can technically be “real” music; me drumming on cups and plates with chopsticks on Sushi Sundays in my apartment could be produced and sold if I had the money to do so. (This is a real occurrence; apologies to my roommate and bestie, Liz.) Everyone has a right to his or her own opinion regarding music, but it comes off as arrogant when you decide if music is “real” or not. For all you know, Sisqo’s “The Thong Song” saved someone’s life.

8. Movie/TV/Book Spoilers

I have saved the worst for last. Nothing makes my blood boil like someone who has the audacity to ruin television shows, movies, or books for hundreds of unsuspecting Facebook friends. “Hey Lindsey, you HAVE to watch The Walking Dead! It is so good!!” Well, I don’t have to watch it now thanks to YOU POSTING EVERY MAJOR PLOT POINT TO YOUR TIMELINE. Here I am, minding my own business, and boom, the main character is dead. At least preface the status with “SPOILER ALERT.” I mean, I will most likely see the spoiler anyway since I have eyes and stuff but you could at least try. Then there are the half-spoilers, who post comments such as “OMG that was so sad, I cried so hard at the end.” You might as well just go full-spoiler because even a goldfish can crack that code. In a world of Netflix and DVRs, please be mindful of others and keep the spoilers to yourself.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

• The “I need to share every thought I’ve ever had and every thing I’ve ever done” Friend
For the love of all that is holy, can someone get this person a diary?! Their timeline usually looks like this: At the mall! Eating lunch! Watching TV! Breathing in oxygen and turning it into carbon dioxide!

• Weekly Participant in Man Crush Monday and Woman Crush Wednesday
Wait…it’s your significant other of 4+ years?! No one saw that coming! JK, even Stevie Wonder saw that coming.

• The “Wow, mind your own business” girl
If you are posting something on social media, it is fair game and therefore everyone’s business. I don’t want to listen to you rant about how bitches be stalking your ‘book and ‘gram on the reg. That’s what the privacy settings are for.

• Countdowns
46 days until no one cares about your cat’s birthday party!

• Lame Online Quizzes
Now that I know that you got Jack Russell terrier on the “Which dog are you” quiz, I feel like I really know you on a more personal level. Thanks for sharing.

• Pictures of uninteresting food and coffee cups
Someone once posted a picture of soup and I got so bored looking at it that I passed out.

• The friendly neighborhood perv
When you “like” a picture of a woman’s ass, I can see that. Now my timeline is covered in asses and I don’t appreciate that. Somewhere out there, there’s a sex offender registry waiting for your name to be added to it.

• Pokers
I literally didn’t even know “poking” people on Facebook was still a thing, but it always comes from creepy guys I don’t talk to in real life and I don’t even want to know which appendage they are “poking” me with.

• People who can’t spell
In the age of spell check, you have no excoose. 😉

• Nonstop baby pictures.
Don’t even need to comment on this; everyone gets it. A few pictures are great, but everything is better in moderation.

We come from a generation of over-sharing, and it only seems to be going downhill from here. I’m pretty sure they’ve edited the Declaration of Independence to say that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of perfect lighting for a selfie. However, most of us are guilty of this overwhelming desire to inform the world of our every move. Anytime I witness something beautiful or interesting or special, I fight a war in my own head of whether or not to document it or simply experience it. I know way too much information about people I barely know and vice-versa. But while we all post our statuses, tweet our every thought, and seek out the approval of people we do not actually care about, we might as well try to be less annoying about it. For those of you fighting the good fight and posting things that actually matter—thought provoking news articles, funny stories or observations, intelligent opinions, and ridiculous memes—I salute you, and in the words of Kevin Durant, “You the real MVP.”