I am sick and tired of the pandering and pan-handling that goes on online. I'm not talking about scams by the Nigerian Royal Family, or winning the British Lottery (twice, the Australian Lottery three times last week, and Microsoft paying me for everyone I forward and email to, and for everyone THEY forward it to...). I'm talking about five little words that have become VERY damned annoying.
"Like my page on Facebook".
Facebook (yes I'm talking about you, you evil mountain of corporate snot) is now requiring users to acquire a certain number of 'Likes' to secure personal URLs or other 'perks'. One, this is a dumb-ass idea. Two, Facebook users are now having to pollute OTHER social media sites to beg and pander for 'Likes' on their FB pages.
This is damned annoying, especially for the 5 of us in America who aren't on Facebook.
Watch television. Most commercials for national products end with the Twitter or FB logo and "Follow us on Twitter" or "Like us on FB". It used to be "Connect with us on FB". Connect sounds less intrusive, more friendly - "Hey, let's get together and hang out".
'Like me' and 'Like us' sounds so whiny and needy you just want to spend a Sunday afternoon holding them under water, for 20 minutes at a time.
I know what's going on, and I don't like it. Facebook is pulling the old carrot & stick routine. They dangle a prize out there, like a personalized URL if a user receives enough 'Likes'. Then, they stick advertizing down the throats of everyone who comes to "Like" a user's page. Why? Because Facebook makes their money from paid advertizing.
I know what some of you reading this are going to say - "Then stay off Facebook", and I do. I don't have an FB account. But I know people who do. I've seen enough to know how it works. It's about Facebook making money off of you and everyone who comes to 'Like' your page.
If you're a FB user and you enjoy doing the 'Like' thing, that's fine. More power to you. The whole 'Like me' thing screams of high-school popularity contest stupidity to me. "If you're popular enough, we'll let you into our clique." Barf.
My problem is, this stupidity is spilling over into other social media, with people begging for Likes. If you want/need likes on FB, push it on you FACEBOOK friends. Don't come to Twitter, or Google+ and beg for it. You're just clogging up my stream, and I don't want to see it.
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If you like what you see in this or any other of my posts, feel free to spread the word around. No one's going to make money off the traffic that comes into my blog. :D
I feel it necessary to point out that you have a share to Facebook button for your blog.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the 'liking' thing has gotten a little out of hand on FB, especially now that they are requiring a certain number of 'likes' and 'fans' for people to edit their pages, etc. If I'm going to follow people, I'll check them out on Twitter and I'll subscribe to the RSS feeds of their blogs.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I prefer keeping my FB life private. I'm one of those people who started using FB when it was restricted to current college students. Over the years I've watched the floodgates open, and having to deal with having my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my childhood classmates, my friends' pets on FB... ugh. It's already way too much for me to manage.
"Zberg said...
ReplyDeleteLike"
I hope that was said both sarcastically and ironically.
Trelk, the share FB link is built into the template, I can't take it out without removing the whole module - and losing the share to twitter link at the same time.
ReplyDeleteLol. I totally agree. When people I don't know tell me to 'like' them before they even say hello, I don't. I don't mind, though, when people I am already friends with on FB send a polite message to let people know they have set up a fan page. My FB page is not a whore. You have to at least talk to her before she will "like" you.
ReplyDeleteI know (I use blogspot too) I just had to point it out.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this...I feel like someone has just given me permission to not care about how many "friends" I have, or not worry about not being "friendly" enough. (Where's the "Like" button for this blog?)
ReplyDeleteI just thought they got extremely out of hand. So, recently I just deleted 500++ friends and only left with 50++ . That's first phase. Hopefully I can deactivate account by 2nd phase. Lol. I'm trying hard for this to make it happen :P
ReplyDeleteI just thought they got extremely out of hand. So, recently I just deleted 500++ friends and only left with 50++ . That's first phase. Hopefully I can deactivate account by 2nd phase. Lol. I'm trying hard for this to make it happen :P
ReplyDeleteSorry it got out twice :(
ReplyDelete