Let’s take a quick trip back in time. It’s 2008, and Facebook has just dethroned MySpace as the most popular social media platform. Your profile picture is a heavily edited mirror snapshot of you and your seventh-grade best friend. The pages you liked had names such as “no I didn’t trip, the floor looked like it needed a hug” and “when you realize you overslept and you jump off the bed like a ninja.” Does this sound familiar? Those are actual pages that I found deep in the 2009 archives of my profile, and along with them came a long forgotten Farmville account and being a “fan” of certain celebrity pages. Back then, our statuses consisted of things like “is doing homework, ughhhh” or candid photos that were actual candid photos, ones that you probably didn’t look very good in but you posted anyway. Not those purposeful shots of you laughing at a non-existent joke that you edit three times before posting to Instagram. But the cyber world as we know it has changed, and not for the better.
Today, Facebook is no longer your innocent internet scrapbook, it’s a minefield. Anything you post is likely to get viciously shredded apart by self-appointed social justice warriors. Even playful puppy videos aren’t safe from the army of citizens who all have something to say about how the puppy looks overfed, underfed, abused, spoiled, or anything else that might be unjust. Facebook is now inhabited by a toxic swarm of people who think their opinion is the only one that matters. And let me tell you what, it’s getting old. So, if you feel like you might be one of these toxic humans, or that you have Facebook friends who fit the bill, I have something for you. Here is a short lesson on Modern Facebook Etiquette 101, and what some people need to know. Pronto.
Number one thing that needs to be said: Your opinion doesn’t matter, and it is the lowest form of knowledge. I know that statement just pierced a few hearts, but it’s true. Considering the political controversies that are currently bursting from our timelines, it’s hard not to throw your disapproving viewpoints into the mix, I know. But stop it, please, for the sanity of everyone. Starting arguments in the comments section of every other post you see isn’t going to convince anyone that you, alone, have the correct beliefs. You are usually the person who casually throws around the terms ignorant and intelligent, as if telling people how smart you are will make it so.
Unfortunately, feeling the need to tell people how intelligent you and your arguments are is a giant red flag. Being smart or throwing around facts you found on The Huffington Post might mean you have a lot of information in your head, but that doesn’t make you wise. The same goes for calling someone else ignorant. Just because you and another human being don’t agree doesn’t make them ignorant. It just means you weren’t cut from the same cloth. And someone as intelligent as you claim to be probably shouldn’t have to revert to name-calling anyway, so keep that in mind.
Facebook is supposed to be the place you go to see who is getting married, who is studying abroad and who is going to jail. It’s where you go to see pictures of your baby cousins growing up, not to see yet another keyboard warrior going off on a breast feeding mother. If someone dares to challenge this warrior, they are told “If you don’t like what I have to say, unfriend me.”
Well, guess what, Social Justice Warrior, you don’t have to tell me twice.
