– Gary Wolfson, Chief Creative Officer
A few weeks ago, I had breakfast with friends who also happen to be in the ad business. We were discussing how Facebook can be a wonderful tool to share and learn new ideas from “friends.” But because Facebook has grown so enormous in popularity (and accessibility), so too, has the useless and inane information that’s posted daily. Or hourly. Or in some cases, by the minute.
To me, it seems as though it has reached a virtual critical mass—piled up like a malodorous landfill. Frankly, when you tell me that you need to replace the muffler on your Toyota, sorry … I don’t give a crap. There, I said it. And I know there are more like me out there.
You had pancakes for breakfast today, with blueberries you picked this weekend? I don’t give a crap. What I do care about is where you picked the blueberries. Now that is info I can use (maybe even this weekend). Your two year old is now potty trained … hooray! But I literally don’t give a crap (even if your kid does). I remember that hallmark was pretty exciting for my wife and me (not to mention my son). But I did not post a photo of my kid standing next to the toilet holding a roll of Charmin like it was a gold medal at the Olympics for all my “friends” to see.
I wish people would think twice about posting gems like “Had a hard time deciding between American and cheddar on my double cheeseburger!” I double don’t give a crap. Come on, my fellow “friends”—please stop wasting our valuable Facebook scroll time with this useless filler.
So, what I’d like to propose is a new Facebook option to go along with the “LIKE” and “COMMENT” buttons. “I DON’T GIVE A CRAP.” I think it would be a useful addition.
For example, if I was to post this picture of my new male puppy Woody with an Elizabethan collar on his head with the caption, “Woody gets his wood chopped off” …
Beth Berens
You’re right, there IS a lot of useless information on social sites. But define useless and define interesting. With everyone’s different interests, people scrolling down their newsfeed stop to read different things. What I scroll past, others probably read.
Having said that, I do have friends that post on social sites like it’s their diary, and I’ve gotten used to just scrolling past it because, yeah, I don’t care. This is slightly off topic, but here is an interesting, and slightly hard-to-follow, article on the psychology of twitter-ers. It compares the happiness of twitter followers based on what they tweet and how many followers they have. http://onehappybird.com/2012/07/13/if-youre-happy-and-we-know-it-are-your-friends/