The latest Facebook plague

[thepeopleseason]

This has nothing to do with the new Facebook layout.

Back in 2002, I started this Livejournal, because, as batnandu suggests, I'm something of an emotional exhibitionist. Drawing compelling content from the dross of my daily life, however, is a Herculean task--were I more dedicated to poetry, short fictions, photos, or videos, I suppose I could have some gems to offer every day. As it stands, I'm that post-modern, neo-geek, sarcastic, hipster-douchebag that only ever drops the occasional grain of wit (I'm guessing this is why Twitter might be so popular) amidst a sea of memes and self-absorbed whining.

So if you go back and look at the succession of posts following that November, 2002 debut (no, really, don't waste your time), you'll find a series of memes and quiz results offered from sites like quizdiva.com, quizilla.com, or okcupid.com. With such a frequency that one of the people who (for some yet-to-be-determined reason) follows this LJ said, "please stop taking quizes, for the love of god."

And yes, I did eventually tire of seeing the insipid things populating my friends page--I even wrote a filter for my friends page to automatically cut them.

So it's with a supreme sense of resignation that I see the latest items scrolling onto my Facebook homepage:

• "What painting are you?"
• "Which Great Philosopher are you?"
• "Where should you be living?"

These are the same kinds of things I stopped posting a long while ago, and it seems that Facebook is just recycling the whole Online Junior High Slambook concept again.

But here's where it's even worse--each application that Facebook approves for its users need approval from each individual user before they allow it to post on that user's page. The quiz application developers, in their idiocy, instead of creating a single quiz framework application to access the user's information, set their quizzes up so that each individual quiz has to ask for access to the user's details. So every Facebook user wanting to take the both the "Where should you be living" quiz and the "Which 80s band are you?" quiz has to approve access for both quizzes individually, when the access required for both is essentially, "Can this application post its crap onto your news feed?"

And all for those unspecific, non-committal gestures at your personality.

Comments

[cee-m.livejournal.com]

These are the same kinds of things I stopped posting a long while ago, and it seems that Facebook is just recycling the whole Online Junior High Slambook concept again.

Seriously. Laughed right out loud about this one.

I'm absolutely with you here. I'll take one if I'm insanely bored... but I mostly ignore them.

[thepeopleseason.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, if one catches my eye, I'll take it. I probably won't post the results at all, however.

[cee-m.livejournal.com]

Yup me too. I will chuckle at the results and move on.

[thepeopleseason.livejournal.com]

Which is why Facebook's quizzes are so infuriating--I think, "Maybe I'll take this one," but I always balk at the "Allow access to this application" screen.

[murielle.livejournal.com]

While I still enjoy a "blog-thing" from time to time, I agree that FB has gone overboard with their applications. It used to be about keeping in touch with friends and family, now it's all about the latest game, application, and blog-thing. ::sigh::

[thepeopleseason.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not so much with the "This is what the latest application I allowed to access my wall said about me."

[murielle.livejournal.com]

But, you know, you've made me think about all those things my friends send me and I "allow" it and never thought about what or whom I was allowing access. I'm going to be a little harder to persuade from now on.

Surprised at your restraint...

[http://claimid.com/ejr (from livejournal.com)]

given the "no-life" / movie quiz making the rounds. ;)

Re: Surprised at your restraint...

[thepeopleseason.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen that thing like twelve times over the course of my online life.

I thought about doing it once.

Once.