As you probably know (and as you probably are), I\u2019m on Facebook as well as Livejournal. When I look at my Facebook \u201cnews\u201d feed, I keep seeing messages of the form \u201cDubaldie K. Fritz became a fan of Throwing Sofas off the Third Floor Balcony\u201d or \u201cDubaldie K. Fritz joined the group I bet we can find 1,000,000 people who support joining groups on Facebook\u201d.<\/p>\n
Now, I understand what these messages mean. I\u2019m not that dense. What I don\u2019t get is why?<\/p>\n
Why fan\/join a group on Facebook to change something that Facebook doesn\u2019t have the power to change. No matter how many people fan or join the group, be it 30, 30 thousand, or 30 million, it is meaningless bits. So 1,000,000 people on Facebook join a group. It does nothing. Want to do something to support your cause? Send $1 or $5 to the group instead of joining. If 1,000,000 people each sent $1 to their cause instead of joining, the cause could do wonders.<\/p>\n
Why fan\/join a group on Facebook just because it has a cute name? I\u2019m sure you agree with the sentiment \u201cYelling at someone in a movie when they do something idiotic!\u201d, but why fan\/join the group? Are they going to post messages of interest to you? Are they going to change any behavior? Are you likely to find someone you know but isn\u2019t already on your friends list?<\/p>\n
Joining\/fanning useless groups does nothing but potentially clutter your news feed or create idiotic lines in your profile that someone else can look at and go, \u201cGee, that guy was an idiot for joining that<\/i> group.\u201d It shows you are a lemming, following a trend instead of thinking.<\/p>\n
Am I saying that you shouldn\u2019t join or fan groups? No. But do it for the right reason. Fan an organization because you truly are a fan of that organization and want to receive updates from them. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve fanned my congregation, my favorite theatres, and some other favorite organizations. Their updates give me useful information. Join groups where you really are part of that group, and want to have discussions in that group. That\u2019s why I joined the \u201cmisc.kids\u201d group, and why I\u2019m part of various camp groups. Groups like that can help you find friends from your past. Can a group called \u201cMy favorite melon is cantaloupe\u201d do that?<\/p>\n
There, now I feel better. I think I\u2019ll see if there is a group \u201cPeople who rant about idiotic Facebook behaviors\u201d. Oh, excuse me. It is called \u201cthere is too many groups about joining too many groups<\/a>\u201d. Nah. Perhaps I should join \u201cOnly joining the groups that actually mean something to you.<\/a>\u201d Nah. Perhaps, \u201cJoining Groups just because you see everyone else in them!<\/a>\u201d. Nah, perhaps \u201cwhy are we joining sexist groups when we could just be having sex?<\/a>\u201d On second thought, perhaps I won\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As you probably know (and as you probably are), I\u2019m on Facebook as well as Livejournal. When I look at my Facebook \u201cnews\u201d feed, I keep seeing messages of the form \u201cDubaldie K. Fritz became a fan of Throwing Sofas off the Third Floor Balcony\u201d or \u201cDubaldie K. Fritz joined the group I bet we Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-networking","category-lj-xfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}