Your Personal Guide to Facebook Rules

Social networking is an inseparable part of many human lives. The smartphones have brought the unexplored world at proximity; only a click and you lay in the bed of what you did not know. You can choose from a variety I cannot even afford to know about.

The most popular of all these social networking sites is Facebook. I can recall making a Facebook account only in my 11th grade. For the first few years, I was virtually inactive, for I could not figure out how it worked. It seemed complicated and useless.

And now, people make Facebook accounts for their newborns, upload pictures of them and think they will ‘gift’ the account on their ‘some’ teenth birthday. At other times, I see little children having Facebook accounts, uploading their sassy pictures and constantly updating their relationship status.

However, there are certain rules people must follow as ‘responsible’ users of Facebook. I know some of you might question my authority to lay down the rules, but its okay, someone has to put these in the face of people and I welcome all the criticism which might follow.

1. DO NOT LIKE YOUR OWN PICTURES, STATUS, LINKS (and so on). Social networking, for most people, has been about displaying the best about themselves and so we know you like that pouting picture or that triceps cut in your picture, but if you ‘like’ them yourself, it just stands out as a desperate move to increase the ‘like’ count on your pictures. And for the status and links, doesn’t the fact that you put it up or shared it stand as an implication of the fact that you ‘like’ it?

2. DO NOT USE YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT TO SHOW OFF THE BRANDS YOU OWN. We all must have seen people sitting not so casually with that little ‘unnoticed’ detail of the brand of bag they are carrying or the car they are driving or sitting in. As opposed to such people, it is in my personal pride to bow down to people who exclusively declare they are carrying a Louis Vuitton or have/ bought an Audi. But generally, I just thought that people on networking sites are there for networking and not for the public display of the luxurious brands they own.

3. DO NOT BLAME PEOPLE WHO MAKE OPINIONS ABOUT YOU FROM YOUR FACEBOOK POSTS. Before in the piece I mentioned about how you share what you like. So this goes out to have a record of things you support or not support. Lately, a lot of my friends complained to me about how I come across as someone who hates men and would be single all my life form the links I usually shared out of my belief in feminism. Then I realized how it was in fact an imbalance on my part to have not shared the usual stuff, may be. So speaking from personal experience, either be the kinds who do not care or the kinds who accept and say OKAY! I do like men 😉 and I am sorry I came across like that 😛

4. WE KNOW YOUR MOVE TO GET MORE LIKES WHEN YOU COMMENT ON A PICTURE FROM A YEAR BACK AND THROW IT UP IN THE FEEDS. You suddenly see an old picture in the feeds, and thought where did this come from? Yes, the person clearly wants more people to like it and comment on it and that is why so! It is not like they read the last comment generally after a year and thought of responding to it. Really!

5. WE UNDERSTAND AN EARTHQUAKE WAS FELT IN YOUR AREA, BUT JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE IS PUTTING A STATUS ABOUT IT, YOU DON’T NEED TO TOO! GO USE TWITTER FOR THAT.

6. YOU DONOT NEED TO PUT YOUR NAKED PICTURES TO GET ATTENTION. I know I might sound absurd saying so, but you don’t want to be the Miley Cyrus of everyone’s list. So stop it! Yes you can wear what you want, but there is a thin line between looking good and being comfortable and unnecessarily flaunting your naked shoulder or your underwear brand.

7. DO NOT ADD EVERYONE YOU SEE AND MEET IN YOUR LOCAL MARKET. I personally have had experiences when people added me and asked me, who I was and how I knew them, later. I would have slapped them in a real situation. It was their good luck that they were chatting. In my defence, I accepted the request considering the number of mutual friends and shit. I know, my bad.

8. UPLOADING ALL HAPPY, PARTY PICTURES ON FACEBOOK WILL NOT CURE YOUR DEPRESSION. I know a few people who suffer from chronic depression and it makes me feel their life is useless for the only good high (excluding drugs and stuff) in their lives comes from showing to people their life is perfect on Facebook. And honestly man, you need to cure yourself first than treating your public image.

9. DO NOT SHARE ONE LIKE= ONE SALUTE, ONE WISH, ONE PRAYER LINKS. We know you believe in God, you pray, you like the dog which walks with crutches and the humanity in you outbursts when you see them and we appreciate it; but for the humanity limit your action to hitting just the like button. Thank you.

10. IF YOU ARE THE PERSON WHO STALKS AND SAVES THE PICTURES OF YOUR CRUSH, BACK OUT! (The statement is enough; doing so is cheesy and inappropriate. For people on the victimized end, thank God for the privacy setting.)

11. YOU NEED A NEW CLASSIC POSE NOW! So you see, some people upload their pictures in different clothes and the way they stand, sit, smile, look remains the same in all their pictures. A humble note to all these people, if we’ d want to appreciate such pictures we would go through an online shopping site. We come to network with real people and let us have that experience.

DISCLAIMER. You need not agree with all these points and if you do, appreciate someone took the pain to put it in the best possible manner. The author suffers from the problem of having witnessed and victimized by such problems herself, so please kindly adjust and now smile if the criticism pointed towards you and pledge that you will try to be a more responsible Facebook user in the future.

Happy Reading. ☺