I’m curious about these. You know the type: “I have a personal reason for asking if everyone could put this as their status for 1 hour. I’m pretty sure I know the ones that will. Think of someone you know or love who has had cancer. My wish is that in 2011 a cure will be found. Will you post it for 1 hour. To honor those who have fought or are… fighting cancer. Most people won’t set this as their status. Will you?”
Even though you see these statuses regarding many subjects (cancer/HIV/"love your [father|mother|son|daughter]) they seem to follow a recognizable pattern, almost like a snowclone.
How do these things originate? Is it just one person doing it for “lulz” to see how far they can propagate the payload? Or is there a sole, sincere person who starts these off? What do they gain by it? I can’t see how having n people post something like that as their status could have any effect on finding a cure for cancer, other than in some vague “increasing awareness” sense.
My favorite was the one where people were encouraged to post pictures of their favorite cartoon characters to stop child abuse. The slacktivists were then punked by someone who suggested that the cartoon characters could be used by enterprising pedophiles to lure dumb kids with Facebook accounts right into the arms of their virtual molesters. Sadly, the moral of the story (slacktivism is not only pointless, it can also be counter-productive) was lost in all the recreational outrage.
I don’t know but I sure find them irritating. I can’t see how they do any good whatsoever apart from giving the poster a warm feeling that they have done “something”. In reality, they have done nothing.
There was a spate of those on my feed a few months ago, and they irritated me enough to concoct this:
“You can be sure that I will always be one of the 97% of people who will never re-post something as my status, even for an hour. I am one of the 3% who find those posts passive aggressive and utterly useless as true support for much of anything. Now, cute cat videos, that’s another story! :-D”
Alas, this one did not go viral, though it got more than the usual # of likes and comments. And, come to think of it, I’ve fewer of slacktivistic posts
My favorite current one is about how there will be five Fridays and five Saturdays in July, and how according to some ancient Chinese feng shui theory, if you post this startling information on Facebook, money will be coming your way, but if you don’t, you won’t get any money. So ancient Chinese feng shui practitioners were making up stupid Facebook memes back in the D’umb Dynasty?
I hate those status update memes not only because they’re dumb and useless and passive aggressive, but mostly because WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF FACEBOOK IF EVERYONE’S STATUS UPDATE SAYS THE SAME FUCKING THING?!?!?!?!?
Deep breath
My current status update is a snopes link on the “moneybags July” meme, with a note that if your math skills suck to the extent that this doesn’t sound wrong to you, you should be unsurprised to find yourself lacking in coin, and a suggestion that if you want extra money, get off facebook and go work some overtime or something.
And it goes on like it only happens ever 826 years or something. Hello! Anybody home? You have 5 full weekends in July if and only if July 1 is a Friday. Since there exactly 7 possible days for July 1 to fall on, it stands to reason it happens about once ever seven years. As it turns out, 2005 had this same distinction as will 2022 and 2033. It also happened in leap years 2000 and 2028.
Yeah that. Plus, my damn news feed looks like a stuttering alpaca, since so many of my friends copy and paste the damn things at roughly the same time.
But the “strong beautiful woman” one that just went around? Oy. Worst ever. It’s one you’re supposed to post on your Friends’ Walls if you think they’re awesome examples of the female species. About 90% of my Friends are Goddess Worshipers. So every time someone posts that to another Friend’s Wall, my News Feed about blows up with multiple copies of it.
And, I’m sorry, but I’m just an asshole. If you’re my friend, you already know I think you’re awesome. If I start cut and pasting that shit around Facebook, A) I’m going to forget someone or the click won’t register and then there will be hurt feelings and B) when will I have time for the Dope?!
Thankfully I get few of those, but they do hit my news feed every now and then. On the cartoon/child abuse one, though, I DID change my profile pic (I’ve a thing for Looney Tunes and my profile pic is sometimes Daffy Duck occasionally anyway). I posted a status that said that in addition to changing the pic, I had donated $$ to a local organization that provides legal advocacy for abused children, and challenged my FB friends to do the same. Funny, not a single comment, Like, or status that mentioned a similar donation.
A friend put up one of these about deployed soldiers. I wrote: That’s not true. When I was deployed I wished for more than anything to have a dragon. Yeah, not very practical, but a dragon would have been fucking awesome.
They’re the same as the dumb glurge emails “forward this to all your friends within 3 minutes, and you’ll have good luck and a happy love life - if you don’t forward it, your arse will fall off and your best friend will stab you in the eyes!”, or the youtube comments “You will be kissed on the next possible friday!” - propagated by dumb people, often out of dumb fear - “I don’t believe in these things, but better safe than sorry!”
I kind of like silly ones, like this— Copy this and paste it in your status if you know someone, or have heard of someone who knows someone. If you don’t know anyone, or even if you’ve heard of someone who doesn’t know anyone, then do still copy this. It’s important to spread the message— it kind of pokes fun at them, but doesn’t actively insult those who do it, however much I may want to insult them.
“Imagine you and I wake up in a psychiatric ward and you can only say four words to me…be a good sport and play along.”
I actually thought this was an original idea by a fb friend the FIRST time I saw it on my news feed…The first time, that is. After the next 50 or so, I began to suspect perhaps it wasn’t. :dubious:
I just stole the picture of the rabbit with a pancake on it’s head that Argent Towers posted. Added the following text:
“Rabbit with a pancake on its head. . . I am asking if everyone could put this as their status for 1 hour or the day. I’m pretty sure I know the ones who will. Think of someone you know or love who doesn’t have a rabbit with a pancake on its head. My wish is that in 2011 a cure will be found. Will you post this for 1 hour to honor those who are FIGHTING for rabbits without a pancake.”
