Response to complaints about social media.
1) Just because hash-tags aren't being used to sort anything when used in a Facebook status versus Twitter, it doesn't mean it's not communicative. In the first place, plenty of things on Twitter (and Tumblr) get tagged that have no real sorting function. For example, no one is likely to search posts tagged "I can't," and yet there is no better way to express extreme emotion than with "#ican't" over the internet. Particularly, the phrase "I can't" is already steeped in a social media context, so why not add the tag. Furthermore, there is no way to communicate something as unique as #drunkgirlproblems, for example, without the hash-tag. The concept of labeling something as some kind of problem with a hash tag is unique to twitter and the tagging system and therefore some of its connotative and cultural meaning is lost without the use of the hash-tag symbol. Maybe this kind of communication is new and unfamiliar. Maybe it seems like meaningless lexicon. Maybe it seems like a new way for millennials to fuck with the English language and strip us of our communication abilities. But, rather, the integration of these internet-based terms only broadens our ability to express ourselves. 2) Social media is for expressing yourself, promoting yourself, and updating people on your lives. What is a "status update" for if not to update your friends on your status? Any usage of this feature, then, is in no way incorrect. If someone posts too many updates a day, they are correctly using the feature. If someone posts religious statuses, they are correctly using the feature. If someone posts mundane details, they are correctly using the feature. So, stop acting like there's any etiquette in regard to what people can post as a tweet, blog post, status update, or photograph. Any status update is going to be shameless self indulgence. There is no hierarchy of appropriateness in this forum. 3) You elect to use social media. You choose who you friend/follow. You decide what shows up on your news feed. It's a completely unnecessary service that you elect to use, so any complaints about what you see on it are a complete waste of time. If you don't like it, delete your "annoying" friends, cherry-pick what you see on your feed, or get off the site. It is the emptiest complaint you could possibly make and it personifies the concept of a "first world problem." If the best conversation you can come up with is a bitch-fest about your Facebook friends and their activity within, you, as a person, are a cocktail of miserable traits: boring, judgmental, privileged, and above all, totally fucking stupid.
