The Onion has been around for ages. It’s older than Facebook. Older than YouTube. Almost older than the internet. And yet. Some people still don’t understand that it’s satire.
There’s a great online law – Poe’s Law – that says good satire will be indistinguishable from truth. Literally Unbelievable is a demonstration of the power of Poe’s Law. Capturing Facebookers who don’t know the difference between the Onion and real news.
This would have been fantastic for our Easter service at Scots, or for anybody who wanted to make a social media version of the Easter story, but alas, it comes a month too late.
However – I present to you “The Wall Machine“, it lets you produce your own multi-partied Facebook conversations.
It has a nice interface. I whipped that one above up in about 30 seconds.
Via ChurchCrunch.
Apparently breast cancer awareness week is a movable feast. It happens whenever somebody decides that Facebook hasn’t had enough “awareness raising”… this time round it’s not quite as innuendo laden as the last few years. Women are being asked to put a vegetable as their status.
This one is pretty dumb, so it hasn’t caught on with the same gusto that the others have…
But, in case you’re wondering, this is what they mean.
Blueberry: I’m single
Pineapple its complicated
Raspberry: Im a touch and go woman
Apple: Engaged
Cherry: In a relationship
Cucumber: I just had sex!
Banana: Im married
Avocado: Im the “other one”
Strawberry: Cant find the right one
Lemon: Wish i was single
Grape: wants to get married.
How this relates to breast cancer is just completely beyond me. I think people just want to launch a meme, so they tack a popular cause onto it, say “this is a secret, don’t tell any men” and then release it into the wild.
I’ve made my opinion on this kind of “awareness raising” pretty clear previously, at least this one is relatively free of gutter level innuendo, but please. Just stop. It was funny (almost) once, it was hackneyed the second time, and now it’s just ridiculous. Why don’t we try just talking openly and honestly about breast cancer rather than copy and pasting for a cause or engaging in this “lets not talk about the elephant in the room” style of drumming up awareness for your cause.
Gary posted this the other day, it also goes nicely with my rant the other day about annoying status updates.
We spend so much time cultivating our image online. But everybody knows the truth. Which is why I prefer to look like the guy on the right (at least that’s how I hope you think I look, metaphorically speaking).
I am really a 6’3 tall, athletic polymath. So there. My profile doesn’t lie. Well, I am tall.
From Comical Concept.
Sometimes I need to clear the thirty tabs I have open in my browser and I can’t be bothered posting them separately. This is one of those times, and it reflects on me, not on the content of these links that you should read.
There’s a rumour that floats around the Internet every now and then that Facebook is responsible for one in five divorces these days as people rediscover old flames. This rumour is just that. A rumour. The Wall Street Journal kills it.
“The 1-in-5 number originated with an executive at an online divorce-service provider in the U.K. Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online, which allows Britons to file uncontested divorces at low cost, had just launched the company’s Facebook page and wondered what role Facebook has in precipitating divorces. After determining that the word “Facebook” appeared in 989 of the company’s 5,000 or so most recent divorce petitions, he had Divorce-Online issue a news release in December 2009 stating “Facebook is bad for your marriage.”
Mr. Keenan acknowledges that his company’s clients aren’t necessarily representative of all divorces, and he adds that his firm never claimed that Facebook actually causes 20% of divorces. “It was a very unscientific survey,” Mr. Keenan says.
Elsewhere, Clayboy (a newie for me) has two must read posts about the new atheists – the first about the conformity of “free thinker” thinking, as demonstrated by a magazine called The Freethinker, the second about whether Christians can value atheism.
“I might even ponder whether the award for secularist of the year (apparently a “prestigious” one – who knew?) reflects this. The winner is not Salman Taseer, the nominee who was assassinated for opposing the Pakistan blasphemy laws mainly aimed at Christians, but Dutch Euro MP Sophie in ’t Veld who, er …, bravely organised a protest against the Pope.
I am somewhat underwhelmed in my admiration for such a courageous achievement advancing the cause of rational civilisation.”
Slate says the lack of looting in Japan is down to the Yakuza. Which is pretty cool.
“Organized crime. Police aren’t the only ones on patrol since the earthquake hit. Members of the Yakuza, Japan’s organized crime syndicate, have also been enforcing order. All three major crime groups—the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Sumiyoshi-kai, and the Inagawa-kai—have “compiled squads to patrol the streets of their turf and keep an eye out to make sure looting and robbery doesn’t occur,” writes Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, in an e-mail message. “The Sumiyoshi-kai claims to have shipped over 40 tons of [humanitarian aid] supplies nationwide and I believe that’s a conservative estimate.” One group has even opened its Tokyo offices to displaced Japanese and foreigners who were stranded after the first tremors disabled public transportation. “As one Sumiyoshi-kai boss put it to me over the phone,” says Adelstein, ” ‘In times of crisis, there are not Yakuza and civilians or foreigners. There are only human beings and we should help each other.’ ” Even during times of peace, the Yakuza enforce order, says Adelstein. They make their money off extortion, prostitution, and drug trafficking. But they consider theft grounds for expulsion.”
Elsewhere, I’ve been taking part in an increasingly lengthy discussion about gay marriage on the solapanel.
Five Senses Coffee offers a great diagnosis guide for figuring out what is wrong with your espresso. Well worth a read if you think your coffee could be better.
First Things has a good list for engaging with people in the online world. Especially for responding to people you don’t know who disagree with you.
“The manner of your answer will affect your inquirer more than its content. You are often, as far as you can tell, trying only to encourage him to hear the answer, to open a crack in his defenses that might over time open into a door. Hope and pray that you are only one—perhaps the first, but perhaps not—in a series of encounters that will bring him to see the truth. You do not need to win the argument to change his life.”
You should be reading Things Findo Thinks – I haven’t linked to it for a while, but Findo seems much more interested in engaging the nu-atheists than I presently am, so if you want your fix of fallacy busting, head there. Try this post about arguments from authority on for size. It’ll help you avoid bad arguments about your arguments.
It’s iPad 2 week this week. And luckily my wife is going to let me buy one. Unlike this guy in the states, who allegedly had to return his iPad because his wife said no. At least that was the reason he gave on the post-it note that went to the store, that was passed on to Apple Corporate, who may or may not have sent back the iPad with a note reading “Apple says yes”… brilliant if true.
The plural for status is statii. Right? Anyway. I was talking to my buddy Mike. I have many buddies named Mike. And I won’t tell you which one he is. It’ll be more fun, and safer, that way.
There are two types of status updates on Facebook that are guaranteed to raise my ire, three types that I will respond to in anger. Well, passive aggressive snarkiness. Four that make my ears steam. Let me count the ways. Oh Facebooker.
This post should not be read as a personal indictment if you are the sort of person who does this. And if you’re reading this thinking that I’m writing about you specifically, I may well be, but I do love you, and I only want what’s best for you. Think of it as a Public Service Announcement that will hopefully help me to keep on liking you.
My hot wife says this post is a preachy know-it-all rant that makes it sound like I’m some sort of social media guru. I’m not, I’m just Joe Average. Your typical Facebook friend. But I have a blog. A voice. A platform. And I’m happy to use it to tell you what Joe Average is thinking, or at least what I’m thinking. And that’s loving. Isn’t it?
Here are the types of Facebookers that get my goat. And if you’re one of them – feel free to come back at me in the comments.
1. The “Facebook is out to get you” Rumour Miller.
Facebook is a company that makes money by selling its user base to advertisers. Deal with it. If you want to use the platform then you need to get with the program. You are the commodity. You are not the customer (unless you buy ads). Sometimes Facebook will change the way they do business. Businesses do that. They announce these changes. It’s not hard. If you hear a nasty rumour about how Facebook is out to get you and exploit you – it may well be true. But please go to google.com or snopes.com and do a little research. Just copy and paste your chain-letter style status update into google and see what comes up. Chances are it’ll be a hoax. 90% of the time it is. 9% of the time its something that some conspiracy nut has blown out of proportion – and the other 1% of the time Facebook is doing something to make a bit more money. That’s its job. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Two friends, possibly connected by mutual friends, who knows – posted the same status update tonight about a change Facebook made two years ago. A change that wasn’t even really a change, and certainly wasn’t the kind of change this conspiracy laden status suggested it was. Sure. Facebook is going to show you if your friends like or interact with a particular brand or advertisement. Newsflash. This is a social network.
2. The Megachurch Wannabe.
I get it. You are the minister, assistant minister, or student minister at a fantastic church. And you want your church to get Facebook attention. We all do. But this stuff sounds better if other people are talking about it. Not the person who is paid to. Here are some secrets. Nobody likes the overly pious memory verse machine. They get hidden. Nobody likes the walking church bulletin who advertises an event every time they open their mouth. You are not Mark Driscoll. You are not John Piper. You are you. Be you. Let Piper be Piper. Let Driscoll be Driscoll (or point out how bizarre his stream of status updates can be and get lots of hits on your blog). A stream of Piper imitators in one’s status feed is annoying and it dilutes the effectiveness of the original.
Don’t talk too much about your awesome prayer life, sermon, Bible Study, worship session, Bible reading, quiet time, anything a bit jargony that is going to make others feel inadequate or your non-Christian friends and family think you’ve joined a cult. Sure. We all want our non-Christian friends to read our statii and know we are ruled by the Lord Jesus. But not posting drunken pictures on Facebook will help with that impression, as will myriad other things. And a couple of updates per day or week, in proportion to updates about what you are actually thinking or doing would be fine. Thankyou.
There are a few subsets of the megachurch wannabe that almost became special categories in this rant. Don’t spread Christian chain status updates about how we want a million people to like Jesus on Facebook, or how if you don’t make something your status for an hour it means you don’t love God. I won’t copy your status. Almost ever. As a general rule. I don’t want to be some sort of status quoting robot. And I love God. I’m sure there are others like me.
The Christian superparent/superspouse. I get it. Your wife is hot. Your daughters are amazing and daddy date worthy (there’s an incredible cringe factor to that term). Your sons are growing up to be real men of God. That’s great. Show us some photos. That’s what Facebook is for. Tell us you’re proud of them. But don’t keep telling me how hot your wife is, or about your plans for an amazing daddy date (seriously. Creepy). We know you love your family.
If you do want to plant a megachurch just follow these ten steps to success.
3. The Oversharer.
I’ve been over this before. But it just keeps happening. Let me state this clearly. As clearly as possible, and with as much love as I can muster.
I DO NOT WANT TO READ ABOUT THE POO YOUR CHILD JUST DID.
Ever. And your child doesn’t want to google themselves one day and find out that their potty training produced wonderful shapes. Nor that they had a poosplosion on the carpet. In fact. Nobody wants to know. Especially if one day they are going to visit your house and sit on the chair that was once covered by infant defecation. We get that you love your child and that parenting can be a funny and frustrating process. But you don’t need to rub our virtual noses in it.
As a general rule most people don’t want to read about the minutiae of your daily life. There’s a point where enough information crosses over into too much information. Why straddle that line? Why not stay metres away from it. But try not to be so vague you’re completely boring too. That’s too far.
4. The Grammar Pest.
I’ve saved this one until last because it’s actually the one I find most annoying. I cringe at bad grammar, and bad spelling. I don’t understand how, with the advent of the in-browser spell check, anybody can post gibberish in their statii anymore. It’s not that hard. Come on people.
But. To publicly correct somebody, unless they are a professional proof-reader and you are their colleague, is just mean spirited and almost only ever designed to make the one doing the correcting look good. And it doesn’t. Nobody is buying what you’re selling. Nobody. We all see through it. People hated you as a child and scribbled on your face with red pen. We get it. Now there’s a grammar sized chip on your shoulder and you feel the need to make your contribution to every conversation a comment about somebody else’s mistake. Good for you. You will die alone. But your will will be immaculate. Error free. Leaving everything to your 18 cats.
People make mistakes. If you love them you should tell them in private. Not shout it out for the world to see. And if you do that – you better make sure that you cross every t, dot every i and catch every rogue apostrophe before hitting enter. Because if you don’t – I’m watching you. And I’m coming for you. Don’t be a grammar hypocrite for a moment. Grammar Pharisee is probably a better name for these people than grammar nazi – communication is about the spirit, not about the law. Shakespeare taught us that. As did anybody else who deliberately broke a rule for the sake of better writing. Because everybody likes to see a bully get their comeuppance.
I like this. But at some point infographic/flowchart jokes based on Facebook are going to get old and everything that can be said about it will be said about it. Right?
Via 22 Words.
Mikey posted a bunch of reflections on the web and ministry the other day in a stream of consciousness bullet point diatribe. They’re tips that are worth reading – and a good perspective from somebody who is in ministry and thinking about how technology can be used as a platform for the gospel and for building relationships.
Blogs are definitely different now Part 1
Blogs are definitely changing now Part 2
Blogs are definitely changing Part 3
Blogs are definitely changing Part 4
Blogs are definitely changing Part 5
Once you’ve finished reading those and you’re all depressed about the internet and stuff…
I’ve recently started using Twitter heaps more. It seemed all I needed was a better app on my iPhone and the new Mac app. You can follow me @nm_campbell if you like. Let me know if you’re a Twit too.
I’m also getting close to having 100 fans on Facebook. Which is cool. I’ve started using that Facebook page to share links that I maybe once upon a time would have posted here (and possibly eventually will). These links appear on the top right of the blog proper, so if you’re a feed reader I suggest you join the masses and “like” St. Eutychus.
If you are a feed reader you might have noticed a bunch of new links on the bottom of feed items – these come courtesy of feedburner – you can now click a few different links to share stuff you like where you like. Isn’t that exciting. I like it when people share the stuff I’ve found. It somehow legitimises the time I waste on the Internet. So please do it.
And, I’ve installed a theme that I paid for (called Standard Theme) on my coffee blog and Venn Theology. I’m trying to decide whether or not to install it here too. Check them out. Especially my coffee blog – thebeanstalker.com. I’m pretty happy with it.
That is all.
These infographics are a dime a dozen. But this is yet another reason that if you’re trying to sell a product, or an idea, you need to figure out how to use Facebook well to engage your potential customers/audience.
My friend Steve Tran is a pretty top photographer, bloke, and coffee drinker. He wrote this post about Facebook photo albums that is worth thinking about if you’re the type of person who puts photos on Facebook. Like everything else in the world that’s good – he subscribes to a less is more philosophy of sorts. Read it.
He took this photo of me that I like so much I turned it into the background for my new about.me profile.
Here’s the reciprocal photo I took at the same time…
If Steve wanted to guest blog his photography tips from a presentation he did on our Toowoomba mission earlier this year I reckon that would be pretty worthwhile. Maybe I’ll ask him in this paragraph.
My parents are on Facebook. Are yours? I had no problem friending mine. My theory on privacy is “don’t do anything in public you don’t want God/your parents finding out about”…
But for those of you not so comfortable with your parents tracking your every escapade, I give you:
From Cool Material.
This is a nice little visualisation of Facebook connections around the planet. All the lines on the map are created by connections between people (the brighter the line the more friendships exist along that axis.).
Going social with Facebook Comments
Hey. You can now comment on posts here using Facebook commenting. Check it out. You’ll love it. Or maybe you won’t. For those of you who still don’t have Facebook the traditional commenting options are still available… Try it, and let me know.
Also. Almost 100 people (99 at the moment) like St. Eutychus on Facebook. Are you one of them?
March 2, 2011