#8 - Facebook Sucks 05/31/18

Facebook is the worst. It's like a virtual drug. Nothing good comes from it, but it's insanely hard to quit....

I had logged out of Facebook years ago. I shut down my account and got on with my life. It was so good......And then I got into comedy, and sadly realized that the best way to stay in touch with other comics and bookers, is Facebook. God dammit....

When I went to sign up for a new Facebook account, I found out that they keep your old account tucked away. Like a fucking drug dealer that doesn't delete you from his phone after you stop using, just in case you come crawling back someday. I reactivated it, and everything was just as I'd left it. Clever bastards...

And the thing is, Facebook actually does work pretty well for booking and communicating. Frankly, I have no idea how people got booked in comedy before it existed, haha. And it can be fun. I try new jokes out on there sometimes, because it's easier to bomb by not getting any "likes" than it is to stand in front of a room of strangers and not get any laughs. Seeing pictures of people's kids and dogs is fun sometimes, too.

But that's where the list of good stuff about Facebook stops. A majority of the time I spend on that stupid app is used to watch dumb videos, or look at "Can You Solve It?" puzzles (that I can either solve, or that I think are stupid), or scrolling past "Share this if you agree" posts about why Trudeau sucks, or......well, you get the idea....

And the thing that pisses me off about it most, is that I can't quit it. In a perfect world, I'd pop into Facebook once or twice a day. I'd use it to occasionally check in with friends/family I don't see often, stay in touch with comedians, and promote shows (which doesn't work, by the way). 

(Photo credit to Andy Stidham of the 'Comedy Complaints" Facebook group)

But instead, I'm on there every 15 minutes. I scroll through, think about how stupid Facebook is, and then a minute later I'm checking it again. I can't stop. We all can't! (The ones of you that have managed to kick the habit, please never come back. You're our only hope). Twitter, Instagram, all the other modes of social media out there, none of them seem nearly as useless as Facebook. It's become the Wal-Mart of the internet. 

And that's not even touching on how Zuckerberg is selling our information to the aliens or whoever he's giving it to. It's not a popular take, but I don't particularly care about what he's doing with our information. Frankly, if you thought you could post all of your personal info on some public website, and nobody would ever use it, I think you need to get better at internetting. I just don't post anything I don't want the aliens (or whoever Zuckerberg is working with) to have access to on my Facebook page. (However, if they want to come to one of my comedy shows, there's a link in the event page I created!)

Facebook is, reluctantly, a necessary evil in my life. But I hate it. I hate it so very, very much.

Now, how many of you found this blog post via the link I shared on Facebook? 

Adam