Facebook Platitudes, Jokes and Smart Things

Facebook can be a fascinating space.  Facebook can also be a bore.  I am always disappointed by friends who post wall updates that are copied and pasted from other sources.

Oftentimes, Facebook wall updates are misbegotten, sometimes funny, but rarely smart.  Here are some actual examples culled from Facebook updates posted by some of my friends:

MISBEGOTTEN:

Here’s an obviously copied and pasted update.  We’ve heard it before.  It reeks of the ordinary and the silly:

Stop living life for what’s around the corner and start enjoying the walk down the street.

Here’s another pasted example from the same blossom:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.

Ugh!  Why bother posting a treacly updates like that?

There are Facebook applications you can use to “update” your wall throughout the day with trite platitudes — and quite a few people use them.  You don’t even have to write the update.  The application does all the thinking for you.  I find it sort of sad and funny when others “Like” and comment on those robot postings.

FUNNY:

This update makes you stop and think a bit before the punchline.  The humor is organic and it builds as you read along:

Why is it that all instruments created to find “intelligent life” are pointed “AWAY” from Earth?

You can see this next joke coming a foot away — but that anticipation gives it a certain, pleasureful, private release — by sticking it to a pubic wall:

A pharmaceutical truck was robbed today, all of the Viagra was stolen, the police have asked the public to be on the lookout for a group of hardened criminals!

SMART:

Rarely you tumble over a wall update that stops you.  That’s a good thing to think for a moment.  Giving credit to the original thinker is always a sweet surprise:

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block. ~ Henri Paul Gauguin

Here’s another shot in mind:

The sum of the universe is equal to the subtraction of its mediocre parts.

Okay, I wrote the last one just now because I couldn’t find a lot of “smart” examples to use in this article, so I tried to create one.  I didn’t post that update on Facebook — though I will now to make this real (wait two seconds, okay, done!) — and while that update may seem pretentious or copied from a book of quotations, I can promise you I wrote it on my own, so it at least has the air of originality.  We’ll see if I get any Facebook Likes or Comments.

There’s a fine line between stupid and inspirational when it comes to publishing Facebook updates, and we all owe it to each other to only post things that have direct meaning and a clear intention beyond us.

Think after your fingers speak!  Ask yourself before touching that “Share” button if you are saying something Memeingful, or if you are just making more noise that others will ignore?