Every time Facebook changes anything on their site, there is a complete uproar from users about how terrible the new features are. And, as I’m sure you’re all aware, the more changes they make, the more annoying posts you see about it and the more tours you have to take to get your bearings on the updates and make sure everyone and their dog can’t see your profile.
But what if this happened in real life? ExtremelyDecentFilms explored the idea in their new video and I have to say, it’s pretty spot on. Watch to see what happens when an unsuspecting guy returns from grocery shopping to find his home has been “updated” – without his consent.
Honestly, this video captures so accurately my feelings towards Facebook and it’s constant changes – they never actually fix an identifiable problem, but somehow manage to create ten more. I think for sanity’s sake we should all just stick to Twitter.
There seems to be some unsaid rules about 21st century relationships that happen to live on social media.
According to social media, Facebook wants to know everything about your relationship. It wants to know when you’re having issues in your relationships, and it wants to know how much you miss your significant other. Therefore, statuses like “Missing you” or “thinking about you” are apparently mandatory and will consequently annoy the hell out of your friends.
Twitter kindly asks that in 140 characters or less you quote cute things your significant other says in order to remind the world you are in a relationship. (Just don’t forget to hashtag #cuterelationshipthings)
Also, follow back or it’s over.
It’s hard to imagine Tumblr as part of this social media relationship how-to guide, but lo, it is. Post often, and reblog from your significant others regularly to show how much you love and care about them. I mean, you could take the anonymous route as you chronicle the ups and downs of your relationship in a top secret Tumblr, while at the same time, taking some unsolicited advice from the blogging community. It’s just not advisable, especially if your significant other finds said blog. Relationship=over.
But just in case you have a little difficulty in navigating the murky waters of modern day relationships,
HERE ARE THE KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIP VIA SOCIAL MEDIA:
Reblogging means that the love is real
No relationship is real until it is Facebook official
Public confessions of love on your Facebook wall are absolutely necessary (just don’t listen to your exasperated friends. Who cares what the haters say, amirite?)
Do not move on from any obstacle in a relationship before informing Facebook
Every social media platform has their own set of unspoken rules. Asides from proper social media etiquette, there’s also an unspoken understanding of things we fear the most while we enjoy our favourite website. Lost followers? Cries. They aren’t real? Dammit, Justin Bieber must know my pain (more than half of his followers aren’t real).
Here are just some of the things we fear while we scroll through our favourite sites:
1. Tumblr: looking at porn while scrolling through your dashboard
Scrolling through your dashboard in public is like the digital Russian Roulette because there’s always that one person you follow who likes to randomly reblog porn. Not only do you feel like a perv because it appears right between gif sets of cute cats and Benedict Cumberbatch, but also because you know everyone around you can see your screen.
2. Facebook: Accused of Stalking
While Miley Cyrus’ relationship is rumored to be on the outs, she doesn’t let drama faze her as she twerks while wearing a Unicorn onesie in this new video.
The video, which was originally posted on her Facebook page, shows Miley dancing (twerking or woping, let’s pretend we know the difference) to “WOP” by J Dash featuring Flo Rida. Damn, who knew Miley could dance?
Secretsupernatural on Tumblr is on to something. She just had to wonder what happens when you googled Nicholas Cage and Tumblr. For a reference, here’s what you get when you simple Google Nicolas Cage:
And here’s what she got when she googled Nicolas Cage + Tumblr:
Best thing ever, right?
Well, as the inquiring journalists that we are, we just had to see what comes up when you google Nicolas Cage and any other website. Here’s what we found.
1. Nicolas Cage and Facebook
2. Nicolas Cage and Instagram
As far as deals go, I’d say $200 is a pretty low price to pay for someone deactivating their Facebook account for five months — even if you’re 14-years old.
Boston’s Rachel Baier signed a “Facebook Deactivation Agreement” with her father. The contract states if she remains off the Facebook grid from Feb. 4 to June 26 3013 then her dad will pay her $200. If she lasts until April 15, she’ll still get $50. She even gave her dad the password to her account so he could change the password and deactivate it.
Her dad, Paul Baier, posted the photo on his blog Practical Sustainability.
There’s a bit of disagreement in the ANDPOP office over whether $200 would be worth the five month hiatus. Would you do it?
It’s hard to find a new roommate. We’ve all been there. Someone’s going on exchange, moving home, or just decides they don’t want to live with you anymore. Most of us head to Facebook or Craigslist and put up a short ad explaining why we’re awesome, then cross out fingers and hope whoever responds is not a serial killer/rapist/owner of a strange smelling pet.
Jonathan Mann had the same idea, but took it up a notch. He decided that the best way to show how truly spectacular he and his apartment are was through his channel on YouTube (he writes a song a day – this is #1492). The song explains anything you would want to know about the living space, and while he may not be a great dancer, he seems like he would be a pretty funny roommate. Although I’m not 100 per cent sure if the ad will attract more or less weirdos than any other medium.
Mann is writing a song everyday — previously he even announced his break up via YouTube.
Like many other fresh-faced youths that have been so mercilessly pushed out into the real world, I have discovered one of the most important business tool you can have is a business card. They’re not only for entering yourself for a chance to win a free drink at your local Starbucks, they also come in handy for making connections and contacts.
During my own research on how to best use that little itty bit of cardstock, I came across some alternative uses. Who knew that business cards were perfect for:
Telling someone they suck at parking:
Giving emotional support when you yourself happen to be emotionally distant:
Pretending you’re someone else:
Letting others know that they’re inappropriately dressed:
and most importantly, reminding others exactly who you are:
There’s a debate going on in our ANDPOP office: Is it inspiring or depressing that this dude’s crush is going to sleep with him after he got one million Facebook likes? Norway’s Petter Kverneng, 20, made a deal with his 19-year-old crush that he’s known since high school that if he got one million people to like the photo above on Facebook then she’d sleep with him.
The two friends were hanging out with a group when the conversation shifted to those two young girls who got their parents to buy them a dog after getting one million Facebook likes. They started brainstorming ideas of things they’d do in similar circumstances and they eventually settled on sex.
What started as a joke resulted in more than a million likes in 18 hours. Kverneng told the media: “It began as a joke, but now we’ll take it seriously… We must of course keep what we promise.” Of COURSE he’d say that.
The whole thing reflects how quickly things can go viral on the Internet. While it’s pretty dexterous of him to make the deal, I think it’s kind of depressing that they’d leave their sex lives in the dangerous hands of Internet trolls.
Facebook used to be THE place to connect with friends, share photos and invite people to events, however, with the hella-crazy rise of other mediums like Instagram (which, technically Facebook now owns), Twitter and Pinterest, a lot of people are all “Facebook pages are sooo old school.”
New technology dies out faster than Taylor Swift’s latest relationship — think back to when MySpace, MSN or ICQ was the sh*t (stumped you with the last one didn’t I?). Now we’re starting to wonder if Facebook is next…
Of course, Facebook is trying to keep up to date, announcing today that they’ll offer a new social search feature. Now you’ll be able to internally search for things like “friends from Japan” or “photos I took in NYC” in a graph search bar.
Buzzfeed found a bunch of teens who claim they don’t use Facebook anymore and while I’m skeptical, you gotta wonder if Facebook is going to stick around forever or if another site will conquer it in the next couple years.
Do you still use Facebook or do you think it’s dying out?
10 teens who aren’t using Facebook anymore:
Have you ever wondered if you’re bothering your social media circle? Do you constantly refresh your page hoping to get a new notification? If you’re anything like our staff, you’re probably friends with the type of people we’re talking about. This week ANDPOP weighs in on the most annoying social media platform of all. We all have grievances with Facebook but what about the people on it?
Feel free to post this to your own Facebook page if you want to send a passive aggressive message to that special someone in your news feed. Happy creeping!
Oh! And what are the most annoying things your friends do on Facebook?
Fans of electronic dance music were baffled at the inclusion of an unknown performer in the Best Dance Recording category for the 55th annual Grammys. Nominated among Avicii’s “Levels,” Calvin Harris and Ne-Yo’s “Let’s Go” and Skrillex and Sirah’s “Bangarang,” was Al Walser’s ”I Can’t Live Without You.” HUH? Considering the calibre of the artists nominated it was surprising that a relative unknown was included… especially after you watch the quality of his music video.
Walser’s Facebook page currently has 1586 likes (compared to the millions for his competitors) and up until this morning at 6 am, the two official versions of his YouTube music video had fewer than 7000 views combined, according to Spin.
There were a few other disappointments last night when the Grammy nominations were revealed. including snubs for One Direction and Justin Bieber. Of course, there were some class acts that got nominated (including Mumford and Sons) but then there were a few questionable nods.
Something seems fishy about this particular one. Do you think he deserved to be nominated or his he the Rebecca Black of dance music?
Watch his music video here
I was a bit skeptical when Instagram sold its business to Facebook for a billion dollars. But apparently, CEO Kevin Systrom thinks otherwise.
When asked about his decision to sell his popular photo-sharing service to the biggest social network on the planet, Systrom certainly showed that he had no regrets despite wanting to sell his company for TWO billion dollars.
Well, like he said…sh*t happens. But personally, something tells me that this reaction is partly masking his disappointment. He probably wanted more money out of the sale!!
A couple days ago Jimmy Kimmel released some a mashup of the best responses he received for the third annual “UnFriend Day.” He encouraged people to unfriend someone on Facebook and explain why they were getting the old boot in a YouTube video. Reasons ranged from annoying status updates, constantly changing relationships statuses and duck face (nothing is worse).
Kimmel got so many responses he decided to release a sequel to the first video, featuring even more of the hilarious responses he got.
What do you think is the most annoying thing to do on Facebook?
Watch it here
Today is the third annual “UnFriend Day”, the special day in which you unfriend all of the acquaintances or annoying people on your Facebook page.
Jimmy Kimmel, also known as the talk show host who puts you up to take on challenging and embarrassing tasks, asked some of his viewers to video tape them unfriending some of the people that annoy them the most.
And while I think this is just a bit cruel to those unfriended, I’d have to say that it’s not like they didn’t deserve it.
That being said, who are you going to unfriend?
What did people do before they had the internet? This week our team discusses the ever-changing and complicated world of technology and it’s effects on relationships. Is it normal to dump someone in 140 characters or less? As much as we hate to admit it, smart phones have really messed up the way we interact with one another. There’s so much more subtext and code to decipher in a one-word text message. More importantly, we also talk about sexting and how people get busy on their phones.
Want to see Rihanna perform a PRIVATE SHOW at a secret location in Toronto? Think of it: Just you, a bunch of journalists and the fierce, incomparable being that is RiRi.
It’s easy! Here’s what you need to do
1. Like our Facebook page to have access to the contest form.
2. Complete the contest form (available here). You’ll be asked general information.
Once everyone has entered, we’ll select the winners.
Contest deadline: Nov. 14, 2012
**Contest is open to everyone in Canada, excluding Quebec. We will not provide transportation.**
A few men of the world just lost their childhood innocence after watching this video. The “CEO” of Bodyform made “Bodyform Responds :: The Truth” to burst that thin and glittering veil of lies that a happy period exists. It doesn’t.
But what sparked this glorious rant? A sweet, naive man name Richard made this post on Bodyform’s facebook wall, claiming he has been lied to his whole life about periods. He then described his menstruating girlfriend, aka the “little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin.” That’s not an exaggeration at all.
The best part of the video? The ultimate truth that’s revealed at the end — women fart too. I know, it’s scary stuff.
Kristen Stewart’s life has already been under much media attention through her high profile relationship with Rob Pattinson and most recently, an affair with director Rupert Sanders.
Not wanting to add more to that, she reveals why she’s unwilling to join social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook in fear that people will find out where she is.
“Nowadays it’s harder because everyone is on Facebook and everyone knows where you are all the time, and everyone’s twittering,” she is quoted as saying in an extract from new e-book by Talia Soghomonian called “Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner – In Their Own Words.”
“Like I’m going to die because somebody is going to say where I am and somebody is going to kill me. Someone’s going to twitter my location and then it’s going to be like, boom.”
But while the actress is scared that social networking sites can affect her safety, she does admit that the communication possibilities on the webpages can be “really great.”
“I actually think too much of anything can be scary, but at the same time it’s also an opportunity,” she added. ”I mean mass communication is a good thing. It’s actually a really great thing, it’s just scary.”
You know what, Kristen? I think this is a valid fear to have. With the attention you’ve been getting lately, I don’t think you deserve to have any more stress. And kudos, for your self control. With technology booming these days, it’s as if people have their smartphones glued to their hands!
Spoiler aside, our hearts broke last Thursday when Glee favourites Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) broke up after Blaine admitted to cheating when he felt lonely and hurt.
But while it may all seem like bad news in this fandom, Criss insists that there is some good out of the sad storyline. In fact, he wants to thank the fans.
In a heartfelt letter posted on his Facebook page, Criss expressed his appreciation at how much support he got for playing one of the show’s breakout stars. Letting us in on his early days of singing in cafes and open mic nights, he said being cast on Glee changed his life.
In fact, he says he owes much of this success to social media.
“We live in an unprecedented age of social connectivity, and I am happy to say that none of you have failed to take full advantage of that. Don’t think I’m not aware of how active the fandom is, or how much impact it has,” he wrote. “Remember: Not only am I fan myself, but I do have an internet connection. I see the gifs, I see the fanfics, I see the memes, and it’s all amazing stuff. Though I haven’t met the majority of you, it’s a real thrill to know that many of your lives have come together on behalf of mine.”
What’s even more humbling about this letter, is the fact that Criss revealed that a certain Katy Perry song was covered once more to thank his supporters.
So sweet and down to earth. There’s honestly nothing better than an beautiful encore performance.
