I’m not even 30 yet, and I’m becoming a grumpy old man.
Facebook is mostly to blame, I think.
If you happen to be on Facebook, you know just how aggravating it can be at times. Sure, it’s nice to see what your friends and colleagues are doing, staying in touch with friends you’ve met online and might not actually ever meet in person.
But then you have the spammers.
Only they’re not really spammers, at least in the traditional sense of the word. If you’re a writer and you have a lot of writer friends on Facebook, you know exactly what I mean. These are the people who seem to think success is dictated by just how many “friends” they have, or how many people have become “fans” of their work. Or if we’re talking the world of Twitter, success for them is how many followers they have.
I don’t mind when people pimp their stuff on Facebook. It’s expected. But when pimping is all they do, each and every day, it becomes rather redundant. The first writer I ended up hiding was someone who constantly updated their status asking people to go check out his story at such-and-such a place. It was a bit much, but when he had a status that said something along the lines that his grandmother had just passed away and he had written a poem about her and would love for everyone to read it, I felt enough was enough (and no, I’m not exaggerating about that at all — this writer really posted that).
But the constant status updates begging people to read their work or buy their books is one thing.
Receiving constant event or fan invitations is another.
The way Facebook is set up (at least the way I find it set up) is that the very first time someone sends you an invitation for anything, there is an option to ignore all future invites from that friend. If you don’t click on that, then you’re screwed. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to get it back, so what happens is that particular friend is now free to keep bombarding you with invitations for things you probably have never heard of nor care to ever learn anything about.
I’ve found that certain writers are the worst at this. Almost every other day I would receive an invitation to become someone’s “fan.” Again, it’s that sad idea that the more “friends” and “fans” they have, the more successful they are. Keep in mind I’m not faulting them completely. I know how hard it is for a writer or for any artist to get their work looked at. As writers we all want to be read, but the problem is finding readers to read our work. So we put our work out there, hoping people will read it and like it enough to search out more of our work … or we bombard the readers with our work, hoping to wear them down to the point that they have no choice but to relent and learn to like us.
A few weeks back I kept getting invitations from a particular “friend” to become a fan of a particular journal. I kept ignoring them. This particular “friend” kept sending them. Finally I’d had enough. I decided to “unfriend” (the word of the year, didn’t you know) this person, but first wanted to make sure that they knew they were being unfriended, and why. So like a jerk I tagged them in my update status that I was happy to have unfriended so-and-so for sending an obscene amount of fan invites in a short amount of time.
Later that night I received this private message from the person:
Since you tagged me in a note and then unfriended me so I couldn’t read it, I’m assuming you’re talking about me and my journal.
I figured since you friended me in the first place (even though you’ve never met me), that you were a writer or interested in writing, as that is the vast majority of who my facebook friends are.
I thought you might be interested in my journal, XXXXXXX, as something to read or as a place to submit your work.
I’m sorry if my fanpage requests bothered you. I don’t know if you know this, but facebook doesn’t tell you when or if someone turns down an invitation; if I knew you weren’t interested I wouldn’t have sent the request. You could have written to me and I would have stopped sending.
Best wishes,
XXXXXXX
When I received this it was late Saturday night and I was out with some friends at a bar. I’d had a couple drinks, and I was pretty furious. Because see, I had never friended this person, just as I told them in this reply, tapping away at my phone, my thumbs frantic:
For starters, I never friended you. I know this for a fact because I don’t even know you. When people send me friend requests and we have mutual friends I accept thinking it won’t be a big deal. But then when you keep sending fan requests, it gets tiresome. My suggestion is when someone sends you a friend request, you send them a private message saying thanks and inviting them to become a fan of your journal. That way people who want to become a fan can become a fan without receiving countless requests.Take care,Robert
See, this person had over 1,000 friends — something like 2,000 friends, I believe. Which, if you think about it, is a ridiculous amount. Sure, not if you’re a really major author and a lot of people love your work and keep sending you friend requests, but if you are the one sending friend requests just to up the number of friends you have … not so much. And this particular person was one of those, sending friend requests to anybody who would accept them, and then asking them to become a fan of their journal.
So what have we learned here? My time on Facebook might be coming to an end, as it’s turning me into a grumpy old man (or rather grumpy young man). I’ve learned from now on though not to accept friend requests from people who already have over 1,000 friends. That’s more than enough, and they don’t need one more.
Again, I don’t really fault these people. They’re just trying to promote their work. Everyone is different, and everyone responds differently to things, but that constant in-your-face-marketing just isn’t for me. Personally, it doesn’t make me want to read your work. If anything, it makes me remember your name so that if I ever do pass by something you’ve written, I’ll immediately skip over it.
But like I said, that’s just me.
Yours truly,
GYM (grumpy young man)
Oh I hear ya! I think it’s very cool that you responded to this person actually, it might make them more aware in the future. I use my FB regularly to stay in touch with a mixture of online writers, real life friends, work colleagues, family, and so on. I feel a bit creeped out by the silent people who never comment but potentially can read all about my life, but worse is the writer/collector. The one who has a gazillion friends and is constantly searching for more names to add and who see it as nothing more than an advertising tool and ram their book/writing down my throat, invite me to fangirl them, worship at the alter of their words, and yet never once seem to comment on anybody else’s writing.
Facebook is cool for linking to work and promoting ourselves as writers, but sheez, there is a line that some cross. I find writing rather lonely at times and love that I can log in and interact with some incredibly talented and lovely people. That’s why FB won’t be “over” for me, but a friends cull may well be on the way.
Nice essay, Robert. I unfriended the individual in question for the same reason, under the same circumstances (I was friended by this person too). I don’t use Facebook as a marketing tool, but rather, to keep in touch with old friends and family members. Like you, many of my friends happen to be writers too, and I get a lot of friend requests from writers I’ve never met or heard of, and fans of my work.
I do have a fan page now, but that’s only at the insistence of my wife who convinced me I shouldn’t ignore all the FB requests from strangers and that I should at least create a space for them on FB. I relented, and when I receive a friend request from a stranger now, I accept it, but I also send them one, count ‘em one, invitation to join my fan page. The person in question is also placed in a secured list in my private page (they can’t see much of anything, including my friends list, photos, wall posts, personal info, etc…which makes sense…why anyone would think its okay for a total strangers to look at pictures of you and your family or other personal information is beyond me). I have also started unfriending strangers who have have ungodly amounts of friends (1000 +) for the reasons you so eloquently described above.
And since I know you and we aren’t hooked up yet on Facebook, look out for a friend request from me sometime. Unlike those total strangers, I won’t ask you to join my fan page!
JFG
Excellent post, Rob. I whole heartedly agree. In fact, I recently cancelled my facebook account because the emails and fan/friend requests were driving me insane. I wouldn’t get anything done if I sat reading all that stuff everyday. I don’t know how people do it? I don’t even know WHY they do it? My agent slapped me on the wrist for doing it, saying I should have a facebook account and although I know she is totally correct I just haven’t felt any desire to go back on there. I probably will restart a new account, and maybe try figure out something like J. F. Gonzalez just described. I understand the importance of networking online, but in honesty – as you know – it can be a pain in the ass.
Cheers,
Gord
Sara – you’re right, of course; it is nice to interact with other writers on FB, and that’s why I won’t quit it any time soon … just be more careful on who I accept friend requests from.
JF – you seem to have the right idea via the fan page; it’s a place for YOUR fans, not a place to try to MAKE fans.
Gord – your agent yelled at you for deleting your account? That’s funny. Yeah, it can be helpful at times, but I’ve found Twitter makes a whole lot more sense in terms of promoting work.
I’ve been lucky, I’ve only had a couple of requests to join ‘fan pages’, then again I’m very rarely on Facebook. Twitter, however. I definitely follow far more people than perhaps I should. I don’t mind people linking to their stories or blog entries once (I do the same), but I do tend to unfollow anyone who puts up numerous links to the same story or blog post within the space of an hour or two.
I don’t understand the whole ‘be my fan’ thing.
I was in college when Facebook first came out (back when it was only a few colleges at that), and we used it for people we actually knew. Not necessarily friends, but acquaintances, that guy from class, etc.
The idea of using it the same way most people use Twitter, 1000s of mostly-strangers, still makes me uncomfortable.
I never really used FB that much, but all these invitations for hugs and causes and groups are seriously getting to me and the sheer amount of invites waiting on my page more than 300 or so keeps me from logging in…
As far as Twitter goes, haven’t you noticed that if you mention something to do with anything you need spammers hunt you down and reply with links… I had this complaint about the speed of my machine and wham I get spammed with a link for speed optimization.
I don’t know. I’ve found that Twitter does a pretty good job dealing with the spammers. Yes, they will always be there annoying people, but Twitter allows people to report it and usually that account gets suspended if not deleted (you can even report them to @spam). Facebook however … there doesn’t seem any way to police it.
It’s the way of the world these days.
Facebook is still a fledgling in this way of annoyance while Myspace the master. Every bulletin, status update, and comment I get these days is someone peddling a new story or novel.
It’s why I keep my Facebook page to mostly friends I know (or have some kind of online relationship with).
But, while we’re talking about writing, you guys should head over and read my tale of loss and love; its a toilet monster story that’s sure to be the shit, I assure you