The trivial complaints thread

[Nemesis]

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

As someone who has been harassed and stalked (NOT HERE) both online and in real life, I refuse to put my real name, photo, location, etc. on random social media groups for all to see. Online anonymity isn’t just a handy tool for trolls—it’s also a safety measure that protects innocent people from being victimized. For that reason, I don’t think of Facebook groups as any kind of substitute for forums. Does no one value privacy anymore?

I also can’t fathom why people would care to share, like, or read about random, boring things like “I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!” Excuse my old-timer ramblings... I sometimes feel very alone in my general distaste for social media. It has its uses (keeping in touch with family and close friends, sending fan mail, or getting in touch with companies, businesses, etc.), but the way most people use it seems so... pointless and narcissistic.

[Pumpkin_Tart]

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

As someone who has been harassed and stalked (NOT HERE) both online and in real life, I refuse to put my real name, photo, location, etc. on random social media groups for all to see. Online anonymity isn’t just a handy tool for trolls—it’s also a safety measure that protects innocent people from being victimized. For that reason, I don’t think of Facebook groups as any kind of substitute for forums. Does no one value privacy anymore?

I also can’t fathom why people would care to share, like, or read about random, boring things like “I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!” Excuse my old-timer ramblings... I sometimes feel very alone in my general distaste for social media. It has its uses (keeping in touch with family and close friends, sending fan mail, or getting in touch with companies, businesses, etc.), but the way most people use it seems so... pointless and narcissistic.

I agree with you Nemisis! I get what you are feeling.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

As someone who has been harassed and stalked (NOT HERE) both online and in real life, I refuse to put my real name, photo, location, etc. on random social media groups for all to see. Online anonymity isn’t just a handy tool for trolls—it’s also a safety measure that protects innocent people from being victimized. For that reason, I don’t think of Facebook groups as any kind of substitute for forums. Does no one value privacy anymore?

I also can’t fathom why people would care to share, like, or read about random, boring things like “I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!” Excuse my old-timer ramblings... I sometimes feel very alone in my general distaste for social media. It has its uses (keeping in touch with family and close friends, sending fan mail, or getting in touch with companies, businesses, etc.), but the way most people use it seems so... pointless and narcissistic.

I agree with you Nemisis! I get what you are feeling.

I second that.  The only reason I have a FB account is because I have some friends that I can only keep in contact with through FB and I only check it if I have an actual reason, so the last time was to post about my knee surgery back in March.  (I haven't even checked it to see if people reacted to my post...is that bad?) 

[Taffeta]

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

As someone who has been harassed and stalked (NOT HERE) both online and in real life, I refuse to put my real name, photo, location, etc. on random social media groups for all to see. Online anonymity isn’t just a handy tool for trolls—it’s also a safety measure that protects innocent people from being victimized. For that reason, I don’t think of Facebook groups as any kind of substitute for forums. Does no one value privacy anymore?

I also can’t fathom why people would care to share, like, or read about random, boring things like “I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!” Excuse my old-timer ramblings... I sometimes feel very alone in my general distaste for social media. It has its uses (keeping in touch with family and close friends, sending fan mail, or getting in touch with companies, businesses, etc.), but the way most people use it seems so... pointless and narcissistic.

The irony of this being that if I could like this post, I would.

I have been online stalked and even threatened - and that was a member of the pony community :/ But it was a very long time ago and it taught me a very early lesson about the internet.

It frightens me how little people care about who has their identity and what can be done with it. I use FB but mostly the chat only, and everyone on my fb is someone I know in real life and just have no other way of keeping in contact with, like old colleagues and uni friends in other countries.  I won't ever log into some other site with my facebook. I won't comment on something if it means giving my real name - not because I'm trolling, but because I don't want to BE trolled.

The other thing that bugs me about this, though, is that social media fragments, it doesn't connect. There are so many different ways to communicate now on SM that everyone is spending lots of time disseminating their thoughts in hundreds of places rather than having one solid conversation with someone in front of them. And the biggest problem is that half the time this is done on phones in public places which is ok, if you want to be a phone zombie, but not okay when you're going to get hit crossing a road, or driving (!), or just being plain inconsiderate by playing your videos out loud on a bus or ignoring other people (bag on seat, old person needs seat, phone zombie too busy looking at pictures of cats).

It may be an old person thing - I realise that social media is probably generational. I'm 37, I grew up with the PC and I like computers better than phones. But I also like having actual conversations.

In my feed I have one friend who posts a picture of her daughter literally every day since she was born. I have another who posts a similar number of cat pictures, but her cat is cute, so that I prefer.

What's really annoying for me with social media is that job hunting is now so much harder. Instead of everything being in the collective academic databases, now some stuff is only on the college's facebook or twitter or whatever.

I don't like that we live in a quick click one word answer not really paying attention society now. And I think social media is part of that. I just haven't worked out whether social media is driving the people or vice versa.

There's some evidence that social media feeds into mental health issues, and I think that's because most everything that happens on social media is superficial and meaningless, and it creates an emotional vacuum that isn't being filled with real conversations. "Are u ok hun" on a facebook feed is not an intervention when someone's seriously upset.

On the subject of forums -and here is not immune - I've seen a few die because of social media pressure, but one in particular which was basically destroyed by it's own facebook group. :/

[Harmonie]

I don't mind social media, personally. I think it has its place. However, I do agree that the internet forums are great. I've been using internet forums since 2003 and they have provided me a lot of room to be myself and learn about so much, all of this especially as a teenager.

Most people talk like chat services like Discord are the biggest threat to forums and that frustrates me. I really don't like Discord at all. The conversations move so fast and you miss out on so much. I understand how some people like that format, but it shouldn't conflict with forums. Forums are a completely different format. If internet forums go away and chat services like Discord are what we have left, that will be it for me.

I dearly hope that MLPArena forums will be around for a very long time.

[Beldarna]

I was eating dinner with hubby yesterday when the phone rang. It was from work. The guy working had gotten a customer who had bought a tripod and it was acting weird and he wanted to know where we had them so he could look at it and eventually exchange it if the customers indeed were broken. That's totally ok.

But here's the thing. Another summer worker did a superawesome job by constructing, cleaning and fix our stockroom with labels and stuff thursday and friday. It's super neat now, things are easy to find but things got shifted around a bit. So I didn't have in my head were the tripods were. The backroom isn't large and the tripod he was looking for is about the same hight as me. How he could not find it is not that disturbing however, he's a kind of person who can't find things if they're behind something else (he always get amazed when I tell him to look behind other stuff and then see what he is looking for). What was disturbing was that he called me instead of the guy who moved things around. He called me because my name was on the reciept as a seller to the customer. The reciept was more than a week old. I could not know a week ago that coworker was gonna move things around now, could I?

But he always does this! He always calls me instead of the people he should call. We got a phone back that had been on repair in another store. They had sent the faulty battery as well. He called me and asked about the battery instead of the store that had sent it.
He also always call about things I already gone through with him several times. I can tell him things, and he looks at me, takes notes, ask relevent questions about it and then he gets in a situation that is exactly what we talked about not even ten minutes ago and he doesn't remember anything and has to call me and ask, showing he didn't really listen at all. There's always things like this, I always have to babysit with the phone in hand when he works and I'm off, or having lunch and it makes my hair go grey!

[Kiwi]

“I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!”

I now want McD's fries!

[BlackCurtains]

Am I tired? Yes. Can I sleep? Nope!

[Broken Irishwoman]

We missed the bus because it was over five minutes early, and it only goes once an hour. I broke down crying.

I'm ALWAYS super early except for now (this time things just came up, but we still would have made it easily if the bus didn't fly by seven minutes early), it was 35°C, I have bronchitis and we had groceries that needed to be in the fridge. To top it all off, I lost €10 in the next bus because the fricken chip card system never works properly.

Also, upcoming Thursday it's going to be 40°C. 

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

As someone who has been harassed and stalked (NOT HERE) both online and in real life, I refuse to put my real name, photo, location, etc. on random social media groups for all to see. Online anonymity isn’t just a handy tool for trolls—it’s also a safety measure that protects innocent people from being victimized. For that reason, I don’t think of Facebook groups as any kind of substitute for forums. Does no one value privacy anymore?

I also can’t fathom why people would care to share, like, or read about random, boring things like “I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!” Excuse my old-timer ramblings... I sometimes feel very alone in my general distaste for social media. It has its uses (keeping in touch with family and close friends, sending fan mail, or getting in touch with companies, businesses, etc.), but the way most people use it seems so... pointless and narcissistic.

 

I feel the same way!

[Taffeta]

We missed the bus because it was over five minutes early, and it only goes once an hour. I broke down crying.

I'm ALWAYS super early except for now (this time things just came up, but we still would have made it easily if the bus didn't fly by seven minutes early), it was 35°C, I have bronchitis and we had groceries that needed to be in the fridge. To top it all off, I lost €10 in the next bus because the fricken chip card system never works properly.

Also, upcoming Thursday it's going to be 40°C. 

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

As someone who has been harassed and stalked (NOT HERE) both online and in real life, I refuse to put my real name, photo, location, etc. on random social media groups for all to see. Online anonymity isn’t just a handy tool for trolls—it’s also a safety measure that protects innocent people from being victimized. For that reason, I don’t think of Facebook groups as any kind of substitute for forums. Does no one value privacy anymore?

I also can’t fathom why people would care to share, like, or read about random, boring things like “I went to McDonalds! Here’s a crappy selfie of me eating fries!” Excuse my old-timer ramblings... I sometimes feel very alone in my general distaste for social media. It has its uses (keeping in touch with family and close friends, sending fan mail, or getting in touch with companies, businesses, etc.), but the way most people use it seems so... pointless and narcissistic.

 

I feel the same way!

Ack, we've caught up with your insane continental heatwave now. Today was 33 I think. I don't have aircon so my fan has been working doubletime. Tomorrow is gonna be 31 which I can about stand so will go run my errands, but thursday they're predicting 37, feels like 42. I may spend the whole day in the shower. Not even kidding. I don't do heat.

And these are my last few weeks in London and I want to do stuff -.- but of course the capital and area is always the hottest place (sigh). It was fine last year because I had aircon at my room and I could escape back there but now...not so much.

[Broken Irishwoman]

I don't do heat either! Horrible, horrible. We don't have aiconditioning either, just a small fan. We put frozen bottles of water in front of it, which really helps, but we have such a tiny freezer. Four 500ml bottles and it's full, so it's not like we can create a whole bunch of them or use big bottles.

[bright rabbit 1]

Got a Digimon I didn’t want in Digimon world next order

[Taffeta]

I don't do heat either! Horrible, horrible. We don't have aiconditioning either, just a small fan. We put frozen bottles of water in front of it, which really helps, but we have such a tiny freezer. Four 500ml bottles and it's full, so it's not like we can create a whole bunch of them or use big bottles.

I am also on frozen bottles in the freezer - but my room isn't big enough to try the air cooling trick with them. My fan is on a stand in the corner, between the printer, the bed and the wall...and the size of the room doesn't help with airing it through. Nor does the fact the window only opens a little way to prevent stupid residents falling out (there re some residents here stupid enough to turn the fire alarm on when trying to do laundry, so I can understand the concern, but still...). In short, not designed for 30+ heat. Dreading tomorrow.

Also, the dead rat in the rubbish area doesn't make me thrilled at the idea of taking my recycling out. I need to, but the last time I encountered rats in the rubbish area it was literally face to face. I discovered I really don't like them, alive or dead, and I really don't want to go in there. Sigh.

[Zapper]

I’m sick of social media. There, I said it. I’m sick of how everything now is tied into it, and forums are dying off in favor of FB groups and whatnot. I’m sick of how EVERY. LITTLE. THING. now calls for comments, opinions, and “likes”.

I don't like it, either. Most people are just using social media to essentially roleplay; photoshopping their bodies and faces to hell and back and lying about it. Acting like their life is such and such.
And then there is the oversharing and begging for validation (likes).

I'm on instagram for work and I hate it when someone posts too much private stuff when I just want to look at their artwork

[Nemesis]

Wow! I never expected to find so many kindred spirits!

The thing about social media is... I’ve tried it. I really did give it a fair chance. But it left me feeling so... empty? Unfulfilled? Getting a “like” or a “how are u” from a relative I haven’t seen in five years seems almost uncomfortable to me. I know they MEAN well, and they probably really do care, but... Is that really all human interaction is now? Copy-paste snippets of chatspeak and single-click affirmations?

I don't like it, either. Most people are just using social media to essentially roleplay; photoshopping their bodies and faces to hell and back and lying about it. Acting like their life is such and such.
And then there is the oversharing and begging for validation (likes).

That’s a really good comparison. It IS like some strange roleplay that people pretend they’re not playing. People take 1000 selfies at a go, trying to take the most flattering one possible... then they photoshop it anyway, for good measure. Then they make it their “avatar”, and go about curating a social media personality that glosses over anything unflattering or “too real”. From there, everyone pretends to care about what everyone else is doing, for the sake of self-promotion and fishing for likes.

Alright, that sounded pretty cynical. Not EVERYONE uses it that way. But a whole lot of people DO...