"Your friend liked this so we thought you would like to see it"

I have to be in Facebook. Because I'm an entrepreneur. And because I have to be where my customers are. I wouldn't want to be in Facebook. I DON'T want to be in Facebook. I hate Facebook. Not so much because of the thing that it is centralized. Only a little because of that. Mostly because of something bigger.

Because it shows me things I don't want to see. And I don't mean people with extreme opinions or hate speech or stupid people who immediately ask help for something that was literally just explained few seconds or minutes ago to someone else. Or people who just can't bother to click a link because they don't want any links. They want someone to copypaste that looooooooong text to someones wall to help that some other person who is too lazy to click a link that someone helpful linked. For them. There.

No, I don't mean those. Those people are everywhere. You just can't escape them. They bother me a little but it's not just a Facebook issue. So I've learned to tolerate them. Or ignore the behavior.

But what I do not, I repeat, what I do not want to see in my Facebook feed how someone else, some of my friends or "friends" liked someones photo or text who I don't either know or who I barely know or who I used to know some... ten or twenty or more years ago.

I do not take part in challenges. I repeat. I do not take part in challenges. And it's a good thing that I never write anything to my personal pages so everyone has forgotten me and they do not post challenges to my freakin' Facebook wall. Because most of those challenges are just to show of how freaking awesome you are (aren't but like to polish your cover) or the challenge takes the focus away of the real problem that it is trying make better or people just do the challenge and continue their day doing the exact opposite what the challenge just tried to teach people. Blue lights on a building wall to tribute the nurses but no extra pay for them. Turn off the light for one hour in one evening of the year and announce that in Facebook but waste energy every hour, every day of the year. Do not eat meat and tell everyone who do that that they are terrible people and they should change their ways but travel with plane to holidays every chance you get and justify it by saying that this is my hobby and I think I am allowed to some pleasures. Because you are special.

So why, oh why do I see some of my friends liking or commenting other people who I either do not know at all or know enough so that I know the challenge is utter shit on their behalf?

"Let's post pictures of out latest travels because we can't travel now and we can just wait for the time when we can travel again!" Sounds harmless, right? But what they fail to see is that because of excessive travelling, diseases become pandemics, nature suffers and polluted air, soil and water is the new normal. By all means. Go back to "normal". How things used to be. It may be that this thing that the world is going thru now, is mild when compared to what's coming. Perhaps pandemics like this will be the new normal? And one thing we do know is that climate will set the new normal for us in the future. But you want to travel. You are thinking that you do not have to change.

Why did I have to see that?

And some women posting their head shots with: this is how I woke up -look or with full war and party make up on saying: "Because us women are so eager to judge each other so let's start a challenge where you post your photo so people can say beautiful things about you." And I know that person is / was / has been the worst trash talker ever when I knew them. They were always judging other people behind their back because how that other person looked. And now they want all their friends to lick their ass like their photo and write how beautiful they are so that they can forget what ass holes they themselves have been to other people.

Why did I have to see those posts? Why do I need to see that people do not change? I already know it, I do not need to be reminded about that every time I go to Freakbook.

And then there's the thing that you can announce in Facebook that you are right now somewhere with someone. You tag the place and Facebook announces it. It used to be that someone is now with their friends or spouse enjoying a juicy stake in a fancy restaurant. No actual info, just place tagged. Someone I do not know. But now I know that that someone, who I do not know, has been there, because someone I know, and who knows them, has liked that announcement. Or commented that. "Enjoy! You deserve it!" And there it is. On my Facebook wall. Someone who I do not know but is a friend of my friend, is eating a stake. Or in covid-19 days, that person is on their own balcony, sipping wine and enjoying the sun. Let me repeat that. Someone who I do not know, is on their balcony, drinking wine and that announcement is on my Facebook wall. Because one of those people who I am friends in Facebook, liked it.

And I was just on my way to get to my company pages to make a mandatory update so that my customers know that I'm alive. And to answer any questions that I usually can answer by opening my company pages, copying the text from there and pasting it as an answer. But I'm used to that.

What I would like to change is the feed that my Facebook wall shows to me. I do not want futile information. Oh. Hmm... Let me rephrase that. I want to determine what is futile and what is not. I want futile information, but not this kind of futile information. I do not want to scroll down my wall for days and days to find that one link that some of my friends shared that I liked or reacted.

So I go and try to find what I can change in the settings. Again. And I do not want to bend over backwards to change that, if it is even changeable. The settings and the lay-out of the page seems to have changed since the last time when I tried to do something there. Again. So I get frustrated. And eventually give up. I try to take solace from the fact that if I like the photos and the texts that I actually like, the Facebook algorithm eventually might learn what I want and show that to me more. Although I do not like the thing that there's any algorithm showing me things that the algorithm thinks I want to see to begin with, I have to settle for the fact that there is one and I have to just get by with it.

And what does it show me the next time I go there? I would just like to find that funny meme my friend liked and I also liked and I scroll and scroll and scroll...

Instead I see:

"Take a picture of what you see right now and post it without explanation."
_{bunch of bad photos. keyboard. screen. trees. window. bad photo. face you do not know. selfie. a cat. a dog. coffee. keyboard. screen. trees. pillow. blanket. drinking glass. trees. window. bad photo. face you do not know. a cat. a dog. coffee. keyboard. screen. trees. pillow. blanket. keyboard. screen. keyboard. screen. keyboard. screen. pillow. blanket. drinking glass. trees. window. bad photo. face you do not know. a cat. a dog. coffee. wine glass. keyboard. a book. strangers. keyboard. selfie. a dog. a cat. curtains. window. keyboard. coffee. wine. children you do not know. a cat. a dog. keyboard. a book. a table. coffee machine. trees. socks. selfie. mirror. mirror selfie. people you do not know. keyboard. screen. trees. window. bad photo. face you do not know. selfie. a cat. a dog. coffee. keyboard. screen. trees. pillow. blanket. drinking glass. trees. window. bad photo. face you do not know. a cat. a dog. coffee. keyboard. screen. trees. pillow. blanket. keyboard. screen. keyboard. screen. keyboard. screen. pillow. blanket. drinking glass. trees. window. bad photo. face you do not know. a cat. a dog. coffee. wine glass. keyboard. a book. strangers. keyboard. selfie. a dog. a cat. curtains. window. keyboard. coffee. wine. children you do not know. a cat. a dog. keyboard. a book. a table. coffee machine. trees. socks. selfie. mirror. mirror selfie. more people you do not know.}

"Your friend liked this overexposed photo of a friend of a friend taken in the 80's in which the only value is if you know the people who are in that photo with that not so big fish that they got from that not so remarkable puddle."

Makes me wanna sing.