No my name ain't baby, it's Janet. Ms. Jackson if you're nasty

This entry is dedicated to our good friend Pee-pants.

When you register for a facebook account, one of the first inquiries faced is "full name". If you are even marginally mentally sound, this part is not hard. Actually, I know for a fact that you are unable to register for a facebook with a ridiculous name. I've tried. It was a job assignment, don't ask.

So, when asked the question "full name", what is your typical answer? When filling out a job application, do you insert a clever nickname amongst the title your momma gave you? I feel that the beloved creators of facebook intended for their site to be for networking, yet there are several individuals who actually use it as a receptacle for their stupid expressive garbage made of cute quotes and wingdings.

We here at DPTonF used to cherish the purity of facebook compared to other less easy to navigate and less easy to stalk on social networking sites. Unfortunately, with the development of applications and "boxes", we've lost some of that clean, sleek look we love. At least all of this clutter is hidden on other tabs and not forced down our throats, because no, I don't want to see the precious cartoon penguin you adopted and named Cooter.

I digress. Facebook wants you to use your real name. Otherwise they would let you insert any old word or emoticon into your name field. We all know your middle name is not Sagittarius, Hottie, or "<3 ;)". And if it is, send your mom to us. We need to have a talk.

Kisses and skip-its,

The Jew

That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight losing my religion

So I get it, we all get it: you know, that you’re deep and shit. You have this emotional side. Sticks and stones break your bones and words really hurt you. Listen save it, save your wanna be Emily Dickinson and that trite haiku; you’re no Shakespeare – people won’t be reading your sonnets for years to come. In fact the only person who will is you, who will in turn 20 years, 15 years, 10 years from now (time depending on whether or not you get smarter) you’ll reread it and think, “Wow! I was a douche” and call others to review your idiocy.

Yeah life is rough and the world can be cruel and unfair:
So your rejected from Paige Parks, Barbizon or some other “advertised in the local mall” model agency,

Say the guy you were casually seeing (that you were more into than he you, cuz you were just his rebound) has stopped giving you the time of day and maybe wishes he had a restraining order against you,

So what if your cheap attempt at getting attention: lack of real pants outfit consisting of chach visible tights and tshirt w/o a bra didn’t reel in any looks from anyone besides creep rapists and others hard core judging you…

Not everything needs a response via poem on FACEBOOK – fool get a journal, (get some real pants or better yet self esteem). Keep that shit to yourself. The next time you think about putting a poem on facebook, try publishing it first. Here’s the thing if you don’t get it published, it’s not good – meaning there’s no audience for your uninteresting self-centered pre-teen drama vent; this is your indicator alerting you “DON’T PUT THAT ON FACEBOOK”

Men are from mars, women are from venus
Stop your titty baby crying, “nothing can come between us..”
You write as you cry – people comment “you’re deep..”,
(pst they’re all telling a lie).
On an on you go
I think of you always and not in just small ways ;)
I want us to be more
C’mon, we’re something worth fighting for.
Creating your rhymes, wasting all that precious time
Flipping through your thesaurus, stealing words from a songs’ chorus
When really? It’s all just going to bore us.

As much as I encourage expressing your feelings and am a definite advocate of the arts, facebook is not amateur night at the Apollo, it’s not open mic night, no one’s reading your poem holding a lighter up in the background – this isn’t your creative writing class so save it cuz you look like an ASS.

You realize all this can accomplish is putting yourself on a social blacklist. Facebook is public and not only can you and your poem loving followers read your post but so can everyone else and we just laugh. You fuel our conversation for months and months to come, you’re the butt of the joke and the origin of many inside jokes. We talk about you at parties and before you know it your story is added to their repertoire. OH and also shame, shame! Don’t tag the attention of your misery in your little limerick – if you have something to say call them and have the conversation. Your poem is passive aggressive and quite frankly the activities of 13 year old 1st heart crushed sweetheart. Take your disappointments with more pride and even if that’s not an option there’s still no need to broadcast you’re a hot shitty mess.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue
This is the slut
Trying to change you!

Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my telephone bills? Can you pay my automo' bills? If you did then maybe we can chill.

Dear Gays and Slutty girls of Facebook,

I'm glad you stuck to your New Years resolutions and ate a healthy diet and went to the gym everyday. Congrats! God knows I didn't. But seriously, the racy cell phone pictures in front of the mirror is too much. TOO MUCH! Its tacky, its unnecessary and the lighting is bad. No one wants to see your toothpaste stained mirror or the dirty clothes on your bathroom floor. I know that this is all about rebelling against the machine. For the gays, its all about fighting against your former fat kid self, and for the slutty girls, its all about the father that didn't love you enough. We've bought the book, read it, turned it into a movie, then a musical, then back to a movie. WE GET IT! But lets look at this from another perspective.

Just think about what your poor Grandma Lynn from Kansas would think if she saw you lifting up your shirt, all naked, ass out, with nothing but your ideals keeping you warm. My guess is that she would be mortified and would tell you to cover up. And as for us mortal non worked out gays and non slutty girls that belong to facebook? We are not worthy. We can't grate cheese on our abs and receive hundreds of picture comments and it makes us totes sad. So don't rub it in, OK?


But I feel that I'm not making my point clear enough.

ALL PICTURES OF YOU ON FACEBOOK SHOULD:
1. FEATURE YOU IN CLOTHING.
2. SHOULD NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR BATHROOM OR YOUR BATHROOM MIRROR.
3. SHOULD BE SOMETHING THAT MOM, DAD AND THE BABY JESUS WOULD APPROVE OF.
(and this is just my personal taste)
4. SHOULDN'T BE SLUTTY OR EVEN SLIGHTLY QUESTIONABLE IN THEIR TASTEFUL NATURE.

sorry for the all caps. I yell cause I care.

-The Gay

If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere...you better wake up and pay attention.

I'm taking a short break from simultaneously Facebooking, watching and singing along to "Sister Act", reading Missed Connections and desperately wishing I had some raspberry ginger ale to bring enlightenment to our legions of fans. And YES, I CAN do all these things at once. Obams taught me that...yes, we can. But Michelle, Michelle - why you lookin' crazy with that crazy eyebrow? Seriously, have you seen that Leslie Kritzer sketch? YouTube it. Now. I'll wait.

But back to the topic at hand ya'll. I wanted to say a few words on the subject of friend adding. I, along with the rest of my compadres, have been Facebook members for quite a while - years actually. To be perfectly honest, The Gay could be single-handedly credited for bringing to our alma mater. And for that I am eternally grateful to him, I'd probably give him my first born if I thought I could raise a child without neglecting it because I need a nap or there's a highly important ANTM marathon on.

Wow, I am all over the place today.

But seriously, I've had Facebook for a long time - it has been with me for most of my college career and beyond. Suffice it to say that I've got quite a few friends...on Facebook that is. We all know that number of friends on a website is not equal to ACTUAL POPULARITY. I'M TALKING TO YOU TILA TEQUILA. I know, I know, that was MySpace but WHATEVER. You get the point.

But if we've never met in real life, it is absolutely NOT OK to add me as a friend. This is not match.com, eharmony...what have you. Those websites force you to pay money to admit that you prefer to screen the people in your life before you actually meet them. Not that I would know that or do that. Um.

Seriously, I'm picky about my friends in real life so what makes you think I wouldn't be picky on Facebook? If you are a friend of a friend, it is entirely plausible that we might meet in real life and even enjoy one another's company. But until that time comes, I prefer to stalk you from afar. Or not at all. My stalking you is a privilege, got it?

I'm just saying I define "being friends on Facebook" as having actually spoken or met face to face. And really, if that is the only interaction we have had, it might not even qualify you.

We in a recession. Less is more people.

Smooches,

The Blonde

I don't give a damn about my reputation

We are here to discuss photo selection. I cannot even tell you how many times the members of Pangea have been sitting around on our various internet devices, and one of us comes across a particularly... let's say... notable photograph.

"Ohmigod, have you guys seen this?"

"what?"

"check your news feed. NOW. Look at soandsos Supersweet Party Album."

You know... as much as you think we're interested in seeing your progression from pregaming in the shower to passed out on the pavement, you could be wrong. Especially if the interim involves ill-fitting togas and/or incredibly unpleasant make-out sessions, all conveniently captured on your own camera.

Now, we understand if someone else posted those photos of you and you haven't woken up in your pool of vomit yet, and still need to bring yourself back to life with a vat of Chinese food and gatorade, so therefore haven't been able to hastily untag. We've all been there. Others always happen to capture you at your worst, ask Ashley Dupree of the Elliot Spitzer fame and various Miss Teen USA contestants caught in slutty Halloween costumes biting their sorority sister's tit.

HOWEVER... in the act of posting your own pictures... you are blessed with the ability to EDIT! Nipple slip? Delete. Potential vaginal view? Delete. One eye open, sweaty, greasy haired stupor? DELETE.

And then... there's the "I just got a new camera!" album or "OMG I was soooo bored!" album completely filled with stupid pictures of YOU. I feel personally wronged by wasting my bandwidth on scanning through all of those photos with the potential of seeing something OTHER than you in various poses, some intentionally naked looking, some with a cute little pouty face, and some where you're in the middle of a forced laugh.

It's not cute.

Everyone is laughing at you.

Especially us.

-The Jew

If you's a fat one, put your clothes back on. Before you start putting pot holes in my lawn

So being the only member of Pangea without a job I decided to burn the midnight oil and get the ball rolling. I should be sleeping and planning how I'm going to support myself, but this is an URGENT don't put that on facebook message. I preface this statement by saying that I love a good status update, I live for them, I spend my day touching my boyfriend (also known as my beloved I-phone) waiting for them. Yeah I call my I-phone my boyfriend. I don't think its sad in the slightest. Seriously I REALLLLLY enjoy being single. Seriously, I do. I have NEVER spent the night alone crying into my pillow about how lonely I am. But I digress. I'm happy...I promise. Seriously stop looking at me like that. Where were we?...oh yeah. There is a limit. There has to be. I don't really care about you sitting down to eat dinner or brushing your teeth. Give me the goods. Let me know if you fell down a flight of stairs or had a one night stand with a prominent child stars roommate (Which TOTALLY didn't happen to me). I deem the appropriate amount of status?...stati?...statuses?...whatever, I deem a healthy amount is about three or less a day. NOTHING is more important than three a day unless of course you've had a baby or died, in which case I'd say, "What the hell are you doing on Facebook?", but lets save that for another entry.

Lets play a game called hypothetical conversation. You play "unsuspecting victim this blog was created to save" and I'll play "All knowing gay one, with the great smile and winning personality". A hypothetical conversation between you and I may go something like this:

Unsuspecting victim this blog was created to save: Hey all knowing Gay one? Something REALLY good happen to me today. I want to make it my new status on facebook! I'm afraid I may be breaking a rule by changing my status too much though.

All knowing gay one: Is it THAT good? Do you really want to take up every single person on your friends list's valuable facebook stalking time for that? How many have you posted today?

Unsuspecting: Three, but they were....

All Knowing Gay: Nope. You've reached your limit.

Unsuspecting: But it's fantastic, I saved a bunch of kittens from a house that was on fire. Punched Angelina Jolie in the face. Got preggers AND had the baby in the same day. And got Anderson Cooper's phone number for you.

All Knowing: All right. I'll let you post four today, but don't let it happen again.

So in conclusion, ONLY if your day rivals one where you've conceived and had a full born baby in the same day, saved kittens in a fire, punched Angelina Jolie in the face and gotten Anderson Cooper's phone number for me can you post more than four status?...statuses?...stati? (Dammit!) in one twenty four hour period.

HAGS, KATS, LOL, ROFL, LMAO, Sincerely, and all that other goodness,

The Gay

P.S. Thanks for putting up with all the misspellings, grammatical errors, and any other issues I may have had during this entry. It's my first one. LAY OFF!

When you mean it, I'll believe it. If you text it, I'll delete it - let's be clear.

We, speaking as a group twenty-somethings, are a generation of the internet. We all spend inordinate amounts of time here – stalking friends (or frenemies) on Facebook and MySpace, watching funny stuff on YouTube, looking at porn (NO JUDGEMENT) and just general time-wasting. We all fondly remember the original days of Facebook when it was limited only to colleges and their students. Gleefully, we wrote ridiculous things to each other and posted thousands of drunken pictures of ourselves and our friends knowing that only those who were closest to us could view the debauchery that was our lives. Slowly Facebook opened up to include high schools, workplaces and eventually cities as their own network. Now, it seems that everyone and their mom has a profile…literally. We never used to know what “privacy settings” were or believed in “untagging” photos of ourselves, no matter how ridiculous. People who you may not necessarily want to know EVERYTHING about you now have access to those embarrassing photos or that mildly offensive status that you made AS A JOKE. That is, if you belong to the right network or know people in common or just don’t believe in privacy settings…

But since the possibility of your parents or your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend looking at your profile is now a very real one, wouldn’t you want to make yourself look the LEAST LIKE AN IDIOT possible? You would think so. But it has become abundantly clear that some folks out there have no idea how to edit or censor themselves. Whatever happened to leaving something to the imagination or being a little mysterious?

The four of us here in Pangea have been noticing a growing trend in ridiculousness on social networking sites that has caused us to toss around the phrase “DON’T PUT THAT ON FACEBOOK!!” more times than our limited math skills will allow us to calculate. And we want to help. People need us.

Now, we may come off a tad bitchy – BUT THIS IS TOUGH LOVE, OK!? We can’t sugarcoat this shit or it just won’t have the same resonance. We’re not telling you what to do. I mean, if you really insist on posting those pictures where you look a hot mess (and we all do at times), we’re not gonna stop you. We’re just asking you to stop, pull your head out of your butt and think about what you want the rest of the world to see. People will judge you based on the things you put on the internet for public consumption, there is no getting around it. DEAL WITH IT.

And listen, it’s not like we’ve never done any of the things we preach about not doing, but we’re striving to be better. We recognize our tendency to make an emo-esque status once in a while or drunkenly write something embarrassingly candid on a crush’s wall…we own it! In fact, we love shit like that, it’s hilarious. But when we really think about it – we don’t need everyone to know that we wrote “You studpi shit i amdrunkd i can’t believee you dumppped me!!! I hope u get herpez!! ” on our ex-boyfriend from 5 years agos' wall.

It’s not just about doing or saying retarded things online while under the influence either. It is about excessive status-posting, photo-commenting, TMI-ing (if you have to ask, then you probably do it), using it as a substitute for a phone call or text (those still exist, people!), abusing the chat feature….oh, we could go on for daaays. And we intend to.

So go, go forth and stalk good 20 or 30 somethings of the world. But just remember, Facebook eventually outs everything. As our good friend (we wish) Tim Gunn would say, “Use an editing eye.” And DON’T PUT THAT ON FACEBOOK.

LYLAS,

The Blonde, The Jew, The Slut, The Gay & Garbage

Oh, and P.S. we’re not in any way affiliated with Facebook, other than being active members and lovers of it. So, don’t complain to them about us. Complain to us about us.