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.