The 5 Best Types of Facebook Users

The internet is fraught with articles titled along the lines of “X number of most annoying type of Facebook users!”, a list that is often graced with people who; constantly send you invites to events you know you’ll never attend; the overly dramatic and, of course, the type of people who think “going to the movies lol” is a sentiment that really warrants a status update.

I originally planned to write one of these articles, but quickly found that it’s a topic that is far, far too common on the internet. Enough space on the internet has been given to these people – instead, I thought, why not focus on the other side of the coin; the few people on your friends list who you don’t find irritating. Yes, so consider this article an ode to the unsung heroes of our time: The five best types of Facebook users.

#5 People who call out other people for saying something stupid

Surely you’ve encountered this scenario before: Someone posts an annoying status on Facebook, whether it’s annoying due to a minor yet flagrant spelling or grammatical error, or contradictory series of updates like the one featured below. You don’t particularly like the person so you think of a scathingly witty comment, but you don’t dislike them enough to actually post it.

Credit: failblog.org

Not these guys. Indeed, these fine individuals are the brave voices who dare to speak while others don’t; our first line of defence against the moderately annoying mass that is the majority of our Facebook feeds. They have numerous types of attacks which they level at their unassuming targets; a sarcastic offence is often mounted, and often the sarcasm goes undetected by the original poster, which only leads to more hilarity.

Some people also choose to use a meme to express their disapproval in exuberant fashion, with even fewer still going the extra mile to create their own memes on one of many meme creator sites on the internet – which earn extra points. These people bring honour to the term ‘keyboard warrior’.

#4 People who are oblivious to their lack of intelligence

This group of people, who were such an integral part to the situation outlined above, serve another important purpose other than setting themselves up to be humorously knocked down by others on the internet. They are the metaphorical movie that is so bad it’s good.

These people come in a few different variations. Most notable are the people who will brazenly post a status about some semi-serious or serious topic and make a series of spelling or factual errors that makes them impossible to take seriously, but you sort of love them all the more for it…in a ‘love to hate them’ sort of way.

What sets these people apart is that they’re smart enough to engage in relatively serious discussions, but often find themselves in over their head, unintentionally showing the world how little they know about a given subject. Just to be clear, I’m not insulting anyone for being unintelligent or for not being as smart as anyone else, but when someone fitting the above description puts their opinion out there on a largely un-moderated public medium, like, say, Facebook, they’re often just setting themselves up for hilarious knockdowns, and otherwise giving you and your mutual friends something to laugh about later.

I should additionally note that they are not to be confused with people whose Facebook posts are bereft of any indication of intellect. No, that type of person belongs nowhere near this prestigious list. The person we are celebrating here is the unintentional class clown, and sure, you may be annoyed by the class clown at points, but you can never hate them, and that’s worth something, right?

#3 Photo Bombers

People take their photos very seriously on Facebook.  It makes sense. Part of the fun of Facebook is you have the power to portray yourself in whichever way you choose, and most of the time people, in an attempt to look “cool”, take pictures of themselves in any given situation which they deem their social group will find agreeable. For example, you’ll often find the Facebook of teenage males littered with photos from drunken nights, while girls often take advantage of every opportunity to take a photo of themselves while they’re all prettied up and fancily dressed for a formal occasion. Standard stuff.

And that’s where the photo bomber comes in. Much like the Joker seeks to disrupt the order of Gotham City for the sake of it, the photo bomber takes joy in creating anarchy out of Kodak moments. And, unsurprisingly, seeing your friends’ pose for a photo only for a sneaky photo bomb to make it worthless is a source of immense enjoyment. And what is funnier than a photo bomber ruining the elegance of a photo from a wedding ceremony?

A photo bomber who ruins any given photo, when they’re not even trying, that’s what.

The force is strong in this one.

#2. Celebrities who actually use their account

After the internet had gotten used to celebrity Myspace and Facebook accounts being mainly handled by anyone other than the celebrity in question, it’s refreshing to see a celebrity account actually handled by the person it purports to be used by. I’m actually cheating a bit here, because authentic celebrity activity on social networking sites occurs almost exclusively on Twitter, so this number on the list is more for Twitter than Facebook.

Celebrities, like us normal folk, often do post a humorous status or tweet, but the real good stuff is when celebrities don’t act like celebrities, ditching the diplomatic and inoffensive lines given to them by whichever media giant they’re signed to, and instead favouring a more candid, sometimes crazy approach. I actually can’t post many examples, since most of the good ones involve foul language of some sort, but to whet your lips here’s one of George Takei’s many great tweets.

I also use the example of George Takei here because of his Facebook page, which, if you haven’t seen, is amazing. He definitely deserves some kind of medal for being the coolest old guy on the planet, because all the photos he posts, and more importantly, all the captioning he does, is all gold.

#1 Your reliable friend

When you post a status or change your profile picture you’re often a little self-conscious. If people don’t like or comment a status or a profile picture you begin to worry, “Did I say something wrong?”, “Is there something in this picture?”, “Did I make myself look bad without knowing it? and so on. That’s where this person comes in.

Most people on Facebook have at least one person that will try to ensure you don’t embarrass yourself too much on the internet. They’ll like your unloved status or comment on your failure of a new profile picture just to ease that feeling of embarrassment or self-consciousness we can all feel, just because they care…well, care enough to tap a few keys and press a button.

And really, isn’t minimal effort on the part of others to show they care the type of bond that is the basis for social networking?