Facebook research

Like most Grinnellians, I am busy as shit. It takes a lot of time to read for four classes, write papers, carry out my senatorial duties, work at the dining hall, DJ at KDIC, write columns for the S&Blog, get KrUnKz0rZ!, and occasionally sleep. As such, I often find myself annoyed by facebook.com and its completely inane yet utterly fascinating array of time-wasting minutia. Of course it is far more important for me to know that my gun-toting pseudo-friend from high school has “crazy Christian” listed as his religious views than it is for me to know that Broca’s area of the cerebral cortex is integral to the production of speech. Obvi. This is why I spent two hours in the KDIC studio today, putting off important reading in favor of looking through myriad unintentionally hilarious facebook groups. It wasn’t completely a waste of time, however, since I managed to stumble across more than a few absolute gems that I will now share with you, my loyal readers.
One of the first quality groups I found was called “Damn, Bitach Why You Just Cant Give Me The Answer?” My assumption is that the second word is supposed to be “biatch.” The general theme of this group is that people who don’t let you copy answers from their tests are total assholes. Part of me is tempted to join, if just to inquire as to what these people believe the purpose of testing actually is. However, I am loath to disrupt the distinctive motif of the group’s wall, which contains comments such as “Hell Yea!! I mean damn I studied. I jus 4got a couple of answers ‘DAMN.’ I hate when mufukaz b cover'n they paper. They act like they gon die if u give a answer. ‘STINGY BASTARDS.’” Reading this made me seriously regret all those times in high school when I neglected to facilitate cheating amongst my peers. I was a serious bitch. Or bitach, as it were.
In this same vein of exalting vices, I also found a group by the name of “MO5T WANT3D/53XI35T ON FAC3BOOK.” First off, it is completely unacceptable to use numbers as letters. This is why we have letters! To be used as letters! Numbers are for counting! The essential premise of this group is that you join if you are a smokin’ hottie, and then you post an excessive number of vaguely flattering pictures of yourself. The implicit rules regarding these pictures are as follows: 1. At least one of these pictures must be taken on a camera-phone and show the reflection of your ass in your bedroom mirror. 2. At least one of these pictures should show off your ‘cool’ or ‘model’ look. 3. None of these pictures should be taken by another person or contain any other people, as this may serve to threaten the extreme vanity of this endeavor. This group has 1,527 members and serves no other purpose than to reward narcissistic behavior and waste untold hours of time.
But, by far, the best awful facebook group I’ve come across during my “research” is one entitled, “Stop, Drop, and Roll…Doesn’t Work in Hell!” Yes, this group was created by someone who legitimately believes that the most effective way to evangelize to people is to joke about the burning agony of the afterlife. One person posted very authoritatively on the message board that “Stop, drop, and roll doesn't work in hell. But this isn't some joke. Hell is a real place and if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you will go to hell. Hell is NOT a happy place and you do live in fire. My biggest fear in life is drowning. I think that would be the scariest way to die. Now, imagine your worst fear, and multiply it a billion times a billion and more. Thats how scary and horrible hell is.” Clearly, this girl knows where it’s at. I’m assuming she has a wealth of empirical evidence about this perpetual fire scenario.
Fortunately (for my faith in humanity), not everyone on this group takes its message quite so seriously. One young person posed the following question about the stop, drop, and roll process: “Seriously, if you’re on fire do you really need to stop? What if the bank closes at 5 and its 5 til 5 and you’re 4 minutes away and you happen to catch on fire...you gotta get to the bank!! You don't have time to stop!!” Somehow, even though I’m fairly certain this young woman is particularly vulnerable to fire-related injury, I would feel more comfortable trusting her than the previous young woman. But maybe that’s just me.