Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

To You,

Prompted by the Facebook statuses that dutty (see previous post if confused) my News Feed, I have come up with a comprehensive checklist if things you should look out for before pressing 'post'.

1. Have you made any spelling or grammatical errors? This is the most important factor, as it stops you from looking like an idiot. The most common mistakes I see include 'status'' instead of 'statuses', 'its' vs 'it's', and the classic 'there/they're/their'- all of which stick out like a straight man at a John Barrowman concert.

2. Does your status make you look like a narcissistic or ignorant prick? Example: 'The more I look at Feminism the more it makes me grimace' makes you sound like a twat, who really shouldn't be allowed to comment on making toast, let alone divisions of equality. If you're unlucky enough to see one of these statuses, why not remind its author of their stupidity with comments like 'I know, it's awful how people expect to be treated equally.' I love a controversial comment, me.

3. Is your status likely to improve/ brighten people's lives? I saw a fabulous one that said 'This is Facebook, not a counsellor', and that was exactly right. If you use the site to vent your petty issues, stopping only to reply to an 'inbox me? Xxxxxxxx' with a riveting 'dm', leave now and never put your fingers near a keyboard ever again. Similarly, nobody cares if you can't do level 5 of Candy Crush, whatever the hell that is.

4. If it's a picture, will people hate you for posting/sharing it? Nobody cares how much you love your mum; it's nice that you do, but not that interesting/surprising. Posting pictures of ugly babies every half hour is tediously dull, and photos taken via the mirror of a public toilet is just plain skanky. Humorous pictures of cats are great.

I hope that this has helped- if you've never experienced the pain of seeing these posts, you have chosen your friends wisely/know how to use the 'show in news feed' tool. Well done.

Yours instructively,

M.

P.S. I'm watching Stars in Their Eyes on Challenge, imagining that it's a Saturday night ten years ago. The Louis Armstrong on it is not that great, and I'm sure I do it better. However, the ethics of me actually performing as Armstrong are questionable...