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Enough of the Facebook Spam Already!
If I invite you to an event on Facebook to “Stop the Incessant Facebook Spam Events,” would you attend? Mark it as Spam? Or would you invite 3,248,079 of your closest friends to join our crusade?
I am a social person. I always have been. I am a connector. I love to meet other people. I love to network. As a result, I have a lot of friends on Facebook, Twitter and pretty much all of the other social media sites.
Lately, I have been overcome with Facebook Spam. Several times a day, I am asked for a vote or invited to some sort of event or crusade or party or something most likely thousands of miles away from my house and/or really not even close to the realm of what I might find interesting or worthy of getting behind.
Today there are two examples that really stuck out in my mind. That is two examples out of the eleven event invites that I received from people who I have never met.
The first was one an invite to a local Mom's Night Out event. Local as in Philadelphia. I live in Atlanta. Yeah…I am not going. That is not my definition of local.
But what I did was post on the Facebook page of the event and the person inviting me asking if the event was in Atlanta because at first I could not find where the event was located. No answer. No one responded at all. But I did notice that they were still awaiting 746 replies. Maybe someone else can get their questions answered.
The second invite that really kills me came just a few minutes ago. This is for National Don't Pump Gas Day or something like that coming up. I don't even want to get into the fact that this seriously will have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the price of gas (dude, people will just fill up the day before or after when what they really need to do is buy electric or ride a bike) but I do want to share some of the invite details with you:
366,701 ARE ATTENDING <<< These people will not gas up that day. I expect to see some cars with empty tanks on the side of the road, people!
45,292 MAYBE ATTENDING <<< These people will fill up if they need to or may already have gas or if they are feeling like sticking it to the man that day, they may just pass right by their local gas station
3,248,079 AWAITING REPLY <<< These are the people who have been spammed that will probably not open this Facebook email which, in hindsight, is what I should not have done. 3 freakin' million plus people!!
108,043 NOT ATTENDING <<< Mensa Members 😉
I am convinced that this was some sort of chain letter that was sent to people. They were all warned that if they did not immediately forward this invite out to 50 people, that some appendage would fall off or a puppy would die or cry or something equally as scary.
A special thanks to Eddie (I blocked out his clearly cool, rap moniker) who made my spit water all over my keyboard by telling people to get a fu*&$#g Prius. Touche Eddie, my backwards cap wearing friend. You will not be blocked.
But I have gone on a blocking spree. Sending me a craptastic invite for something that you probably won't even do yourself is no longer acceptable.
If I get an invite from you to your Aunt Flo's time of the month pity party and you have never met me? Block.
And if you have met me and invite me? Ewwww.
A vote for your dog to win a diamond encrusted grill for his otherwise cute choppers? Block.
Fly 2000 miles to see your kid's circumcision (true story, ya'll) and I don't even know your last name? Block.
So how do you stop the spammers?
Block them?
Write them and tell them to knock it off?
Remove yourself from the events?
HELP! I have had enough!
Oh and please send this blog post to 5 million of your closest Facebook and Twitter friends. K? Thanks.
You are too funny! And SO true!!! I don’t have any idea how to block them, one time I had enough of being invited to an event in TX and I was getting it from some page I liked…unlike.
I just don’t know what makes someone send an invite to everyone they know. Seems odd.
I just remove myself from the event. I don’t want the stinking updates and I don’t want to look at it on my sidebar.
That reminds me, I entered my dog into a “dumbest, cutest, most splendiferous dog contest.” Will you vote for him? I’ve tagged you and 8,562,536 of my closest friends in his picture so you know which one is mine. 🙂 (being randomly tagged in a photo that has nothing to do with me is one of my pet peeves, by the way)
I will definitely vote for you. On my way to the gas station!!!
I find that soooo annoying! People are contently spamming me! I usually just block em and report em!
Love it!! I admit I’m guilty of the voting thing, but I’m stopping because I’ve now started to get 24803295 requests and invites and emails etc.. It’s annoying… I just delete delete delete!
I know the feeling. I am one of the ones that does even open them anymore! lol
ROFLMAO! Everything you said is so true. I got that same spammy invite on my FB, too. I’m like Lindsay, I just removed myself from the event. So far, I haven’t had to block anybody–yet. I have “unliked” a few pages, though.
Not only the event invites get to me, but the stinkin’ other bloggers who try to advertise on my page…Really?!?
OMG I hate this! What makes them think this is OK?
Spam is bad. Period.
lol go Eddie! 😛
I’ve had too many actual flesh & blood friends from HS spam me with events and page liking. Events that aren’t near where I live or totally not my thing.
Some of them have unfriended me because I didn’t like their employer’s page after they suggested it to me fifty billion times. I’m only bitter because I should have unfriended them! (not really bitter)
I do roll my eyes at the incessant status whining about what other people are posting (staus, game crap, likes, etc) and declaring so & so shouldn’t post it to their wall.
Except.. it’s their wall and you can choose not to have their crap show in your feed. You may not care that they liked X page or whatever, but some of those things FB posts – doesn’t mean they were trying to announce their activities.
/end rant >.>
I hope people take this to heart but some people just don’t get it. People are even using our Facebook friend status to send me emails to events or promos they’re sponsoring.
So I guess I should take you off of my aunt flo party guest list. Fine. ;P
A good portion of my facebook friends are complete strangers that I friended striclty for the Farmville game. Many of them from other countries. I recently received an invite to an event in Spain. And the invite was in Spanish. Really? Ugh.
You totally crack me up. I would love to send this post to all of my FB friends, but I think most of my friends are the same ones as yours and then they will get it twice… I really don’t want to do that to them. 🙂
I did get that “Gas Out” one myself… I won’t be pumping gas on that day because I NEVER pump gas… that’s a boy-job in our house. Ichy, dirty job.
I so feel this and the voting! vote for me on people i have no clue who they are have got to stop. Open a blog, offer a prize, and get in line.
trisha
There used to be some way to block people from inviting you w/o blocking them completely – but I’m not sure if that is still true with the new Facebook.
I dont use FB alot , but the one that really gets me is the voting thing and they use a ‘reply all’ and it looks like you have a message. Its like CCing your whole address book. d’oh!
I am not on facebook alot. I have once asked for a vote for something on Facebook but asked my family and friends only. I am still so computer challenged I dont know how to spam and surely dont know how to stop it. i dont even know how to block on Facebook.
You had me choking too when you said what Eddie wrote. funny! Love your other humor too. So much more fun reading when one can interject a little humor and still get the point across. Lets hope some of those who DO this might get a clue.
There is so much spam lately on twitter and Facebook. But, the Facebook spam is awful. I know what you mean about the lame events and I have people trying to friend me I don’t even know. I made the mistake of friending them as they were friends of friends and they didn’t say a word, just vote for me for a hibachi for my dog or something equally important. I agree with you 100%. It’s just out of hand. Then there are guys who message me that I don’t even know wanting heaven knows what. Creepy!
Sorry to hear that.Though I do not have the Facebook.I can understand you.Can you send me a link to sign in the Facebook.I can not do it successfully.Look forward to your response and help.Thanks in advance.