Lately, we’ve all had our eyes plastered to our phones with our fingers seamlessly fluttering away over the glistening (albeit sometimes badly scratched and cracked) screen for hours on end. Our whole lives are basically on social media, be them in the form of pictures, status updates or random tweets.
The problem with so many people turning to one fad, such as the constant, almost religious use of social media, at a time is that we get a few brilliantly bright minds who manage to ruin the whole experience for the rest of us.
You know them; the ones who come up with the most ludicrous, annoying and/or at times absurdly daft ways of using these social media platforms.
So, wanting to once and for all craft some kind of social media etiquette that thou shalt not break for the sake of the sanity and mental health of the rest of us, here’s what we came up with:
No one wants to know when you went to/what you wore to/what you did at the gym
Seriously, “Lifting at the gym #BeastModeOn” is as useless as a status update can be. Frankly, no one really cares and anyone who comments on that status with a compliment about your stamina has probably secretly cursed you in their head before doing so.
Also, refrain from the gym selfies in which you look like you just walked out of a beauty salon – no one should ever look cute at the gym; that hair of yours should be sweaty and frizzy not shiny and bouncy after a good run on the treadmill. Just saying.
Ugly food pictures are an insult to food
We get it; sometimes you order a decadent dish that’s so picturesque that it deceives you for a second into thinking it’s hotter than Channing Tatum and so you whip your smartphone out and snap and share away.
The problem with that concept is when you start posting pictures of the sloppy, half-burnt omelet you just made whilst being half-asleep at 7 am, alongside the painfully ordinary-looking yoghurt tub you just pulled out of the fridge. You, my friend, are doing food porn wrong.
Mirror selfies with messy backgrounds are, frankly, a disgrace
You heard us right; we don’t care if you look like a Calvin Klein model – if you’re posing with a room that looks like it has withstood a couple of hurricanes as your background, your selfie privileges should be seized. If you have time to perfect that winged eyeliner, you have time to make your bed.
Sharing posts like your life depends on it will probably be the death of you
Because it will backfire and one day the rest of us will hunt you down. There’s a special place in hell for people who clog up our newsfeeds with endless useless posts they thought they’d share.
No one cares if a picture of a potato gets more likes than a picture of Nicki Minaj. You don’t have to share it… multiple times. No, constantly sharing political posts that are probably inaccurate, biased and lack any verifiable sources does not make you a rebellious activist. Please apply the “sharing is caring” concept with caution on social media.
Hashtag abuse is a crime
The appropriate number of hashtags to be used in a single picture can be anywhere from none (yes, you can actually post stuff without using any hashtags – mindblowing, we know) to an absolute maximum of five. Using anywhere from six to 600+ hashtags just gives off the impression that you’re either 12 or just a really bored person with nothing better to do than come up with a bunch of irrelevant hashtags.
Hint: If your hashtags start resembling a paragraph, not a single line, you’ve veered into the hashtag abuse pitfall. Keep your hashtags concise and relevant – quality over quantity, please.
Now that we’ve vented a bit about our social media blues and pet peeves, we shall leave you to aimlessly swipe away on all your accounts. Trust us and let this article be your guide on how to avoid having your whole online existence despised by all your followers/friends.
WE SAID THIS: Don’t miss 10 Annoying Instagram Hashtags You Need To Stop Using.