Well, hello! I see you have returned from your 40-day Lenten social media hiatus. Consider me the unofficial welcoming committee. You’ve been gone quite a while, and it is my job to get you caught up so that you can slide back into your regular routine of meme-sharing, social media outrage, and keeping up with the Joneses.
Here are the things you might have missed these past 40 days:
Several of your friends have unfriended each other: While you were away, several of your friends chose political allegiance over friendship and unfriended anyone with a different political view. Your silence may have landed you in the unfriend-zone depending on which circles you travel in. In fact, some of your friends may have quit Facebook altogether because they are tired of the political discord.
The same memes are still going around: On the meme front, nothing has changed. It may even surprise you that no new memes have been created in the last 40 days or in the past 2 years. However, you’ll still laugh at and share the same recycled 4-year-old meme, because one does not simply ignore a meme.
You’ll still see updates from the same 5 people: On Facebook, you’re still only going to see updates from the same five to 10 people. This is because Facebook is fairly certain that these friends — and only these friends are the ones you care about. You may not have spoken since middle school, but you’re going to read the updates about Janine’s dog and you’re going to love them — thus sayeth The Zuck.
You’ll still see ads for things you talked about in private: We know you’ve been off facebook for more than a month, but you can still expect to see ads for products you talked about in hushed-tones in what you thought were private conversations while your Facebook app was deleted from your phone. That’s just the Algorithm works.
You’ll need to apologize fast: The problem with taking a social media hiatus is that for the last several weeks you have committed the new social faux pas of ignoring someone’s birthday. Why, you’ve probably skipped out on at least 19 of your friends’ birthdays and don’t think they didn’t notice. Some of them have probably even unfriended you, while others may have moved you to their restricted list. You’ll get no more dirty diaper updates from them.
To remedy this, it is strongly suggested that you click on one of those ads you see in your feed and buy whatever that product is for all the people who felt slighted by the fact that you didn’t say “OMG! HBD!” on their date on the calendar. You’ll also notice these are the same people who pouted at you all day if you didn’t say “Hi” to them in the hallway in high school.
We saw you, by the way: We know you weren’t able to truly stay off social media. Your accidental likes, Instagram story watches, and Facebook Messenger status gave you away. It’s OK, welcome back anyway. Better luck next year!
