How to be cool on Facebook

If you have arrived at this website searching for “how to be cool on Facebook” — an act that is in itself ridiculously devoid of credibility — then you have a problem.

First, trying to be cool is the antithesis of coolness. Second, the very concept of coolness is inherently flawed. Third, Facebook isn’t cool anyway, whichever way you look at it. Shouldn’t you be on Instagram or some other social sharing bullshit by now?

It’s all a big Catch 22 and something you really shouldn’t be concerning yourself with. Don’t you have anything better to do?

No, I Do Not Have Anything Better to Do

OK, so you really don’t have anything better to do. This is looking bad. Well, rather than going to another crappy site with tips on how to be cool on Facebook, you might as well get your jollies here.

So here’s what you need to do (maybe):

  • Keep your friend count low — No-one really has 1,698 friends; that’s just ridiculous. Apart from narcissists, and they’re just boring. Four hundred friends is a reasonable amount, maybe 500 if you have a big family. Anything above that makes you look like an internet-obsessed loser who hasn’t left the house for a month (apart from occasional trips to the store to buy milk, cereal and tissues).
  • Don’t throw stuff or poke people — I mean, what the fuck? Why would you do that? Is it still possible to throw a sheep at someone? I don’t even know if you can do that still, that’s how cool I am. If it is still possible, don’t do it.
  • Don’t tell us what you had for lunch — No one cares what you had for lunch. No one cares that you’re excited about going out on Friday night. No one gives a shit about the dull trivialities of your life. If you don’t have anything interesting to say, go take a shower or sleep for a few hours — or until you have something interesting to say.
  • Don’t talk about your kids — Your kids, if you have any, are even less interesting than you. “OMG!!! Little Johnny fell and scratched his knee today!!” Fuck you and your clumsy offspring: we really don’t care.
  • Don’t play games — Games, apps, whatever. No farms, no pirates, no mafia bullshit, and especially no Candy Crush. In fact, anyone who actually invites a “friend” to take part in any of these Facebook activities should be sent to a mafia-controlled pirate farm for 10 years of brutal torture.
  • Don’t change your profile photo more than once a year — Really, there’s just no need.
  • Don’t try to befriend old classmates from school — You may be desperate to reach the 500 friends mark, but please, for the love of God, don’t go sending friend requests to every last fucker that you went to school with. They didn’t like you then, they won’t like you now. So what’s the point?
  • Don’t include a relationship status — Seriously, what kind of meat-brained goofbag puts up a relationship status? “In a relationship with Dwight Gumb” — where’s the “In a bar after Dwight Gumb nailed my mom” option? It’s just not broad enough, nor is it balanced. And when shit goes bad and you have to change the damn status, every son of a bitch gets to know about it.

How to Be Cool on Facebook: Delete Your Account

Deleting your account is the only guaranteed way to salvage some respectability from the Facebook situation.

In August 2011, internet users in the US spent an average of 7 hours 45 minutes on Facebook over the course of the month. And that’s just an average — true top-end internet losers probably spend at least 24 hours on Facebook each month.

That, my sad “how to be cool on facebook”-searching friends, is neither cool nor productive. If Albert Einstein posted status updates every 10 minutes — “broke another stick of chalk lol!” — we’d probably still be trying to figure out what goes on the end of E = mc.

And if you do something productive with those 7 hours and 45 minutes each month, you might actually end up being proud of something tangible and true instead of staring at a screen and being thankful for having 1,000 friends, 723 of whom you’ve never even met.

Or you could give Twitter a try…