None of these people are my friends and I now know they have a love for our favorite sparkley vampire

OK, so I don’t want to beat a dead horse here/lecture you like your dad, but that’s what I’m about to do. And you’re gonna like it.

Today’s lecture:

You have to be careful about what you’re putting online.

I know, I know – we’ve said it a bajillion times on CollegeCandy. And yeah, I know you’ve set your Facebook privacy settings and re-set them every time Zucks makes a change that leaves you more exposed than that time you thought you locked the bathroom door at the frat party and you got caught squatting with your lady bits out, but I have just learned that none of that matters. Thanks to some holes in Facebook security, it is possible for anyone (even if they’re one of those weird people who don’t have Facebook accounts…seriously, WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!) to search for anyone’s status updates.

And someone set up a website to do just that.

I’m taking all status updates. From the just-for-my-fellow-drunken-BFFs “Just downed a bottle of tequila, dropped my cell in the toilet and now we’re going streaking” to the only-people-who-know-me-and-would-never-rob-me-can-see-this “Hitting up Mexico with the fam for 2 weeks! HOTNESS,” it’s all out there for everyone with an internet connection to see. Oh and don’t worry, you don’t even have to post the status – it brings up any status with your name in it, as well as showing all results for your name. Read More »

Would you say goodbye to the FB?

Back in the ages of early social media, I turned to Facebook to find as many friends as I could before I went to college my freshman year. “Hey [insert name here], it says you are living in [insert dormitory here], like, OMG let’s meet up and do our laundry together or something!”

Facebook was there for all my major college needs, and I quickly came to depend on the status update to let people know I was really fun/cool/endearing, busily tagged myself in pictures, and coyly searched for the cute boy in my Spanish class…

Then things started to change.

The mom friend request. The 13-year-old sister friend request. The 13-year-old sister’s friend’s friend request. The sparkly new mini-feed, which loaded itself and pressured me into talking to people on Facebook I forgot I was friends with. (“Bill is lonely. Reconnect!” Um, Facebook? Chill your jets, Bill is lonely because he peed his bed Sunday morning after our first football home game.) And now, Facebook is begging you to check in with Facebook Places.

Oh, goody.
And by “goody” I mean, “WTF IS YOUR DEAL, FACEBOOK?!”

I can’t count how many times I wanted to meet the people who were changing the online community I had built, take them by the shoulders and shake the ‘idiot’ right out of them. How many times I drew a line in the sand and threatened to say goodbye to FB forever.

But would I really?

Well, that option is becoming reality as a barrage new social networks come our way. One of which will give us the opportunity to go back to the way things were so many years ago: college kids only. Read More »

I don’t trust people who aren’t on Facebook.

It’s weird, I know, but FB is like peanut butter and jelly: you must be some sort of freak if you’ve never tried it. (OK, or you have some severe allergy, but that doesn’t fit with my analogy so let’s move on.) Facebook is at the epicenter of our generation’s world, so anyone who isn’t on there is weird, right? I mean, how do you live without Facebook?

How do you learn about people?
See pictures?
Know what’s going on in your friends’ lives?!
Update everyone on your own life without tons and tons of phone calls?

But maybe I’m not so weird for feeling this way. Matthew Myron, an author who recently studied online privacy, has gone as far as saying that not being on Facebook is social suicide. ”Many people feel they have to be a part of Facebook to socialize. Such sites are the modern equivalent of a mobile phone. They have grown into fashion accessories and they are a must-have for people who don’t want to be social outcasts.”

Myron speaks mostly in regards to status updates and wall posts, but his point is even truer than he knows. When people have parties, they invite guests via Facebook. When people have birthdays, we send them messages (and are notified!) via Facebook. When people have anything to say, we say it all on Facebook.

And when someone doesn’t have Facebook, we think they are freaks hiding something. Read More »

[This post is old. To get the real, updated deal on Facebook creepin', click here.]

My day started off bad enough with ultra frizzy hair and sweat in every crack, crevice and fold on my body (thank you, hot and hazy NYC summer!). I didn’t think it could get much worse than swamp ass, but it did. Oh boy did it get worse.

Upon signing online for my morning FB stalk sesh I learned that Facebook has added a new application:  The Stalker Check app.

What is it, you ask? Why, it’s a way for everyone on FB to see who has been looking at their profile. Yes, that includes the guy I’m crushing on, whose pictures I may or may not (read: totes) check every day. And those cute boys I’ve met at the bar, whose profiles I check the minute I get home at 3am.  And my ex boyfriend, whose wall-to-wall with other bitches I tend to monitor. And those very bitches with their skanky photos and annoying status updates…. Read More »