Although Facebook has dramatically changed the rules of social interactions, there are some things that are still not allowed. This includes writing certain comments on certain people’s walls. As much as I’d like to tell my crush how much I like him, that sort of thing has yet to be deemed socially acceptable (unfortunately). So, instead of writing these comments on my Facebook friends’ walls, I’m just going to post about it…hopefully they don’t see this. Anyway, here’s what I would say if consequences/embarrassment didn’t exist…

initiating the gallery...

What would you write if you could say anything on anyone’s wall?

Ashley is a freshman at George Washington University and she’s majoring in Overanalyzing Situations and International Affairs. Follow her on twitter @ashleybrooks25

[Lead image via Tom K!/Shutterstock]

People can learn a lot about you from your Facebook profile. By considering your favorite movies, pictures, quotes and the things other people write on your wall, it is quite easy to get a good idea of who you are as a person. And knowing that, many of us are extremely careful about what we throw on there.

And I’m not talking about taking down all those drunk pictures from the Jell-O wrestling tournament so you can get that job with the government you’ve been coveting. I’m talking about leaving those up to show anyone and everyone who is looking that you are one cool girl who happens to enjoy wrestling in gelatin.

Your Facebook picture is especially important. It’s the first thing people see when they look you up, not to mention the fact that it comes up next to every wall post, Facebook message, chat, update, etc., that you do on that damn website. Naturally, you are going to put a lot of thought into your photo of choice. It needs to be a good representation of who you are, be it an artist, a class clown, or any other type of person.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook (is there a 12-step program out there?!) and I’ve noticed that of the 500 million people using the site worldwide, there only 6 basic types of photos that people post on their profile:

[Click on any image to see the gallery!]

[This story was originally posted by Lauren - University of Michigan]

Likey? Don’t worry, there are plenty more faves where this came from.

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month

I have a confession to make.

Week 3 has been extremely rough. I was preparing to move back into my apartment and start my senior year of college, avoiding the dreaded g-word that happens at the end of the best four years of a person’s life. I wanted to know who was coming back when. Even more importantly, I wanted to know who would be throwing down the hardest during Syllabus week.

So I caved.

I convinced one of my friends at home to conveniently leave her page open on her laptop when I was over. (What a good friend, feeding my addiction.) I was like a drug-addict who had busted out of rehab after only 13 days. The Lindsay Lohan of Facebook if you will.

And it was a total let down.

She doesn’t go to the same school as I do. I was scrolling through pages of people I didn’t even know. I could go on my profile page but couldn’t see notifications or messages or events. I couldn’t see if anyone exciting wanted to be my friend. We don’t even have that many mutual friends. The people I really wanted to check up on had those ridiculous privacy settings where you can’t even search for their names. I was blue-balled by Facebook.

But it still felt sooooooo good.

So now I’m counting down the seconds until midnight on August 31st like it’s my 21st birthday. Let’s hope I can go these next 11 days with another minor breakdown. I can’t see these going well. AT ALL.

Oh Facebook, how did we get along before you?

You help us stalk our crushes in order to see their likes, and if there are any skanks in their photos they’re available.
You help us avoid people (you know, the ones who tell you where they are at all times in their statuses and you think to yourself, “damn, I really wanted to eat lunch there, too”).
You keep us sane while studying for exams (or at least, our attempting to study while browsing the news feed).

Facebook has become central to our lives and, much like Google, is not only a noun, but a verb as well.

But at times, like when we’re trying to maintain a relationship, Facebook isn’t that great. In fact, it’s yet another outlet for really awkward situations.

Stalking gone awry.
So you’re sitting in your room, stalking your crush whom you have barely said hello to, when all of a sudden it happens. Your computer freezes and you panic. You move your mouse around a little. Nothing moves. You click a few times, pound on the keyboard a bit. Oh wait. NO! You accidently clicked “like” on his status. Or worse, you friended him. And there’s no taking it back. Oh god.

Creepy Stalkers.
After a long day, you come back to your room and check your Facebook, hoping that there will be a witty comment on your wall to cheer you up, or a picture comment telling you how cute you are. You see a friend request (yay!). Wait, is that the kid who sits behind you? The creepy one who leans forward to stare down your shirt and breathes WAY too heavily? How does he know your name?! How did he find you?!

Quiz Results.
You know the ones. No one likes seeing that someone they know is “doggy style” or a “thong.” That’s just way too much information. Especially when it’s your T.A. At first, you let it go, but when you see the fourth quiz result for which sex position they are, you start to wonder if it’s time to block certain things (or people) from appearing on your news feed.

Break Up Announcements…and Reactions.
Break ups are difficult, and when the time comes to officially change your status on Facebook, break ups get awkward. There’s the simple fact that you have to deal with that little broken heart popping up in everyone’s news feed. And then you have to deal with those people who, instead of calling to see what happened, like to ask you for all the details via a Wall post. Even worse, there’s the reactions of your ex’s friends. You may think his suitemates liked you, until you see them “liking” the fact that Mr. Ex is now single. Bastards.

Parents.
Usually there is nothing more awkward than parents who have Facebook. They feel the need to like everyone’s status, send you annoying application requests, and ask embarrassing questions on your Wall. And if that’s not bad enough, my dad started becoming fans of different things. What started off as something innocent (“Dad became a fan of ESPN”) turned into one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. My father, a teacher, became a fan of morning sex. MORNING SEX. When I asked him about this he responded: “It’s true, I AM a fan of morning sex.” I will never look at him or my mom (ew) that same again.

So eff you Facebook, you double edged sword. You have caused so many awkward situations that I never would have had deal with if it wasn’t for how dang addicting you are.

"OMG his favorite movie is Forrest Gump!? ME TOO!"

So with the dawn of technology, we are given a whole new arsenal of tools to aid us in the battlefield that is modern dating.  We have texting, phones that make us available anywhere, Twitter, and most useful (yet at the same time lethal): Facebook.

Facebook is a fantastic thing.  It allows us to post our favorite things, chronicle our social lives, and waste a whole lot of time. We can connect with people who we wouldn’t otherwise still be in touch with (or at least, that’s our parents’ new excuse) and we can learn about people that we don’t know very well.

But this is also where Facebook turns against us.

While we enjoy getting “to know” others (read: potential boyfriends) via their Facebook profiles, they are doing the same with us, judging us based on our photos, our applications and what other people are writing on our Wall. They are able to glean more information from 5 minutes online than most people would get after 5 days of actually knowing us. Information that may or may not be a good representation of who we really are.

A funny storyline of a sitcom used to be when blind dates would bring background checks of their suitors to the date.  Those people would be labeled insane, and that would be the joke. Ha!  But now that joke is a very serious reality. In the days of Twitter, Facebook and Google, who doesn’t attempt to get as much information as possible up front? And who doesn’t make judgement calls on a person based on what they found in their Google thread?

The problem is, if someone was to judge me based on what they found on my Facebook profile, they’d think I was a drunk with weird friends and a love for really cliche quotes. And that’s not really who I am. Or at least there’s a lot more to me than just all that.

But most people don’t think about any of that. A quick poll among my friends brought the results that they believe that Facebook is a good thing for budding relationships.  “You can find out what your guy likes and dislikes, who his friends are and what people think about him,” they said. While that’s all well and good – assuming their profile has been updated recently and you can tell whether or not listing BSB as a favorite band was a joke or a very sad reality – maybe knowing all of that so early isn’t such a great thing. One of the most exciting parts of a relationship is the “getting to know you” stage; what happens when you’ve already gotten to know that person before you even have your first date? What do you have to look forward to?

And even more, what if all that getting to know him prevents a first date?

There are just some things best left to real, face-to-face human interaction and the dating is most definitely one of them.

Our newsfeeds this week were full of grown people acting like toddlers. News flash: if you’re annoyed by Facebook, log off. Or send your gripes to me (FBWallofShame@collegecandy.com). Trust me, it’s therapeutic.

20-Year-Old Who Still Goes Crying To Her Mommy Neil just dragged me down a flight of stairs by my leg laughing and all my mom has to say is ” Neil dont do that”

Frustrated Frank f*ck you and your punctuation f*ck grammar in general especially on facebook and how the f*ck do you make an event thing with this im like a monkey trying to hump a doorknob over here
Frank’s Friend Well maybe if you were smart enough to use punctuation, you’d be smart enough to use facebook.

Addicted Addison is so annoyed by the fact that she’s on facebook when she could be doing a billion other things. She wonders how much her life would change if she deleted her account…hmm!

Vaguely Vying For Attention is giving up. over this. done.

Naughty Nick is grounded for the week
Nick’s Friend arent you in college?

Heartless Hilda Hates kids that have herpes

Girl Who Doesn’t Realize Her Mom Has Facebook Successfully snuck out, then back in

Obsessed With Exclamations Being an insomniac SUCKS!!!!!!! God doesn’t ever want me to sleep!!! send me drugs asap if you have them!!!!!!

Texting a breakup? Not OK.

We live, breathe and flirt in a world of high-tech, digital romance. And I can’t say with a straight face that I am not a user and abuser of texting/IMing/Facebook chatting when it comes to communicating with members of the opposite sex. But there are some instances where no Tweet can do justice to a face-to-face interaction when you’re wheeling and dealing in the game of love. Talk about bad romance.

The Break Up:
Remember when Berger dumped Carrie via Post-it note on Sex and the City? Well that sucked. But at least he made the effort to find a pen and paper. I’d take a post-it over a break-up text message any day. In my opinion, it is never OK to end relations via a short message service. Since when is a break-up considered a short message? Think about it. (Exception: You’ve only been dating for a week, and he’s already named your unborn child. Take the quickest possible escape route available. NOW.)

TMI on the Internet:
Making plans on each other’s Facebook walls. Really? Did you lose their number? No one wants to read this: “Hey babe, why don’t you come over around 7:30. We’ll watch a movie or something… but we probably won’t see very much. LOL! Ps. my roommate’s in the library for the night… bring condoms! You know my favorite kind.” All of your mutual friends are currently puking on their Newsfeeds right now, and so is your new-to-Facebook and recently friend-request-accepted mother.

Furthermore, websites such as IJustMadeLove.com should not exist. If you have enough energy to go online and let the world know what positions you just did it in, well I just don’t think you’re doing it right!

No Calls?
Sending texts/emails when phone calls are due is my biggest pet peeve. What we could have accomplished in a five-minute phone call has now clogged up my Gmail inbox with a back-and-forth rant about whether we should eat Italian or Chinese food that night. Honestly, if we can’t talk on the phone, then we probably won’t have much to say face-to-face.

Tweeting is Not Enough:

Reading “Happy one year anniversary, baby!” right in between Perez Hilton tearing down Michael Lohan’s parenting skills and John Mayer’s latest witticism about poop just isn’t going to cut it. I need flowers, I need restaurants, but what I don’t need is social networking, thank you very much.

Pardon my rant, but technology is really putting a damper on my love life. I guess I’ll just have to decipher his choice of emoticon in his latest text to see if we were meant to be.

"Oh dear Lord have mercy. What is Melanie doing with that funnel??"

Check out this website. It’s hysterical and it’s the story. of. my. life. Every week, I write CollegeCandy’s Weekly 10 on the hard hitting issues of the moment. Issue of the week (Or maybe the issue of our generation as a whole)? Parentals on Facebook.

My mom is a very cool, tech savvy lady. She even had a Twitter before I did (and she loves to remind me of this) and is totally engrossed in Facebook. My dad also has a Facebook, but uses it much more sparingly. However, he has managed to comment on a picture of mine saying, “Look at my beautiful daughter! And smart too!” A good guy friend of mine observed that it seemed like he was trying to auction me off. Via Facebook. Let’s not even discuss the debacle when he scanned a baby picture of my sister and put it on her wall.

However, between my parents, my mom is hands-down the most Facebook happy person I know. Many of my friends add her, and she immediately accepts and writes on their wall to remind them to “eat their vegetables.” She also uses the “like” feature as if she needs it to continue breathing.

I’m sad to say that I occasionally delete what my mom says on my wall, you know, because I value my social life, but here are my 10 favorite gems thanks to good ol’ Mom.

10. ” How the heck are ya, my hard-workin’ girl??? Miss you & love you. Mommy xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxox”

9. “Miss you. Still fighting a lil’ illness. Be cool, go to school!”

8. “i didn’t think Hermione’s hemline was so short” (after seeing my Hermione Halloween costume)

7. “I’m writing this knowing full well you will delete it immediatly…sob!!! sob!!!
Sooooo, have a very happy valentine’s day anyways. I miss you and love you so very much!! You are my one and only true sweetheart!!! (written like a real valentine’s day creeper, eh? ) Mommy xoxoxoxox”

6. “Study hard!! Wear a hat – you lose 80% of your body heat through your head. Emma sez, “What up?” Don’t eat the yellow snow!!!!”
Emma is our family’s 5 pound yorkie. Awesome.

5. “how’s the educatin’ going? dean’s list this term? jafr (just a friendly reminder) from the woman who birthed you!”

4. “Gargle.“

3. “Emma asked when you are coming home…”
Again. The dog.

2. ” More like: “Facebook Breeeeeeak“

1. Upon a less than flattering picture of myself and an ex. Which everyone decided to comment on…
“ahhh, young love. you’ll grow up, you’ll learn…hopefully with no regrets!!”

With that notification sent to all 16 of my friends who made comments on that picture? I’d like to go back to Myspace now.

Melanie currently interning in NYC, taking full advantage of all margarita specials and those blonde summer boys. Stalk her on Twitter: @tinkermellie

People can learn a lot about you from your Facebook profile. By considering your favorite movies, pictures, quotes and the things other people write on your wall, it is quite easy to get a good idea of who you are as a person. And knowing that, many of us are extremely careful about what we throw on there.

And I’m not talking about taking down all those drunk pictures from the Jell-O wrestling tournament so you can get that job with the government you’ve been coveting. I’m talking about leaving those up to show anyone and everyone who is looking that you are one cool girl who happens to enjoy wrestling in gelatin.

Your Facebook picture is especially important. It’s the first thing people see when they look you up, not to mention the fact that it comes up next to every wall post, Facebook message, chat, update, etc., that you do on that damn website. Naturally, you are going to put a lot of thought into your photo of choice. It needs to be a good representation of who you are, be it an artist, a class clown, or any other type of person.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook (is there a 12-step program out there?!) and I’ve noticed that of the 500 million people using the site worldwide, there only 6 basic types of photos that people post on their profile:

[Click on any image to start the gallery.]

]]> http://collegecandy.com/2009/05/06/the-6-most-common-facebook-photos/feed/ 156 Lauren - University of Michigan facebook.jpg http://collegecandy.com/2008/08/13/a-blast-from-your-past-facebook-wall-style/ http://collegecandy.com/2008/08/13/a-blast-from-your-past-facebook-wall-style/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:30:12 +0000 B.A - Notre Dame http://www.collegecandy.com/reality/11183

“Heyyyyyy!!!! Ohmygosh we haven’t talked in ages!!!! How have you been? You look like you’re doing great. WE should totally get together sometime!”

We all have those friends on Facebook. People that we knew ten years ago and don’t talk to anymore. Except for on Facebook.

I have plenty of friends like that. And I even friend requested some of them.

Of course, those friend requests were mostly because they were the people that made my middle school years hell, …

“Heyyyyyy!!!! Ohmygosh we haven’t talked in ages!!!! How have you been? You look like you’re doing great. WE should totally get together sometime!”

We all have those friends on Facebook. People that we knew ten years ago and don’t talk to anymore. Except for on Facebook.

I have plenty of friends like that. And I even friend requested some of them.

Of course, those friend requests were mostly because they were the people that made my middle school years hell, and I like to stalk them and silently gloat over how much cooler my life is than theirs.

But some of them were sparked by a genuine desire to see how they were doing and what kind of people they had turned into.

So how does this whole reconnecting thing work, especially on the internet, and especially if one of the two parties may not be exactly thrilled at the idea of sitting across from their grade school buddy whom they haven’t seen since 1999? Something about the cyberdistance makes the idea of rekindling a friendship seem more approachable over Facebook (or Myspace, as the case may be). If your old classmate doesn’t feel like answering you, it’s a lot easier to not take it personally when all you’ve done is send a digital message instead of digging out an old phone number and calling out of the blue.

And isn’t Facebook made expressly for social networking? What is reconnecting if not maintaining your network?

On the flipside, some people don’t agree with the use of Facebook as a connecting tool for long-lost contacts. If you don’t, don’t respond. Or respond in such a way that it leaves no room for them to really pursue. Like, “I’ve got a really full plate right now. I’ll let you know as soon as things slow up.” Then, you never send a message again, presumably because your schedule is just as jam-packed as ever.

If you think it’s annoying when people randomly fill up your inbox or clutter your wall, then use what your mama gave you (your fingers) and click “Delete”. Simple as that.

I, for one, am all for the “Let’s do lunch sometime. ” Then again, that’s not everyone’s thing, I understand.

[olde time facebook photo from www.hoosieraneum.com]

]]>