Dealing with those OTT offensive Facebook friends
Whether you love it or hate it, Facebook has become an essential part of our lives. It’s lazy socialising 101. Do we ever have to remember another birthday again? Of course not. Can dreaded group work be done in the comfort of our pyjamas? Hell yeah.
So, it comes as a shock when our carefully curated feed betrays us. Imagine this: it’s your first week of class and you’ve just added a cool, new university friend to Facebook. They seem well-adjusted, clever and suave. Then, to your horror, they suddenly reveal themselves to be the ultimate evil: an uniformed, offensive Facebook ranter.
While you almost expect the homophobic aunt you see once a year to incessantly drill the status bar, it can be unpleasant when a new friend has unwanted opinions. So how do you deal with these pesky beasts?
Let them entertain you
You know you’ve found a true ranter when they hit the racist, sexist and homophobic trifecta. Their status includes at least two misspellings, one offensive stereotype labelled ‘THEY’, and a ‘See More’ button. When this happens, there is only one thing to do: laugh in the face of their madness. Send the status to your friends and keyboard smash your way into indignation. Grab some popcorn and watch the gossip go down. It’s all fun and games up in here.
Just keep scrollin’, scrollin’, scrollin’
If you can’t beat ‘em, ignore ‘em. Acknowledge that they’ve worked up to a rant, and then scroll by until you hit another article about the Kardashians. Offensive Facebook friends are always lurking on our feed, but sometimes it’s just too tiring to engage in their content. Ignore the negative and focus on the positive – a new internet motto.
Time to cull the herd
If a Facebook friend is too offensive to ignore, it’s time to un-friend. You certainly won’t mourn the loss of that-annoying-guy-from-university, so give your feed a once-over and make sure you’re keeping up with your good friends, not your obnoxious ones.
Unfollow them
We all know de-friending can sometimes result in an extremely awkward text message reading, “I don’t know why I’m not on your Facebook anymore.” So if the offensive Facebook ranter is a relative or close friend, head to their page and hit the handy ‘unfollow’ button instead. Now they can still contact you, but you won’t see any of their rage-spiralling.
Write the classic rant-return
When all other methods fail and rage at their offensiveness is still bubbling at your fingertips, it’s time to unleash the rant-return. A risky move, for sure, but sometimes you just can’t be stopped. Lay down the law with facts that unravel their sexist-homophobic-racist arguments, then back away slowly while yelling, “BOOM!” Consider this option carefully though, because before too long everyone will join in and the schoolyard will be chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Facebook brings out the best and worst in all of us. Whether we’re filtering our lives, cyber-stalking our exes, or just plain lurking, you’re always going to run into the bizarre and offensive. So deal with it as if the person is standing right in front of you: make an awkwardly confused face and say, “What do you mean?” Watching them try to justify their offensive argument is nearly worth having to hear it in the first place.
Sarah Mould
Sarah is a creative Honours student at the University of Technology, Sydney. She’s also a daggy dancer and denim enthusiast. You can tweet her @thesarahmould