Ten types of Facebookers

NELSON ONYANGO writes on the good, the bad and the ugly faces of the users of this social networking site

Facebook ranks as one of the biggest influences of

soft-technology on society in the recent past. What began as an innocent attempt at a social networking site is now a phenomenon whose impacts are as wide as they are deep.

It has created life-long friendships and marriages, and destroyed others with the same intensity. It reduces our work-place productivity by almost half and keeps us in touch with all the gossip, innuendo, truths and half-truths about our friends and acquaintances— who’s in, who’s out, who’s down and who’s not As we marvel or sneer at it, we

cannot help but notice the different types of online persona that Facebook has brought out.

The Atwoli Facebooker

Atwoli has commented on your status! Atwoli likes your status! Atwoli likes your relationship status!

Atwoli commented on your wall post!

This type of Facebooker comments on all issues, just like Atwoli.

She comments on everybody’s wall, photo and status update. While this person may be helpful at times, her comments, which are available all the time, are downright irritating. You all know of such a character, right?

Facebooking

The Insecure Idiot

This one is so obsessed with updating his profile statement and, if in two minutes no one has

commented, he goes on to change it. If no one comments, he will indicate so many times that he likes or unlikes his update, severally commenting on it. Such a person is looking for acceptance and love on the web — soft love. While he can be a source of fun and entertainment, this type too, is a bother. To make it worse, such Facebookers never know what to say, when and where.

They update strangers about their (non existent) love lives, parents, school, church, clubbing and even the colour of their inner wear.

The Facebook Fossil

She’s dead and buried. Her ideology is the exact anti-thesis of the insecure idiot upstairs. She last updated her status when she joined Facebook a year ago. Well, as much as she does not really interfere with the lives of others, she is seriously wasting valuable Internet space.

The Gossip Girl

This type of Facebooker is interesting. She starts a nice story on your wall, comments on it twice, and the third comment always reads "Check your inbox!" Leaves those of us who are curious yearning for access to others’ inboxes and wishing they were accessible to the public.

The Socialite

This type is scary. She has up to 2,000 unknown friends, and she too, is unknown. Her relationship status is always ‘engaged’ or ‘married’, and every two or three hours, she ends her ‘marriages’ and ‘engagements’ and it becomes ‘complicated’. She

flirts and seduces too much online, and the temptress has many suitors — even the man she is now married to is not her husband! She has turned

Facebook into an online version of Luthuli or Koinange!

The Wanna-Be

One defining feature for this one is her profile picture — usually Beyonce or Rihanna, or some sex symbol

that says "Come hither". Men are always asking for her photo, but she is always quick to divert the line of conversation or ignore it. She is not the type to get engaged or married: She is always young and single, has the ‘right’ taste of music and programs,

and most of the time has ‘read’ books that are not available in Kenya. So plastic.

The Campaigner

This one’s a dreamer. He has photos of Parliament, State House or Capitol Hill as his profile picture.

They parade themselves as servants of the people by commenting on weighty matters like Kibera and Darfur.

It is obvious that they have their eyes set on the eleventh house as they claim to be in touch with Baba Fidel and Mama Jimmy.

The Forceosis Facebooker

Forceosis is a Facebook disease or disorder which causes people to force themselves onto the lives of

others by any means necessary. This type is your ‘friend’ although you have never met him. He includes you in his best friends’ list and indulges

you in all sorts of discussions, personal and otherwise. The only remedy is to block this stalker from your wall.

The phantom groupers

Well, like the phantom, we never know what they will use Facebook for. They sell wares and business

plans, seek votes for some noble cause, raise a controversial question about you (Like "Would Nelson

look good in tights?"), preach about the second coming of Jesus, teach you how to kiss or reclaim Migingo through Facebook. Anyway, some of the groups they form and join are genuine and important, like ‘A million supporters for Wenger and Arsenal’, because Arsenal is the only Premier League soccer club.

The Stone-Age Facebooker

Most of us started here, or are here. This is the real user of Facebook and simply uses it to connect

to friends and family and meet new people. This type updates status once in a while and knows when and

on what to comment.

At least everone has had a stint as Stone-Age Facebooker. Way to go!