Facebook: A Socially Transmitted Disease: Birkenstocks and Beer: What It Means to Fit a Facebook Stereotype.

Greetings Everyone,

After last weeks article on Identity Crisis in the realm of Facebook I thought it would make an interesting article to dissect the different types of broad personalities on “The Social Network”. It is important to understand that these stereotypes do not encompass all Facebook users nor even the majority users, rather these stereotypes cover a small minority that we have all come to know. So here they are!

The Facebook Hipsters: Everybody knows at least one, and your news feed knows them very well. These are the kids that post pictures of themselves at certain locations such as concerts, coffee shops, parties, and bookstores. Perhaps these photos are in black and white; maybe he or she prefers sepia, either way this person will be wearing their favorite v-neck shirt and Birkenstocks. Facebook-Hipsters like ironic statuses, usually a quote from obscure poet or philosopher, if you can recognize the author of this quote then you steal all the joy from a Hipster’s soul. Give a Facebook-hipster a Nikon camera and you will in-turn receive an innumerable amount of wide-angle shots featuring subjects in abstracted poses.

The Facebook Yuppies: The Facebook Yuppies feel as though their civic duty is to chronicle every action they partake in during the day with both statuses and photos. An example of a Yuppie status would be “Sarah is drinking her diet coke from Coates, totes yum! :]”. Yuppies state facts on Facebook that no one in their right minds would ever care about and post pictures of inconsequential events. Facebook Yuppies are attention seekers and would be likely to ask why you didn’t respond to their comment on your status.

Facebook Thespians: Facebook Thespians are the theatre students of Facebook. These kids post overly dramatic statuses in order to draw attention to themselves and their condition. For example “ Peter is : wondering when the dark clouds of anguish will release his soul from eternal bondage”. Thespians post their statuses to make specific statements about certain topics without actually saying anything about that topic. .Rather than face human interaction about these issues Thespians post their thoughts or feelings online, which allows them to hide from the requirement of social skills.

Facebook Bros and Teases- These characters are relatively simple Facebook users, their Facebook exists for one reason, to validate their social status. Facebook Bro’s and Teases like to post pictures of themselves in suggestive poses, a Facebook Tease would post a picture of herself in skimpy clothing, where a Facebook Bro would post a picture of himself flexing in the mirror. The status of these stereotypes would be something similar to “ John is: going to the Gamma party, going to get drunnkkkkk!!”. The focus of a Bro or Tease is to show everyone that they are in with the in-crowd, and that their life isn’t boring but rather is more like a some teenage-movie. These sort of people feed off the party life, they consign themselves to idiotic sayings made by rappers and would most likely fail to locate Kenya on a map.

Honorable Mention: Facebook Sportscaster, Facebook Gamer, Facebook Politician

So here we have four main stereotypes, I am sure that there are more and you should expect that I will investigate these at a later date. The next post will be a movie review on the recently released motion picture “The Social Network”