Assholery on Facebook

Cookie is not talking about political assholery on Facebook.

But in the groups.  The groups that are supposed to be fun.

Yes, we all seem to know that Facebook is a perfect place for people without a clue to act up and act out.

Here's the thing, when you are in a group that is a picture dump for say, "Fabulous 50s Interior Pictures" (which I am making up) it's pretty clear what the group is about.  Members post pictures of 1950s fabulous interior pictures.  The group moderator asks that the picture be copies of originals, and no duplicates.

It's not rocket ship science.

And while the group stays a manageable size, everything is copacetic.

THEN the group starts to grow and grow and grow in membership, and the more pictures that get posted, the harder it is to find the ones that haven't been shared.  Let's face it - unless you have access to an original source, sharing images that OTHER PEOPLE have uploaded and surface on Google image searches, Tumblr, et. al., start getting very hard to come by.

Members who have been looking for fabulous fifties interiors and want to be in on the joke start posting bullshit that isn't what the group is about.  They start posting shit pictures:

• Turkish cozy corners from the 1890s.  
• The Brady Bunch kitchen
• Memes that are neither original in concept or in verbiage, etc.
• Someone publishes the fake Pontiac ad.  You've seen it.  It's been around the block more often than an aging Himbo at a piano bar.  It was a real vintage photo from part of a 1956 Pontiac.  The woman is seated in the back seat of a fabulous four door hard top, featuring what Pontiac called the "off the shoulder" look in upholstery on the seats, and the man is standing outside the door, looking over her shoulder and smiling.  Then some "clever" person added in - in some 2000's cliche font that is supposed to mimic the 1950's - copy reading "Plenty of Room To Spread Your Legs In."  It wasn't funny the first time it got posted, and the 20th time someone posted it, it still wasn't funny.  

After all of the above, then the sex images from the 1950's start rolling in.   First they are flirtatious.  And from they they descend, first boobs, then the comments go lower, and then... 

The wheels come off the bus.

And the group ceases to have a reason for existing.

Try and remove the offending images and the person who posted it calls you an asshole.  Never mind that they are the ones at fault, you - according to them - are the one with the problem.  Then their friends call you an asshole, and so one and so on.

I have been called "Hitler".  I have had my personal safety threatened.

I have been told to "lighten up and stop ruining everyone else's good time" - a phrase used by people who have come too late to the party, don't give a damn about why there is party, and could care less about anything other than their own comfort.  

Remove the abuser, and then their friends take their place and continue the abuse.

Frankly, I am done.

When it gets to the point that the thrill is gone baby, as an administrator in such a group, you have two options.  a) You either shut the group down and dismantle it, which is a pain because you have to kick out all 3,000 members, then close it down, or you have to just have to hand the group over to someone else. b) You just walk away and let it turn into the wild west of the Cimarron territory.  

One of the groups moderated has always had a maximum number of members pinned at 250.  Never had a problem with the group.  A minor tweak, a once in an eight month caution to a member.

So Cookie is done with these picture dump groups as far as hosting them.

The Jump the Shark moment will be when people start acting like assholes, I am out of there.