But if you’re hellbent on selling out just to look cool to others, well. If you’re physically attractive, play up the photos. And, importantly, if you’re not, downplay them. Try to have all or most pics taken by someone other than you, even if it’s just the camera on a tripod and a timer. Save the “Like” button for stuff you really truly like; any four-digit Likes number is one or two orders of magnitude too much. Refrain from drama-queen status updates. Limit the number of pictures of random crap to about 15% as many as those of you. Don’t pull ridiculous or self-conscious poses or faces in photos; try to look natural, relaxed, and as if you’re having fun. (A workable alternative is the aloof bitchface they make models put on in photoshoots, but I don’t have you figured for a model, lad.) Have a selection of photos to choose from, and pick the most flattering for the profile. Untag yourself (is that possible? I don’t know) from unflattering or embarrassing photos of you your true and loyal friends have kindly made available to the general public. Expose little of yourself; you have no idea how much you can learn about someone just by regularly stalking something seemingly innocuous such as their public Recent Likes. Facebook is not a place to pour your heart out; everything you do leaves the digital analogue (ahem) of fingerprints. Emphasize instead the more impressive parts of yourself. Got a lot of books you read and liked? Great, put them all in there.
If you’re good at online image management, Facebook can take you far, perhaps farther still than your meatspace self. That’s probably the only reason I’ve ever considered making an account (the other would be access to everything beyond the Great Wall of Friends-Only Data), but it first has to lose the fight against the fear of surrendering personal data, forever, to a company I sure as fuck don’t trust. Of course—if you’re bad at that, it’s nothing but a new venue for making a fool of yourself.
Young men just wanna have fun, I guess. I’ll adress this in a later paragraph, though.
Most of your advice is simply great not only because it’s a common sense advice but because I wholeheartedly agree with it. With a bit of self-reflection though, assuming we are truly thinking of the same thing, it sounds more like shallowness-prevention. Nice touch on the last security-conscious bit, too. Are you Bruce Schneier?
As for the second paragraph I said I’ll respond to, Facebook is not going to be my social front, but simply means to an end. It seems incredibly useful, despite my misgivings with it. My experience with Facebook is that’s it’s quite similar to a common-man’s 4chan. I’ll leave the implications to you..
My two cents—don’t.
But if you’re hellbent on selling out just to look cool to others, well. If you’re physically attractive, play up the photos. And, importantly, if you’re not, downplay them. Try to have all or most pics taken by someone other than you, even if it’s just the camera on a tripod and a timer. Save the “Like” button for stuff you really truly like; any four-digit Likes number is one or two orders of magnitude too much. Refrain from drama-queen status updates. Limit the number of pictures of random crap to about 15% as many as those of you. Don’t pull ridiculous or self-conscious poses or faces in photos; try to look natural, relaxed, and as if you’re having fun. (A workable alternative is the aloof bitchface they make models put on in photoshoots, but I don’t have you figured for a model, lad.) Have a selection of photos to choose from, and pick the most flattering for the profile. Untag yourself (is that possible? I don’t know) from unflattering or embarrassing photos of you your true and loyal friends have kindly made available to the general public. Expose little of yourself; you have no idea how much you can learn about someone just by regularly stalking something seemingly innocuous such as their public Recent Likes. Facebook is not a place to pour your heart out; everything you do leaves the digital analogue (ahem) of fingerprints. Emphasize instead the more impressive parts of yourself. Got a lot of books you read and liked? Great, put them all in there.
If you’re good at online image management, Facebook can take you far, perhaps farther still than your meatspace self. That’s probably the only reason I’ve ever considered making an account (the other would be access to everything beyond the Great Wall of Friends-Only Data), but it first has to lose the fight against the fear of surrendering personal data, forever, to a company I sure as fuck don’t trust. Of course—if you’re bad at that, it’s nothing but a new venue for making a fool of yourself.
Young men just wanna have fun, I guess. I’ll adress this in a later paragraph, though.
Most of your advice is simply great not only because it’s a common sense advice but because I wholeheartedly agree with it. With a bit of self-reflection though, assuming we are truly thinking of the same thing, it sounds more like shallowness-prevention. Nice touch on the last security-conscious bit, too. Are you Bruce Schneier?
As for the second paragraph I said I’ll respond to, Facebook is not going to be my social front, but simply means to an end. It seems incredibly useful, despite my misgivings with it. My experience with Facebook is that’s it’s quite similar to a common-man’s 4chan. I’ll leave the implications to you..