Facebuttheads And The Messages You've Been Missing
Okay, so the hundred and some pieces of Facebook mail that were hidden away were mostly mash notes from semi-literate men, but still, some people had written me to tell me they'd bought and loved my book or were otherwise deserving of a response.
Elizabeth Weingarten writes on Slate about Facebook hiding some of people's messages (to find your hidden messages, open "Messages" and then click on "Other"):
On Nov. 15 at approximately 11:45 p.m., I left my 1-month-old MacBook Air in the back of a New York City cab. Quickly realizing my error, I freaked out: Hands shaking, I dialed the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission, reported the cab's medallion number (I had a receipt) and jotted down the phone number of city precincts where my cargo could end up (if a good Samaritan turned it in). Then, I slumped against the side of a building and sobbed.Of course, it was only a computer. But this superficial, expensive thing contained a completed story that I was supposed to send an editor at this magazine the following morning. And all of my notes for said story, which I had come to New York to write. No, I didn't save my files to an external hard drive and no I did not have insurance on the computer. The next morning, I chugged coffee and rewrote the story. I tracked down the cab driver; he claimed he never found it. A week later, I reluctantly purchased a new laptop. And that was that.
Until today, when a colleague at Slate sent an email around about the messages Facebook hides in an obscure folder labeled "Other." Haven't heard of it? Click the Messages tab on the left side of your Facebook screen. "Other" will then appear beneath it. Click on Other and you will unearth months of messages you probably missed. (Blogger Erika Napoletano has great, annotated screengrabs to guide you through this process.) When I did just this, I inhaled sharply: A man had sent me four very important messages: two on Nov. 16, one on the 17th, and another on the 18th.
Advertisement"Please let me know if you lost something and identify what you lost," said the first one. "Did you forget something?? Please identify what you lost," pleaded the second. "Are you the one who lost something? Please respond and identify. I saw your name in the bag I found," said the third message. Finally, he surrendered to specifics: "Dear Elizabeth, I found your laptop in a taxi. Please call me at xxxxxxxxx."
She got her laptop back. And the Facebutt rep said this:
It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately. If someone you know isn't on Facebook, that person's email will initially go into the Other folder. You can easily move that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will show up there.
Grrr.
I saw this, went to FB and found a hidden message, sent in July, offering me WORK! Can I sue? GRRRR.
KateC at December 10, 2011 6:22 PM
Show of hands: How many regard Facebook as a foot soldier for the Dark Side of the Force?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 10, 2011 6:28 PM
How do you win a game like global thermonuclear war?
You do not play the the game.
How about a nice game of chess?
Given all the little irritations about facebook, why would I have one?
SwissArmyD at December 10, 2011 7:27 PM
*raises hand*
I've been doing some shopping on Amazon and now it seems at the end of the transaction I can share with Facebutt all my buying. WTF?! One, who the hell cares what I buy, that's just noise in the news feed of people who do FB. And two, it smacks of a juvenile 'I got red suede stacked heel oxfords and you didn't, neener!' The more I see FB in my online life, the more I want to avoid it.
Mary Q Contrary at December 10, 2011 8:10 PM
> why would I have one?
Because when you're a middle-aged man, all your old girlfriends will look you up on there and see how successful you've become and remember how kind and generous you were and come back into your life to give weekend-after-weekend of incredibly fulfilling sexual intercourse.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 10, 2011 8:44 PM
> why would I have one?
Because the Lord God in Heaven, Creator of All Things, doesn't think you understand exactly how many people in your life, including people you've admire at least once or for some time, really imagine themselves to be the Katic Couric of their own psychographic airwaves, and are furthermore convinced that you think you need more of that aroma in your life, too.
Whatever... You won't have the balls to tell them to truth.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 10, 2011 8:47 PM
> why would I have one?
Because in a time of economic hardship, each of is likes to imagine that we were all just one cellphone call away from a job promising retirement wealth (YOUNG retirement wealth... Busty-younger-wife-on-a-yacht-in-a-tropical-setting retirement wealth) back in 2004, but that was the weekend the cellphone battery was dead, so the guy called someone else. And in these daydream, they're still looking for just one more fanny to seat on the Board of Directors, and you're it, Babe, if only they can find you on Facebook.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 10, 2011 8:50 PM
I don't visit Facebook very often. Too much trouble, and my feed seems to include mostly stuff from about 5 of my many "friends."
mpetrie98 at December 10, 2011 10:06 PM
I'm a Luddite. I do not and will not have a Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or any other social media account.
If you are a friend you know my e-mail addresses, cell phone, land line, and my mailing address. You can reach out to me any time you want to.
If I am interested, I have your cell, land line, e-mail, and probably street address. I can reach out when I want to.
I have about 0.000001% interest in anyone I knew in high school. Maybe about 0.00001% and 0.001% with maintaining contact with many people in my past.
When your past comes back to bite you in the ass because of the pictures or comments you posted on FB or tweeted you will get 0.0 sympathy from me.
Jim P. at December 10, 2011 10:23 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/10/facebuttheads_a.html#comment-2847881">comment from KateCIt is really rotten, Kate. And then the people who wrote you maybe think you went snobbo on them.
Amy Alkon
at December 10, 2011 10:54 PM
Tweet, tweet
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 10, 2011 10:59 PM
Using Facebook for messaging is the problem. Like Jim P. write, who needs yet another communications platform?
a_random_guy at December 11, 2011 2:10 AM
Facebook is declining in many of measurements that indicate future growth and retention. Though it does continue to grow in the shear number of members, especially overseas. But younger people are generally sick of it. It's become a hangout for their parents and grandparents, much like MySpace had become. Attitudes among the youth segment towards FB are generally poor. It actually appears that kids are moving away from social networking generally and back to simpler, less comprehensive and intrusive ways of staying in touch. I wouldn't be surprised if FB is largely dormant in 5 years.
Second point - though FB likes to promote itself as a "Web Operating System", it's nothing like that. The story above is a case in point - send us messages, we'll decide what to do with them, maybe we'll tell you maybe we won't, have a cheesecake icon for your trouble. The design of their messaging and notification services is really only appropriate to casual usage, and require constant monitoring. Also you really can't trust that FB isn't going to introduce yet another policy change and alter your access to your profile archives. This is why there's a campaign among corporate IT to warn people to stay the hell away from FB for business communications.
FB Refugee at December 11, 2011 6:53 AM
How about a label on your laptop that reads, "If found, please call..."
Twenty years ago, my sister found a digital diary at a truck stop in Chicago. She gave it to me, and I started calling people on the address list to find the owner. It belonged to a German student who was travelling, so it took a lot of calls to track him down, but I did it. He was happy to get it back.
Lori at December 11, 2011 7:24 AM
Huh. Apparently the TV station wanted to interview me last summer. Tant pis!
NicoleK at December 11, 2011 7:48 AM
There's an ongoing conversation in the software engineering community about how to build a software development process that allows for quick turnaround while maintaining some semblance of quality. One of the complaints I hear about software processes is "they don't allow for daily software releases". My response is, "why on earth would you want to do that?" And Facebook is my perfect bad example.
Cousin Dave at December 11, 2011 8:25 AM
Heh. I have a FB page, but I'm so rarely on it, because, as my friend T says, I'm a "technotard". I just can't keep up with all the messaging and pokes and requests for "awards" and whateverallelse they want from me. Like Jim P. says, if we're friends, you've got my email, my cell number, my landline number and you know where I live. Make a freakin' effort, maybe? I make an effort to call those I consider friends. I wouldn't mind anyone else doing the same.
Flynne at December 11, 2011 8:30 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/10/facebuttheads_a.html#comment-2848599">comment from FB RefugeeFacebook can be useful. I emailed a writer who lives in Turkey to try to help me connect with somebody at Pravda, and she was very nice.
Amy Alkon
at December 11, 2011 9:30 AM
"Because when you're a middle-aged man, all your old girlfriends will look you up on there and see how successful you've become and remember how kind and generous you were and come back into your life to give weekend-after-weekend of incredibly fulfilling sexual intercourse." Crid
:chokes on coffee: damn, Crid... you gotta warn us!
SwissArmyD at December 11, 2011 12:49 PM
Crid, you continue to prove what an asshole you are. Start your own blog instead of hijacking others.
ronc at December 11, 2011 2:04 PM
On the one hand, I appreciate all advice, including critiques of tone & affect. It's important to understand how we're perceived by others! But on the other hand...
...Amy has assured us that her disk space is essentially unlimited.
Crid at December 11, 2011 2:36 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/12/10/facebuttheads_a.html#comment-2848930">comment from roncCrid, you continue to prove what an asshole you are. Start your own blog instead of hijacking others.
Sorry, ronc, but he's my kinda asshole, and well-appreciated around here (and not because he always agrees with me, either -- quite the contrary).
Amy Alkon
at December 11, 2011 3:29 PM
I found 40 messages I hadn't seen. To be fair they were all garbage, but still. I don't like FB telling me what is important and what's not. GIVE ME THE POWER TO DECIDE.
Assholes.
Daghain at December 11, 2011 6:26 PM
Listen, Ronc, no one's saying you're wrong about me being an asshole. The point is I get to leave comments here anyway.
This is kind of a meta-comment.
It occurred to me last night that this is (essentially) the second decade in a row where we've seen this happen on the internet.
In the 90's, there were a few people who were willing to have their direct access mediated by AOL... Maybe the performance was slower, and maybe some of the flashiest products weren't available to them, but people loved AOL because it simplified things. AOL didn't change the way their Email worked too often or too drastically, because they knew they were providing a consumer service to people at a fairly high price... People who could take their business elsewhere. All they wanted was consistent results rather than great ones, and an announcer's voice to say "You've got mail!"
Facebook was the same thing in the top decade of the century. They took away a lot of the fun parts of the internet, but people who weren't really into it didn't care. And they paid just as high a price... But it was disguised to them. They had no idea how many consumer databases were being built around the things they did on Facebook.
(I heard recently that half the computer data in the world was created in the last two years.)
Here in the real world, in venues like Amy's little shop here, you get to deal with real-world assholes, red in tooth and claw. (Or brown in pucker and fart... Whatever.)
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 11, 2011 6:47 PM
Man, I so heart Crid. Go to hell ronc. You can't compete.
Flynne at December 11, 2011 6:59 PM
"Because when you're a middle-aged man, all your old girlfriends will look you up on there and see how successful you've become and remember how kind and generous you were and come back into your life to give weekend-after-weekend of incredibly fulfilling sexual intercourse." Crid
Must be a California thing. From what I've seen of it, it's more a case of, oh look, all my old high school friends and acquaintences are heading into middle age, too. Only some more gracefully than others.
Old RPM Daddy at December 12, 2011 3:58 AM
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