Facebook’s Top Trends Of 2011 Are Embarrassing


Facebook’s big report on what we humans blabbed about online is here! The good news: three of the top 10 topics of the year were important. The bad news: the rest is inane, sad, incoherent crap. We suck.

The top status of the year? “LMS”, for “like my status”, perhaps the most vivid indicator of how Facebook serves to make us feel less horribly alone online. Like my status. Acknowledge my existence. Please. I beg you. Just click the f**king word!!! A nice trend sitting between Hegelian metaphysics and making me want to drink until I fall over. The second most popular, was TBH (to be honest), an internet acronym as old as dust. And for the bronze medal was a mention of the death of Osama bin Laden. Humanity has its priorities straight! At least FML is knocked off the list, TBH.

The top overall “topic” of the year for us? Osama, followed by the Superbowl, Casey Anthony and Charlie Sheen. The war in Libya played ninth, just behind Modern Warfare 3.

The fastest growing pages? Megan Fox was the ascendant “entertainer”, barely topping Vin Diesel. Rihanna takes a deserved #1 music spot, and somehow Avril Lavigne is #3.

But links! What about links! We love to share links — Facebook’s more about that than most things, these days. So what news articles did we pass along the most?

1. Satellite Photos of Japan, Before and After the Quake and Tsunami (New York Times)
2. What teachers really want to tell parents (CNN)
3. No, your zodiac sign hasn’t changed (CNN)
4. Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps (CNN)
5. Father Daughter Dance Medley (Yahoo)
6. At funeral, dog mourns the death of Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan (Yahoo)
7. You’ll freak when you see the new Facebook (CNN)
8. Dog in Japan stays by the side of ailing friend in the rubble (Yahoo)
9. Giant crocodile captured alive in Philippines (Yahoo)
10. New Zodiac Sign Dates: Ophiuchus The 13th Sign? (The Huffington Post)

There is literally one important thing in there. Two of the articles are about horoscopes. Apparently an article was necessary for parents to not “dress their girls like tramps”.

Is any of this surprising? Of course not. For all its web wonder and social reinvention, Facebook is of course a melting pot of the lowest brows. At least Timeline is very pretty. [Facebook via AllThingsD]


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