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This is a question Social Networking Gaffes

Freddy Woo writes, "My school bully just friended me on Facebook!" No doubt he pokes him, and then demands his lunch money.

Personally, last month a scantily clad young woman confused me with her fiance, with whom I share a first and last name. I'm still not sure she's noticed, but she's going to be mortified when she does.

What's the biggest mistake you've made using a social networking site?

(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:06)
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This question is now closed.

"Living in London like a millionaire"
Says the Friends Reunited page of my best mate at school.

The lying little shit.


Edit : Just checked, and it now reads "Working and living in London like a multi-billionaire."

He must be doing well...
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:34, 1 reply)
Oops
On Facebook I accidently pressed the wrong button and left the group "I have never had sex with a goat"

Try explaining that one to the missus
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:33, 1 reply)
Ah, facebook
Yup, it's bound to happen that some people you don't really remember/care for/like will try to add you. My usual response to this is either throw them a bone in the shape of my limited profile or, if I really couldn't care less, just reject them and forget about it.

One day, some guy I shared a dorm with at school tried to add me. When he was at school he was a bit of a dick to me. The tubby little fucker would try playing pathetic mind-games with me by threatening to spread rumours and vandalasing my stuff every now and again. Didn't help that he was a stuck-up little shit who delighted in telling us about his millionaire relatives and really looked down on the Scots which obviously wound me up.

Anyway, so this boy tries to add me. It's been about 10 years since he left school so I've had time to calm down. I simply thought to myself that as we weren't exactly friends at school I'd better reject him despite the fact that I well know that everyone is a dick to someone when they're at school and that people tend to change and get wise when they hit the real world. So I clicked reject and forgot about it.

My older brother however does not believe in mankind's ability to change and is to grudges what Dover is to cross-channel ferries. About a week later I got a message from him telling me that this 'batty man' had tried to add him too and with great pride told me he had sent the following 'pretty restrained' message:

"What are you playing at you gypo! After bullying my wee brother and busting up my CD player (don't think like I've forgotten Pussyole! (sic)) you expect me to add you to my friends list. You're a dumbass fatherfucker and I'm going to break your face next time I see you in Manchester. My whole clan has put a jihad on you so, act like you know and fuck right off!"

Yup. His whole clan has put a jihad on him. For fuck's sake! Also, I'd hardly have called it bullying but that's neither here nor there. Needless to say I felt so embarrassed I had to send one myself to apologise.

Length? Just a few lines about water under the bridge and all that.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:30, 2 replies)
Sort of on-topic...
I think joining Facebook was about the worst mistake I ever made ... yep, spent a few months on there enduring the minutae of every former friend's life ... tens of e-mails a day, pointless 'groups' which never achieved anything, tons and tons of viral apps to play with - well, maybe this belongs in Top Tips but I'm going to say it anyway. E-mail [email protected], request to be taken off Facebook and within days, the very nice people there will delete you from existence entirely.

I'm not sure what this proves, perhaps I AM an introverted social retard, but I've never looked back.

Apologies for lack of funny.

Facebook will eat your soul.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:29, 2 replies)
"Nigel Hernandez has joined the group 'Save the ickle dolphins and baby seals and bring back Spangles' "
Who gives a flying fuck.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:26, 8 replies)
I got more replies on Friends Reunited...
...when I changed my profile to say that I was a professional in the world of pub sports, coming second in the Dutch National Cribbage Championship.

Which is a shame, because it's all true*


* May not actually be true at all.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:26, Reply)
Created a myspace
in the guise of my old boss, to the point of using photo's and video's of him.

Then added him as a friend.

Hope it freaked him out, knowing that someone has taken the time and effort.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:25, 1 reply)
I set up a joke profile for Ian Huntley on Facebook.
That was a fairly eventful day.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:23, 4 replies)
Not me
But a mate of mine went onto Friends reunited and decided to get creative with his time since school so his profile read:

'After school I became a porn Baron and lost my legs in a bizarre boating accident'

Apparently there were lots of questions about that one...
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:21, 6 replies)
I signed up with a sort of social networking site
That, every other week, ran a rubbish compo.

At a guess:

* %of b3ta users who use social networking (bear in mind b3ta has a higher-than-average age demographic than most online comuunities): 50%

* %of those people who have made any kind of gaffe on such a site: 25%

* %of those gaffes that are in any way interesting to anyone not directly involved: 25%

* %of those who are willing to post such a gaffe: 50%

* derived % of b3ta members who can post to this week's qotw: 1 x 0.5 x .25 x .25 x .5 = 1.56%.

Bah humbug.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:19, 5 replies)
Wait...
you mean we're not all here to pick each other up?

oh crap, you mean me typing
"Male
23
Healthy
Enjoys walks in the country, climbing, kendo, riding my bike and swimming.

shit at tennis"

has been for no reason! *sadface*
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:15, 1 reply)
I'm a terrorist, apparently
I'd just gone through a rather unsavoury split with someone I'd been seeing briefly. Her and her sister were both on Myspace. I was trying to at least make friends with her as I'd been a bit of an arse and figured that a friendship might have been salvageable from the wreckage.

Around this time I'd posted a blog on MySpace about my hatred of the Download festival (mainly because of my intense dislike of 12 year olds in Linkin Park hoodies, but thats for another day). I think my wording was something like: "Eurgh, Download is coming soon. Anyone have a fighter bomber I can borrow?"

2 days later I get a barrage of messages from the ex's sister and herself, calling me all manner of horrible names. But most intriguing was the use of the words "killer", "psycho" and "wannabe murdering shit". This struck me as odd. I am an utter sociopath but I'm far too squeamish to want to actually, properly murder someone.

Apparently they were both going to Download and seemed to take my remark about the bomber a wee bit literally.

I can't be majorly picky with girls but from then on I did insist on dating girls with an IQ in positive figures.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 15:01, 2 replies)
Trannybo
I am more of the email generation and wasn’t really down with the Facebook and Bebo thing until my mates pestered me to join Bebo.

So I join, and I hunt for people that I know etc. A few days later surfing around I thought I would look for some cousins and my sister.

I find a cousin, and I find my sister.

Now my sister is called ‘Jo’, and my cousin is called ‘Joe’. Both are obviously shortened versions of their real names of Joanne and Joseph. They have the same surnames as my cousin was from the paternal side.

So I click on ‘Jo’ and it is someone else, not my sister. Fine.

Then I click on ‘Joe’ and find my sisters face on the page. My brain didn’t process it for a minute, until I looked at the picture again. It was my sister, but she was wearing a suit and tie and some sort of wig or had done her hair up with an uncharacteristic side parting.

How very odd I think, but I reasoned that it must be some sort of fancy dress thing. Student japery. I request that we be friends and leave it at that. I also send a text message to her jokingly referring to her as ‘Joe’.

Five minutes later I get a phone call from my hysterical weeping sister begging me not to tell our parents.

“Eh? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Please don’t tell them I want to be a man!”

“……”

Christmas 2007 was interesting.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:59, 7 replies)
I went onto match.com
Ever been on there? It's really an interesting experience. I signed up, put up pictures, started scanning the women in my area and sending "winks" to them. The result? Absolute silence.

Then about two days later I checked back in, and found winks in my inbox- not from anyone I had sent them to, but from other women. So that's how it works, I thought- instead of me approaching them, I need to wait for them to approach me. Well, now that I know the rules...

I responded to any who looked to be interesting and had a reasonable vocabulary. Sorry, but I'm something of a snob in this regard... Anyway, I chatted up a vast number of women. I got a lot of email addresses and phone numbers, then started phoning. Loads more chatting. Dozens of photos. No, sorry, I hate Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. Yes, I do love to have dinners in. I drive a ten year old car that shows its age, sorry. Yes, I know that restaurant- it's quite nice.

Forward a week and I'm meeting some of them for the first time. Some had used rather old pictures, evidently- either that or Dorian Gray had been using them instead of a painting. Some had the manners of a dock worker. But then there were the ones that were reasonably pretty and fit who seemed genuinely nice, and were interested in this blond haired guy with the slightly odd accent.

Over the next month I don't think I spent more than one or two nights in my own bed. I was fed like royalty, had a warm and willing companion every night, and generally felt like a rock star.

Only one little problem- I started getting a bit tired and started getting confused. Eight women at one time is a lot to juggle. I slipped here and there, but was able to recover pretty quickly. I took to keeping a notebook in my car, with a couple of pages dedicated to each one where I could write down important things like what restaurants we had been to and what we had done together.

Then one night I was in a restaurant with Janine when Karen showed up for an after work drink. The scene that ensued brought us to the attention of Margaret, who happened to be having dinner with a girlfriend across the restaurant.

In the end I paid for Janine's dinner and my own, as well as for the broken glasses and plates. I avoided legal trouble and was not barred from there, but have never gone back.

It didn't take long for me to drift away from the others, really. I eventually narrowed it down to one who I dated for about a year, but then somehow she got word of that night.

I'm still finding shards of that wine bottle and glasses.

Feck.

EDIT: I should add here that it really was not my intention initially to be playing the field quite that much- I just couldn't decide on who I liked best. Not that this really justifies my actions- in retrospect it really was poor behavior on my part- but hopefully it gives a little better perspective on things. I'm really not that much of a git.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:52, 11 replies)
back in the dim and distant past
when i could only access chat through cable t.v, i was a regular on a certain free site. there were a few of us on there who were regulars and would chat about many things.

one particular day, i was in a foul mood with my then-boyfriend and it showed. one of the girls i was friendly with asked me what was wrong, so i launched into a HUGE tirade of my soon-to-be-ex fella. i really laid into him, safe in the knowledge that he didn't have cable and wouldn't hear about it. i went beyond nasty and straight into bitchily vicious, giving away details of his personal life, bad habits and under-performance in the bedroom. i felt much better afterwards.

then i got a phonecall.

a very angry phonecall.

"just thought i'd let you know, i got cable yesterday. i know what you've been saying about me."

what could i do? i hung up, of course.

length? about another 2 weeks before we split up for good.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:50, 2 replies)
Biggest Mistake was
Accepting without question any invite I was ever sent but never initiating one of my own. A bit like real life really
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:50, Reply)
Caught Out
My ex-girlfriend had a few trust issues; so much so that she forbid me to sign up to Facebook, which I proceded to do anyway. I had to play dumb when people would mention in the pub my 'hilarious comments' on photos etc...

I was caught out when she herself signed up with the name Sophie Parker (nothing like her real name) complete with a stunning girl as the profile picture. I should have checked this beautiful lady's friends list before accepting, but neglegted to do so. Sophie had 0 friends, which I thought was weird and within minutes of accepting the friend request I had a message in my inbox.

Did Sophie want to meet up? Did she just want to say hello and introduce herself? No; She wanted to tell me I was a lying bastard....


I suppose you could say she had a right not to trust me, but really she had nothing to worry about. Thankfully this was the thing that ended the relationship.

We're now 'real' facebook friends....
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:50, 3 replies)
Back in the days
Before I had 3 dimensional, real friends, I was something of a Facewhore-whore. In a totally unrelated state of affairs, I was extremely fond of a young lady I knew who lived in Lancaster. We'd met very briefly in the summer and got on famously, and she'd invited me up to stay with her and her mum for a couple of weeks. Truth be told I didn't expect anything to happen between us as she was proper, magazine-y type gorgeous and I was something of a buffalo. But still, it would be nice to do a little travel and socialising.

So in the months between summer and Christmas I'd spend a lot of time on the site, talking with various people, including an older lady who I couldn't help but fancy in a very materialistic way.

We got chatting and much flirting did ensue, followed by her sending me some rather explicit photos of herself. All was well in the world, until one day my mind had to go and wander...

After talking to this older lady on the phone I noticed she had a northern accent.

"Do you live up North?" I ask.

"Yeah, in Lancaster".

"Oh right, cool! I know someone up there, I'm going to see them at Xmas."

"Oh right. Which bit of Lancaster do they live in?"

"They live in xxx (I forget)".

"Me too!"

"What's her name?"

"(Fake forename) Newton".

"No way! My surname is Newton!"

Oh christing fuck, it was her mother.

I still went up there at Xmas. I lasted just over a day before faking a phonecall that my dad had been terribly hurt in a car crash and I had to leave. Not a nice lie but I was desperate.

Yes, hellbound, I know.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:46, 19 replies)
Whoops!
On F'book, I set up a group for people who went to my old school before it amalgamated.

All was going well, people discussing memories, favourite teachers, hated lunches, etc.

Then, a girl (Laura) joins and talks about how once we joined the other school, she stopped caring, and didn't work anymore. This led one lad (Ryan) to point out that she was, and I quote "Always a bit of a mong". Charming.

This was then made even better by a 'person'* who used to bully me and many others at school joining, and saying to Ryan "Haha, wt wud u no about bein a meff, u wer 1 of my victims!"

This made me laugh at how pathetic his spelling was, then made me fume about how this 20 year old was bringing up bullying to someone he hadn't seen in 5 years, and laughing about it.

To add to this, since this new 'person' had joined the group, the spelling seemed to have gone out of the window. He started a topic called "Wot woz da worst fing to happen at *school name*"

Once again, this lad is 20.

After this, I was unimpressed, but thought I'd just leave it to rest, but it was frustrating to not see anyone telling him to shut the fuck up.

This came to a head one night, when after a few beers I logged on, and decided I was going to send a message that this would not be acceptable.

Due to drunkenness, what was supposed to insult and belittle one person, insulted every single person there.

The message reads as follows (apologies for spelling, this is a C&P job) –

“Ladies and Gentleman, we’ve managed to build up 516 members!

However, certain members are bringing bullying inot this group as if they are cool for doing so.

I have only this message to deliver to them – “Grow up you bunch of useless doling, council house, no hope of ever getting out of *town name*, future police target pricks!”

I don’t give a flying fuck if this offends people, it’s intended!

Up yours bullying cunts!

Agnostic

p.s. Officer posts available, message if you’re interested”


As you can see, not the best.

When I woke up the morning after, I had about 20 messages of people saying about how they were disgusted with my comments, and that I had no right to go on like that.

On a re-read, I could understand their point.

One grovelling apology later, in my inbox now full of insulting or angry responses, one caught my eye, from one lad I actually knew from my school days.

“Mate, personally, I think your message to the *school name* students group was completely justified, I don’t think it was bullying on your part.

Nice one for sticking up for them.

Cheers”


So there you have it, my biggest mistake was being on f’book while drunk, don’t drink and write kids!

Length? 83 Words


*The reason he is a ‘person’ is because I don’t view him as a human being, he is pure unadultered scum, and has since phoned me to tell me I’m a ‘gayboy’, it amuses me that in 5 years, he still hasn’t come up with a new insult for me.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:45, 2 replies)
Oh the shame
Jess is my ex, she's a nutcase at best and I try stay away from her as much as possible, which doesnt happen much. she has few friends and was homechooled for a while. Never had a job either.

Jess is on facebook trying to amasse as may friends as possible. so far she is on 2000 something.

Nothing abnormal so far, until i find her crying one day.
"Whats Wrong?" ask I,

"A friend of mine has died." she sobs.

"Oh sorry, someone from school?"

"No."

"oh, someone you grew up with?"

"No. One of my facebook friends."

"Oh, when last did you meet?"

"We haven't. she lives in Bhutan."

"Do you even know where that is?"

"No."

feck sakes... sometimes I regret shagging her. Ok I dont...
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:43, Reply)
I've posted this story before
and it involves me being quite a tit.

Once, I was so tired of the relationship I was in. Really tired - she was far too immature at times, was boring to talk to and the sex wasn't brilliant.

Despite the fact I lived in Newcastle and she lived 200 miles South didn't seem to put a strain on the relationship at all. She phoned me at 2am to talk about recent films that she'd seen.

I tried having "the talk", but she never seemed to accept that I was trying to break up with her.

You know what I did? The single most cuntish thing I've ever done in my life.

I hacked into her Facebook and set her status to "single".

Next time she phoned me, I acted like I was pissed off that she did this without telling me first, and "if she wanted to end the relationship, she could have warned me first". This led to her being very confused, saying that she didn't do this act, which got me to pretend to be even more pissed off.

So that's how you dump a girl who won't stay dumped. Just confuse the fuck out of her.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:37, 4 replies)
Mum's the word
The lovely-ex's sister didn't realise that if you put photographs on Facebook you could then email a URL to someone who wasn't on Facebook so they could view the photographs too. No, she instead got her mum to log in as her to view the photographs. Now his mum - who for two years thought I was the loveliest, sweetest girl ever - has been perusing my profile and knows that I am an evil harpy who is overfond of the word 'cunt'.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:37, 4 replies)
Signing
up for one in the first place....Fucking dens of mediocrity and desperation.


ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME


Fuck off and die you CUNTS
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:30, 6 replies)
not me but a friend and colleague
she was looking tearful last week at work. I asked if she was ok to which she replied

"the guy who sexually assaulted me has added me as a friend on facebook, saying 'surely you can forget the past'"

she wasn't the happiest of people for a day or so...
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:29, 10 replies)
Do you still chat to any of the old gang?
I recently got a message from an old school friend on facebook who asked the question "Do you still chat to any of the old gang?".

Without thinking I replied "No, I really hated my time at school and that's largely speaking down to the tossers that went there."

It was a few days before I realised that as a "wall" post it could be read by all of her friends. Also that many of her facebook friends were the tossers I was referring to.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:23, 2 replies)
mine
I gave my password to the Mrs... and she promptly bust me having intimate conversations with an ex....

Then I changed the password and discussed what a bitch she was in a certain group. Lucky for me that showed up on the newsfeed, which she followed and then read every bad thing I bad said about her.

Nothing is bloody private anymore I swear!
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:21, 3 replies)
Facebook, et al
Friends Reunited is excused from this one, but why do people you haven't seen for 15-20 years and wouldn't recognise on the street add you as friends?

It's doubly perplexing when you barely knew them at school. I get friend requests from people I probably exchanged a grand total of four words with almost 2 decades ago.

Are they playing some sort of "I've got more friends than you" game with someone? Classmate Pokémon?
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:20, 9 replies)
facebitch
I began to suspect something was up when at work I noticed my wife changed her facebook profile to "single"....

Sure enough I got home and later that evening she told me she was leaving me, astoundingly I wasn't all that surprised but she couldn't work out why I might have suspected.


EDIT: And now with EXTRA dissappointment;
Trying to get over the whole "my wife left me" and it's time to move on I decided to look into online dating. So I was about to register with match.com but I decided to do a search first. Popped in a few details about myself.

The FIRST result they produced for me was my cheating cow of a wife. Didn't bother to go ahead with the paid registration after that. Apparantly match.com think I'm suited to a lying selfish cheating ginger. Cheers for that.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:19, 5 replies)
First!
My Social Networking Gaffe was signing up to a website where people exchanged stories and interesting insults while hiding behind potentially false profiles and online personalities they'd built up over the years.

I spent ages trying to get first post. When I finally managed it (almost getting sacked in the process- repeatedly hitting F5 on the qotw "menu" page while you're supposed to be talking to your boss isn't a good idea...) I realised that I didn't actually have any weird/interesting Social Networking stories.

Bugger.
(, Thu 11 Sep 2008, 14:18, 2 replies)

This question is now closed.

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