My least favorite types of posts or graphics on Facebook are what I call manipulative messages. I think we've all seen them. The graphic that says: I love my children. Share if you love your children too. Or other similar messages that people somehow feel compelled to then share on their pages.
Please, people, stop falling for this. It's extremely manipulative and I'm cynical enough to believe that it's started by some page trying to promote itself. Once you click like or share, what are the odds that FB is going to start putting more messages from this entity into your feed? Even if it's not a blatant attempt to gain reach, it's still so annoying to keep seeing this.
Then there's the other form of manipulation. The graphics that end with something like: Only 3 percent of the people who see this will repost it. Do you care enough about issue X to share?
The instant I see that little bit of emotional manipulation, I guarantee you there is no way on earth that I'm going to click share. There have been times that I really liked the message and I was planning to post it on my page until I saw that at the bottom. Nope, that would be like sharing one of those graphics that say if you share you'll have good luck, but if you don't, you'll have bad luck. Luckily, that chain message manipulation seems to be all but gone.
There's one last manipulative little post that I see cropping up more and more. Sometimes it's on a graphic, but sometimes the person is actually typing it in. You know the one: I want to see how many real friends I have. Comment/like/share if you're a real friend.
Just don't. Please. Talk about manipulative. This puts your real friends into an awkward position. They might not want to click or comment at all, but now some of them are going to feel compelled to do this in case you really are judging the depth/realness of their friendship by a ridiculous FB post. I wish people would stop putting others in this position.
There are plenty of variations of these things I mentioned and I can't stand any of them. I doubt I'm alone on this one. So come on, fellow Facebookians, please stop encouraging the manipulators--whoever they might be--and stop sharing/liking/commenting on this crap. The grumpiness you prevent might be mine. ;-)
