I was intrigued as I read this posted by one of my facebook friends as it came through my newsfeed:
I’m never shocked at how difficult it is to communicate on FB. I had 35 friends say they were going to this event! Not One Made A Donation!! NO ONE READ IT! PLEASE READ…..
Hope you consider making a donation!
Intrigued, I clicked on it and was taken to a Facebook Event Page. It was not an actual event page, which right off the bat creates confusion among Facebook users. I wasn’t personally invited to the event, yet anyway, but I am sure you know that Facebook events are another form of virtual junk mail. How many requests for political or business fundraisers do you pay attention to when they come via snail mail? The event was basically a call for donations to the fundraiser, and because there were already a few maybes, I thought that the confusion had already started. “Maybe I’ll go, maybe I won’t.” As for me, either I will support the cause (in some way) or I won’t. Generally there is no maybe about it. Maybes are for real events where they are trying to approximate a head count. (although I wouldn’t take even the yeses as a guaranteed show)
Because the post also had a story attached regarding a great fundraising project for a musician trying to put out a CD of his late uncles’s music, I thought to myself that I could indeed support the “event” in some way, although not monetarily. I immediately posted under my Facebook friends’ (we’ve never met but have mutual friends) comment that I would be happy to give it some publicity possibly through The Indie Times and/or The Michele Jennae Show.
To my surprise, this “friend” promptly posted the same above-quoted link directly on to my wall!! First of all, the quote is offensive. I only clicked through the link to see about the project that was obviously someone else’s. Secondly, as much as this person wanted to support this worthy cause, this was not the way to go about it. If only, he had replied graciously to my original offer on the event page wall that he would get me in contact with the right people, this might have gone in a different direction.
So I quickly cut and pasted my original “offer” under his new posting on my wall, and he replied something after the manner of ‘A yes means you support the cause. Everyone has $5 they can give.’ I am paraphrasing this as I promptly deleted the whole dadgum section off my wall. The nerve! If I gave $5 to every person holding their hand out, I’d be… well, you know.
It’s too bad that this worthy cause had to be “promoted” in this way, and it’s too bad I’m not “friends” with the people who are really in charge of the project! I could have helped, maybe a little. I might have even found $5.
What would you do?
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Tags: Facebook, Facebook etiquette, SPAM