What Kind of Facebooker Are You?

Well let's face it, most of us use Facebook these days, regardless of the fact that it is an incredible waste of time and often just makes us annoyed and hate people we haven't met. But it seems that most of us fall into one of several categories of Facebook user. Maybe you overlap into two or three of the following categories, but ultimately these blanket terms can be applied to most of us:

1. El Contrario (The Likes to Disagree With Everything Facebooker): This jolly chap will disagree with whatever you or the cultural norm is. He doesn't particularly believe the words he says but he has to be different to be special. He is the one who says "I liked that band but now they've become too commercialised", which actually just means "Lots of people like that band now so I don't feel special anymore". Just to go against the flow, he will say something foolish like "Shakespeare is popularist rubbish" (he has a right to an opinion though- after all, he has read a children's version of Macbeth and seen Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet). His comments generally boil down to "No it isn't".

2. El Farmvilio (The Gaming Facebooker): I understand approximately 96% of the world's population plays Farmville or Mafiaville or something, which is fair enough, computer games are awesome and much better than life. But their gaming addiction will result in your status updates page mostly consisting of things like "Reginald needs a trap for his badger baiting campaign" and "Emma has unlocked the horse execution level on Mafiaville".

3. El Stupido (The Special Facebooker): Some people like to do things like kicking swans and eating their eggs. Unfortunately, they also take great joy in making sweeping generalisations about society in general. Examples might be "All students are lazy bums" or "Religious people are all stupid or terrorists". Generally anything contentious is a good topic. Actually I fall into this category since I love making sweeping statements about other races. But only because foreigners are so funny and eat rice all the time.

4. El Dullsvillio (The Boring Facebooker): This character wants the whole internet to know what he's doing at any given time. "Dave is getting the milk out of the fridge!", "Mary is in the queue at the supermarket", "Randolph wonders what time Neighbours is on" are perfect examples of this Facebooker's constant stream of unimportant updates.

5. El Rage-io (The Angry Facebooker): El Rage-io hasn't forgiven his parents for something, and wants the internet to know how angry he is. He isn't averse to calling people names or swearing over trivial matters, especially if he feels someone disagrees with him. HE LIKES TO WRITE EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO GET HIS POINT ACROSS.

6. El Pretentioso (The Pretends-to-be-Cultured Facebooker): This Facebooker fills his page with lists of books he bought. Bought, not read. On his "info" page he mentions 177 different books and lists his favourite authors as Chaucer and Tolstoy. However, the truth is, he only reads the Beano. He likes books with pictures as they are easier to understand. He claims to enjoy the films of Charlie Chaplin but actually he only watches American Pie movies. He also likes to win Facebook arguments by misquoting Shakespeare, often inadvertantly misspelling words, much to the mirth of others.

7. El Obscuro (The Irrelevant Facebooker): El Obscuro writes things which he understands but noone else does. Song lyrics are a favourite, especially ones he is rocking out to at that particular moment in time. "I'm gonna bite your face because I am flying like a kite" might mean something to El Obscuro, but noone else even knows which song it is from, let alone why it's important.

8. El Cry-For-Help-O (The Needy Facebooker): This Facebooker draws you in with deliberately vague comments like "Mandy can't believe it :(" in the hope that sympathetic people will ask what's wrong. I like to reply with compassionate advice like "Stop moaning".

9. El Provoko (The Rude Facebooker): This guy doesn't really have any opinions of his own, and works in a factory checking the taste of shoe polish, but he loves nothing better than to insult anyone who cares to express any kind of opinion or feeling. If you post a status reading "My dog died :(" he will say "Ha ha I killed your dog" If you say "I vote Conservative" he will call you Tory scum, likewise if you say "I vote Labour" he will say "You lefty scum".

10. El Jonny Foreigner (The Korean Facebooker): Corea (also spelt Korea) is a geographical cul-de-sac. Since it has effectively been an island since the outbreak of the Corean War 60 years ago, lots of trends don't really take off here. For one thing, 99% of Coreans use Internet Explorer, whereas in the Western World anyone who is at least half geeky has switched to Firefox or an even more modern browser (which I'm not geeky enough to know about). South Corea (Good Corea) is so Internet Explorer dependant that many Corean websites simply won't open if you use Firefox or another alternative. This trend is also seen in Facebook users; not many Coreans use Facebook as opposed to home-grown social networking sites such as Naver or Daum. So it's always fun when a Corean starts using Facebook and says funny things like "Are you going to the England?".

11. El Falso-Inspiro (The Quotes-Other-People Facebooker) His Facebook statuses are regularly things like "'Fried chicken is for everybody!' Martin Luther King Jr." or "'It sure is smelly here' - Mother Theresa", in the hope that people will see greatness in them, too.

12. El Envioso (The I Hate Everyone Facebooker). This guy hates the wealthy for being successful, he hates the poor for taking money from him, he hates students for not having to work hard, he hates foreigners for taking all the best jobs like cleaning, he hates the young for being rude, he hates the old for being slow. Generally there is noone this guy likes. Least of all himself. He reads the Daily Mail.

13. El One-Up-Man-Shipio (The Gotta Be Better At Everything Facebooker). Doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done. This piece of work has already done it, better, quicker, and more aesthetically pleasingly-er. You're Buzz Aldrin? Unlucky pal, this guy is Neil Armstrong. You're Christopher Columbus? This guy is one of those vikings who got there first. Whatever you do, your achievements are worthless because this winner is a better human being than you.

14. El Armchair-Pundito (The Answer to Everyone's Problems Facebooker). It is a shame this guy isn't the president of every country, since he knows just what needs to be done about Iran, Israel, North Korea, the banks, the poor, AIDS... in fact, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say he has all the answers to every problem. He must know more about these issues than the people who actually deal with them, otherwise he wouldn't bother to tell us the solutions.

15. El Constanto (The All-Day Facebooker): Those of us lucky enough to work in an office or in South Korea will find ample time to waste on Facebook, and the ability to comment on every single person's activity. Sometimes there's not even any real need to comment, it just gives us something to do. We like to reply to people's status updates by saying unnecessary things like "Really?", or "Oh.". This Facebooker spends so much time online that he uses words like "LOL" and "ROFL" in actual conversation, not that he ever has a real conversation. He is so used to using the internet that when he writes his name, he just puts his initials with a number at the end.