Getting zero 'happy birthday' messages on Facebook

Social
#1

it’s not my birthday, but it was the other week and this nearly happened to me. Even though people generally like me (I think?) and I have actual real-life friends and actually went out with them.

Can’t say I like being reminded of how unpopular I am but it’s just occurred to me that I don’t really care either. Obviously I do care a bit otherwise I wouldn’t be typing this.

There’s this silly person on my friends list I went to school who is good at singing, who rocketed up the popularity chain in Year 10 by choosing to sing in front of the whole school in assembly and basically making a tit out of himself, which I guess was sort of ‘the point’ (no one actually took him seriously or respected him), and he later became the ‘class dunce’ type person who would always get into trouble for some stupid reason like not doing his homework, and everyone else would laugh their heads off. He now sings in this (unsuccessful) hard rock band and has a ridiculous haircut, and is always sharing his left-wing political views on Facebook which always gets a lot of attention, even though it’s mostly unoriginal middle-brow stuff in my opinion. Anyway (tl;dr), his birthday on is the same day as mine.

I just logged into Facebook and the first thing I see on my News feed is him saying ‘thanks for the birthday messages guys, I’ve only just got back to replying to all of them I love you all.’ His birthday was a whole week ago, so I’m guessing he must have got thousands of messages if it’s taken him that long.

It just amazes me because although he is always the centre of attention, nobody actually takes him seriously, yet he gets thousands of birthday wishes…

I know I shouldn’t care but every once in a while I feel like nobody likes me or cares that I exist, and that popular people like him are really rubbing it in that I got hardly any messages while they got millions. I’m not asking for anyone’s sympathy, more that I don’t get why some people are so popular given how fucking inane they are, and I just needed to vent about it somewhere…

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#2

forgot to add this is mostly Jonathan Pie type stuff. I’ve decided I don’t like Jonathan Pie as I notice a lot of idiots sharing his stuff.

#3

I stopped FB from showing my birthday years back. For a while I couldn’t even find the setting to undo it but I can’t be arsed.

Basically what I’m saying is are you even sure FB is allowed to broadcast your birthday? If not then none of your friends will get the little reminders and easy ‘click her to post a birthday message’ things.

It’s got even more stupid now where you click and it’s basically done all the work of the message for you so you could conceivably wish one of your friends a happy birthday without even interacting beyond a couple of clicks.

Regarding your Mr Popular, loads of my friends will come back a period after the day to say, “Thanks for all the birthday wishes guys” and they definitely don’t get thousands. I just put it down to what they’re up to around their birthday, like going away or simply spending too much time partying.

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#4

Think you may need to see a councillor as you clearly have some hang ups about school, your youth and your ego.

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#5

Do you tend to see your friends regularly? I tend not to wish people happy birthday on Facebook if I’m likely to be able to do that in person. Edit: re reading that I see you went out with them on the day, which probably explains it.

Also some people just don’t bother wishing anyone happy birthday on there anyway, so I wouldn’t get offended if they didn’t.

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#6

This kind of reads like ‘person I don’t like is more popular than me’ and is going to happen in life and you need find some way of dealing with it. Probably by focusing on the fact it’s the quality of friends that is important not quanity.

Yet you were out with your actual friends on your actual birthday…

But yeah like mwt says you may need to seek professional help.

And probably use/pay attention to facebook less.

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#8

The moment you start equating real-world social responses with social media responses you’re setting yourself up for a bad time.

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#9

Just worry about the close friends who know you in real life, and of course family. Nothing else matters.

I have an extremely small list of what I’d call friends, but quite a few old school, uni or work colleagues who I’ve known over the years but haven’t seen in years. I don’t get that many happy birthday messages and nor would I expect them, and from those that do I know its only because Facebook reminded them.

Take it easy on yourself there are far more important things to worry about.

But it is actually my birthday tomorow. Last year antpoc created a birthday thread for me (i guess he saw it on Facebook, we have actually met, I don’t add any random DiSer). That was nice and appreciated I must admit.

#10

I deactivate my facebook 2 days before my birthday every year and then reactivate it 2 days after. Cannot be arsed dealing with that lark.

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#11

People use Facebook less.

How often do you post on Facebook? The less you post the fewer birthday messages you’re likely to receive.

I don’t use Facebook that much and I hardly ever bother posting ‘happy birthday’ on someone’s wall. If it’s a proper friend I’ll text / call them or actually see them.

Don’t overthink it.

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#12

Because I’ve done a lot of DJing, booked gigs, been in a band, worked on a record label and so on, people “like” me. But I think a lot of it is liking their idea of me.

Thousands of birthday greetings on Facebook, lovely. So a few years ago I stopped my birthday being visible. Two thousand birthday messages went down to four or five. It’s meaningless crap.

Now that I’m not involved in doing gigs/label and stuff any more (just DJing a bit), I’ve started deleting “friends” with whom I’ve never had any meaningful interaction. Decluttering. It feels good. “Friends” are overrated.

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#14

‘thanks for the birthday messages guys, I’ve only just got back to replying to all of them’

This is a classic Facebook move, convey the impression that they have better things to do on their birthday than be on Facebook

Facebook are always messing with the birthday thing, I’ve noticed they only send notifications for the birthdays of people I interact with the most, tends to be early in the day and get lost amongst the others. Also privacy settings make quite a difference, most of the time mine is quite locked down so only I can read stuff people write on my wall, don’t get many birthday messages in this scenario as I guess others messages aren’t cropping up in people’s feeds

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#16

I used to get this feeling every bday too, then realised as Theo says it was mainly cos I didn’t have my DOB showing on Facebook, so I deliberately made it visible so I’d get some notifications and feel better. It did kind of work, I got a (relative) tonne of posts on my wall and I didn’t feel as bleak. But the second year, same again, and I realised I didn’t really feel better - the vast majority of posts were from people I hardly knew or hadn’t otherwise been in contact with for ages. What I really wanted was maybe 5 heartfelt messages from particular people. I haven’t been getting them cos I have neglected those friendships. Working on it.

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#17

This guy sounds alright, can you get him to post on here?

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#18

On the whole other than your close friends you need to make it as easy as possible for the casual friends.

#20

I have noticed this. One friend who is quite well off and sometimes has swanky birthday parties always get a lot of birthday messages , also a friend who is a fairly well known DJ get lots too.

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#21

Think the fact they are so meaningless is why it feels bad when you don’t get many

#22

just one-up 'em with

‘thanks for the birthday messages from 2009, guys. I’ve only just got back to replying to all of them’

implying that it has taken nine years to reply to them all

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#23

It was late at night and I regret typing this. Feel silly now.

The thing is I don’t generally care (Matt_was_taken always says harsh things that are designed to make me look and feel stupid, yeah thanks btw). I grew up in a small, very cliquey town and went to a comprehensive where being part of a big group of friends seemed to be more important than learning to a lot of people.

Anyway I don’t normally care and it was late at night when I typed that and I regret it now, but I guess that sort of triggered something and reminded me of how ostracised and unpopular I felt as a teenager, and how socially unbearable I found most lessons, maybe I do need counciling, although just to defend myself I don’t think it’s any wonder if you grow up in that sort of environment. I’m kind of assuming most people here grew up in big, liberal urban areas and went to good schools and never really had quite the same experience, or maybe I’m wrong and what I went through is normal, I don’t know.

#25

You don’t need a counsellor

You just need to delete Facebook. It’s bullshit.

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