What Facebook Fads Irk You the Most?

It’s safe to say that almost anyone who has used Facebook in the past few weeks has seen at least one giraffe in their news feed.

Giraffe photos replaced many users’ profile pictures due to a riddle that went viral across Facebook. Those who answered the riddle wrong were encouraged to change their profile pic to a photo of a giraffe.

Here’s the riddle, taken from one of my friends who posted it:

3:00 am, the doorbell rings and you wake up.

Unexpected visitors, it's your parents and they are there for breakfast.

You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese.

What is the first thing you open?

(I’ll share the answer to the riddle and an explanation at the bottom of this story.)

I saw the riddle pop up in my news feed a number of times, which got old pretty quickly, but honestly, I was more irked by the fact that so many people had apparently gotten the answer wrong even though the riddle itself seemed to be a variation of the classic “What do you light first” brainteaser.

Another popular Facebook post that I personally saw a number of times was a viral video—the music video for Ylvis’ “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” (In case you haven’t seen it, I’ve embedded the YouTube clip here). As of Thursday morning, it had received more than 200 million views on the streaming video site since being posted on Sept. 3. It also spawned a recent parody video on Saturday Night Live.

Admittedly, I found “The Fox” video to be pretty funny because of how odd it was, so I’m glad that numerous postings of it eventually led me to checking it out myself.

But these viral posts have nothing on two of my pet peeves when it comes to Facebook. One such annoyance includes all the posts that ask you to “Repost this status if…” or “Repost this photo if…”—especially if the person sharing the photo or status is doing several in a row.

The other big thing that gets my goat? The invites to use a certain app or play a certain game. I’ve got enough video games in my life—I don’t need Candy Crush or Diner Dash or anything else of the sort.

Maybe your biggest pet peeve on Facebook is something else, like political posts, whether they don’t fall in line with your politics, are full of misinformation, or both. Or maybe it’s posts full of misspellings, bad grammar or bad words, or those posts that are just poorly written.

What are your least favorite types of posts on Facebook?

Have you stayed away from Facebook, or left the social media service, because of any annoyances like these, or any others?

Share your experiences in the comments section below.

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(Answer: The first thing you open is “the door.” Some may answer “your eyes,” but the riddle clearly says that you’re awake, so you’ve already opened your eyes. Furthermore, your eyes would have to be open to know that the unexpected visitors at the door are your parents and not a pizza delivery guy at the wrong house, neighborhood teenagers who rang your doorbell and ran off, a police officer, or anyone else who might come around at 3 in the morning.)