The Facebook Famous Prospie is almost always shorter in person (Luis Rivera is the exception)

Facebook: a tool for the social to prove just how social they are, while the rest of us cower behind our keyboards. Are these Facebook Famous classmates-to-be on to something? Or are they just kind of crazy? Bwogger Becky Novik attempts to figure it all out.

You know who they are. Of course you know; in fact, you’ve known them since the second you touched your acceptance letter. The moment you joined the class group you saw their names, and they were probably the first people you stalked noticed.

You thought you would never see them again after a thorough run-through of all their profile pictures, but then you continued scrolling and they kept popping up. The same names. Again. They’re the ones who organized sisterhood brunches with your future peers and asked for running buddies and bubble tea dates.

At first, you start to feel the FOMO simmering. You think you’re just socially behind these kids–they’re already onto their second internet active friend group after the first disbanded and you’re still mustering up the courage to message someone “hello.”

These people know everyone. And you feel like you know them too. No, actually you do know these people…and their opinions, thoughts, and every damn desire that pops into their heads. You know they do yoga in Columbia garb and have Vampire Weekend tickets 1 year in advance. They’re wearing Barnard dad hats and organizing meet ups. You wake up and you know they’re six posts deep before 10am.  You might even start misattributing familiarity with a sad sort of affection for them. You’re nearly primed to think about them before you even open the group. Their presence in your social media life is like that of old Aunt Gus who comments “you look so adorable, I’m so proud of you!” on your white girl wasted post-prom pics of you throwing up into a bush and your date running away: uninvited but expected. That’s right, I’m talking about the Facebook infamous.

Why these people choose to bombard our newsfeeds months before school begins and for the rest of our collegiate careers is a psychological puzzle. One would think that college is a time to reinvent and start anew, which is a process that requires staying as mysterious as possible before you’re forced into real life interaction during NSOP. But not these people. They begin asserting their identities and concerns way before trivialities like name exchanges occur. Who needs that when you can just give people your stream of consciousness right away?

It may seem like the situation is hopeless. Like your Facebook is permanently plagued by the same names and there’s no way to escape. But don’t worry, young prospie, soon you’ll get so used to their names that if there ever is a day they don’t post you’ll actually be weirded out and start to subconsciously look for signs of a zombie apocalypse. The Facebook Famous, though, are not nearly as interesting or confident or enthusiastic as they may seem behind the guise of their internet identities–and those brunches probably sucked. So go on with your normal life unperturbed, with the Facebook Famous as a part of your social network schema. Time will pass, and you won’t even notice them.

(But actually if you want to permanently delete Facebook and hide in a hole that’s cool too xo)

From Facebook to Furnald Lawn via Nikki Shaner-Bradford