My public Facebook page (just called Vexen Crabtree) at www.facebook.com/VexenCrabtree/ has its own News Feed. It, like everyone else's, is full of rubbish. For a while, I have been meaning to quantify precisely how much of it is junk.
I have methodically looked at the first 100 posts on my news feed. Here are the results:
- 15 were from people and pages that I follow (yay).
- 1 was a random source, with a post I was interested in – well done, Facebook algorithm.
- 5 random posts from sources that MIGHT have been interesting, but not really. Nice try, algorithm.
- 74 random stupid meme and image posts that have absolutely no place in my feed, on sports and celebrities and pure rubbish.
- 3 from trash providers (celebrity magazines, gossip columns), no better than clickbait memes.
- 2 truly random ones that looked completely personal and not really designed for the public.
Summary: 79% of my feed is pure rubbish and stupid memes, 15% is from people I follow, and 6% are successful algorithm attempts to find something I might have liked. Of those, attempts only 1% are correct.
Broken down into groups are 20, here is a full list of what I found in those 100 posts. Each line starts with the name of the poster, and ends with the action that I took. For example, 'Hide All' means I selected “Hide All From This Page", as I very frequently do. It makes no difference. The volume of pure, utter trite on Facebook is drowning out every else.
(1) Zesty Supreme entertaining meme. Hide All.
(2) K Elias Photography. Nice photo. Pointless for me. Hide All.
(3) Extra Fabulous Comics. Just a meme. Hide All.
(4) Nightmare Customers and Non Payers: Nonsense meme. Hide All.
(5) A post from Haujobb, who I follow! Yay. Liked & commented.
(6) UK Heritage Frames. Post is a random meme about Monty Python, not even related to 'Frames'. Hide All.
(7) Random: Life Memes. Funny meme. Don't care. I don't want funny memes. Hide All.
(8) Random: SportsJOE.co.uk. I don't care. Hide All.
(9) Haujobb again. Yay. Like & comment.
(10) Random: The Language Nerds. Funny meme or something. Pointless. Hide All.
(11) Dorset Eye. A meme about Reform UK being fascist. True, I'm sure, but I don't want 'Dorset Eye' as a newsfeed. Hide All (a bit sadly).
(12) Hard Images. Pointless meme that I don't even understand. Hide All.
(13) Going Postal Gaming. Stupid meme. Not even related to gaming. Hide All.
(14) Do you even Science, Bro. Stupid meme. I don't want memes. Hide All.
(15) Uncuffed Memes Encore. Stupid meme. Hide all.
(16) Funny Story. Stupid meme. Hide All.
(17) Vintage Britain. A historical photo. History is good, but not in meme format thanks. Hide All.
(18) Arkansas Extreme Metal. Stupid meme. Hide All.
(19) Council Cuisines. Pointless food photo designed to get 'shock' comments. Waste of time. Hide All.
(20) Back to 80s. Random 'on this day' image. Nice and nostalgic, but, I don't use FB for this. Hide All.
First 20 posts: 18 were stupid memes, 2 were posts from people I follow.
(21) Football Funnys. Some try-to-be-funny meme about riots. Football is boring, meme is boring. Hide All.
(22) The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. An awesome bunch of people, doing great work. A post about finances in Eswatini, which is trying to stop misconduct getting in to the press. Important, informational. Liked and commented.
(23) Creatures Cosmos. A photo of 2 random people probably involved in film, raising a glass. Pointless. No information. Hide All.
(24) Moon Night-Core. Stupid meme that makes no sense and isn't about anything I know about. Hide All.
(25) Back to the 80s. Random Terminator meme. Awesome film! Love seeing the cast. But I'm not on FB for memes. I can't Hide All as I've already done it at number (20), so this time it's a X-to-Close (mark as not interesting). This has NO EFFECT, after having done it hundreds of times, my feed is still full of shite.
(26) I Will Go Slightly Out of My Way To Step On A Crunchy-Looking Leaf. Stupid funny image about an upside-down-book. Hide All.
(27) Memeenist. Football meme. Hide All.
(28) The Credible Hulk. They're always posting good informational posts about learning to think better. I follow them already. YAY, a non-random post! Liked.
(29) Sad Comics. Random meme. Hide All.
(30) Pizza Cake Comics. Whateven does that title mean? Stupid meme. Hide All.
(31) Deadpool FC- Ryan's Roaring Reds. Not interested in celebrities. Nor films. Nor memes. Nor football. This post was all 4. Why's this even in my feed? What sense does it make? Hide All.
(32) British Memes. Some meme about biscuits. Hide All.
(33) Descendants of the Moon. Random meme that makes no sense to me. Hide All.
(34) Skeptical Inquirer. Truly powerful and useful magazine, which I follow, and have read for over 20 years. Yay. Like and Commented.
(35) Dwarves, Elves & Men. Lord of the Rings meme. AWESOME films. But I don't go on FB to see random LOTR memes. Hide All.
(36) Britain For All. I follow these. Anti-extremism group. Yay. Post Liked.
(37) British Memes. Already done Hide All above, so this is a X-to-Close-Mark-As-Not-Interested.
(38) Theme Park Worldwide. Random holiday attraction photo from 1935. Don't care. Hide All.
(39) Best Comic. Random animal meme. Pointless, stupid. Hide All.
(40) We Got Talent. Meme of boy playing piano. Inspiring. But just yet more nonsense that I don't want. Hide All.
The previous 20 posts: 4 posts from people I follow (yay), 16 random stupid image posts that have absolutely no place in my feed.
(41) Psychology Love. Random quote meme. Life is NOT reducible to stupid one-liners. Hide All.
(42) Meme Extreme. Hide All.
(43) Psychology Love. Already done Hide-All, so this time X-to-Close.
(44) Dark Secrets Of The Witch. Stupid meme about Twitter, FB and Apple and WiFi. I don't want meme-posters. Hide All.
(45) Dellima. Random photo of children and text about reading books. A meme in text format. At least there is actual text! But still pointless churned-out read-for-inspiration nonsense. Hide All.
(46) Secret Yorkshire. Random cultural photo. I don't want mild-bits-of-random-history in image format. That's not how you learn. Hide All.
(47) IGN. Random promotional meme about Deadpool. Hide All.
(48) Financial Times. Informational current-events. Useful. Good. I don't follow them, but, I also don't object. Faceboko has, on post 48, CORRECTLY located an item I'm interested in from someone I don't follow. Well done, Facebook.
(49) Game Rant. Nostalgic tech photo. Pointless. Hide All.
(50) The Historian's Den. Random history meme. Simplistic stupid nonsense. Hide All.
(51) EUobserver. I follow these. Good news item, informational current events. Liked & Commented.
(52) Paflek. Pretty photo of superwoman. But why is it in my feed? I don't want celebrity-worship nonsense. Hide All.
(53) Star Wars Rocks My World. Film-based memes. Hide All.
(54) Know Your Meme. Hide All.
(55) Awkward Relate. Stupid mime about birthdays. Hide All.
(56) Sgt Scholar. I've seen a few from this poster, normally quite intelligent stuff with decent text commentary. ALMOST done Hide All because FB just shows a large meme. But the attached text is good. Not liking it, but also not hiding.
(57) I will trebuchet this individual into SPACE GULAG. What is this nonsense? Hide All.
(58) Order of the Sith. Film-based memes. Don't want. Hide All.
(59) Britain For All. Post from 3 days ago which I've seen before. I follow these. Not liking (only an average post).
(60) ABU NEIN. A post about the passing of a band member. But I've no idea who any of them are nor what ABU NEIN means. May be related to another band I've liked. But still irrelevent to me. Hide All.
Last 20 posts: 1 post from a random source I was interested in (well done, algorithmn). 2 posts from people I follow. 1 post from a random source that MIGHT have been interesting - it was average. 16 pointless memes on topics I'm not interested in.
(61) The Scientific Atheist. I don't follow these but I see posts sometimes, sometimes clever. They've degenerated largely to memes, but I allow them for now. Not liked, not hidden. Average.
(62) Best Comics. Memes. Hide All.
(63) Sgt Scholar. As above. Intelligence and informative history post.
(64) Old Classic Cartoons. Film-based meme. Hide All.
(65) Introverts are Awesome. Stupid meme. I don't want memes. Hide All.
(66) ESPN. I think this is a US sports channel. Don't want. Hide All.
(67) Animals Are The Best. Animal meme. Not even a good one. Hide All.
(68) Etesh Brayo. Philosophy meme. Philosophy is good, but can't be reduced to one-liner quotes. Don't dumb-down knowledge. Hide All.
(69) The SkepDick. A paraody of the awesome Skep Chic? In this case, a stupid meme. Hide All.
(70) Radio Free Europe. Random Kate Bush photo. She awesome. But I don't want entertainment swamping out everything else. Hide All.
(71) AsWithin SoWithout. Random quote meme. Hide All.
(72) The Economist. I follow these. Great informational post, with info-graphic. The post regularly. Why do so few show up in my feed? Liked.
(73) New Humanist Magazine. Yay, I follow these. Liked & commented.
(74) Game Rant. Random gaming meme. I've already done Hide-All, so this time it's X-to-Close-Mark-Not-Interested. Makes no difference though.
(75) Witty Comics. Stupid funny meme thing. Hide All.
(76) Matthew Schott. A truly random post about him being in Cyprus. Name is completely unknown to me. No idea at all why it's in my feed. Hide All.
(77) Britain For All. Anti-extremist group. Funny post with no content, but, I permit it. Not liked, not hidden. Average.
(78) Rene Stoldt completely random post. He's in Hamburg. FB may FINALLY be running out of random meme-factory-outlets to show me. Maybe, in another 100 hours of Hide-All activity, it will show me more posts from people I follow, and less random rubbish. Hide All.
(79) Entertainment Daily UK. Hide All.
(80) Britain For All. I follow these. Yay. A post about Nigel Farage and Andrew Tate's stupidity. Liked & commented.
Last 20 posts: 4 posts from people I follow. 2 random posts that were more-or-less stuff I was interested in. 14 pointless stupid memes.
(81) Il rock è la miglior musica del mondo. Random music meme. Hide All.
(82) The New York Times. Celebrity athlete post. I'll ignore, as NYT are potentially a good news source. Not liked, not Hide All. Average.
(83) BEHEMOTH! Post from a band I've liked. Liked.
(84) Daily Highlight. Celebrity/film/advert/meme. Don't want anything on those topics. Hide All.
(85) Threshold. Their bio says 'we're here to update you on flight sim'..... what? Why is it here? Hide All.
(86) ͒͠O͒͠n͒͠ Crack ͡º ͜ʖ ͡º Ö́n̈́ Memes. Hide All.
(87) The Brussels Times. I follow these. They post many times a day, so why do I see so little from them, and so much other random rubbish instead? Liked.
(88) Tim Mitchell. Random historical photo about John Cage, who I think is an actor. Don't want celebrity or film memes. Hide All.
(89) CBRPNK. Blade Runner meme. Awesmoe film, full of depth. But I don't want commentary in meme format. Hide All.
(90) Thinking Is Power. A pro-critical-thinking post. Yay! If they post more good stuff, I might follow them. Liked.
(91) ProgPower USA. Pointless funny meme. Not interested. Hide All.
(92) Cinephilia Memes+. Hide All.
(93) The New York Times. Acceptable (see above). Not liked though.
(94) Web Stash. Stupid meme. Hide All.
(95) The Holy Church of Love Island. A celebrity-themed-meme that makes no sense to me. Go away! Hide All.
(96) Council Cuisines..Eat out & takeaways. A food post or meme or something. Can't really tell. Pointless. Hide All.
(97) The Credible Hulk. Yay, I follow this. Liked.
(98) Andrew King utterly random post. Why is this here? Hide All.
(99) OK! Magazine UK. Trash. Hide All.
(100) The far side. Endless comic photos. Hide All.
Final 20 posts: 2 random post that I could be interested in. 3 posts from pages I follow. 15 stupid memes and trash.
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