10 Signs You’re Annoying on Social Media

Few could argue that with the advent of instagram, selfie sticks and Facebook, we’re becoming increasingly smug and annoyingly narcissistic. We assume people care about what we’re up to, no matter how banal our activities may be, but really, it’s only our own ego that we’re satisfying. If we’re not sharing artsy photos of our feet on holidays – ‘Day 1 in Bali with my bae’ ( pass the sick bucket, please), we’re quite literally instagramming our midweek dinners (oh God, just kill me). Just because you apply a Mayfair filter to your pic, does not make it any more shareable; it’s still a photo of an omelette, darling.

And though we roll our eyes at others’ social media posts, we’re absolutely guilty of this behaviour ourselves. Right here, right now, we put our hands up and admit it: if we trawl through our own social media profiles, we too are letting ourselves down. It’s not our fault though, it’s become so heavily ingrained into our social behaviours, that if you’ve had a night out with pals and you’ve not told the world about it, it may as well not have happened. And God forbid you cut your hair and didn’t shout it from the rooftops.

When you take a moment to step back and think about it, it’s all a bit ridiculous. Is there anything we can do to remedy this self-obsessed, self-documenting climate? Here’s 10 signs you’re in trouble. Start by eliminating even one of these and we’ll be on the road to recovery.

1. You go out of your way to find reasons to post about the fact that you have a boyfriend. Unless that boyfriend is Jamie Dornan, we don’t care.

2. You take photos of your significant other when they’re clearly disinterested, or maybe even asleep, to show that you are, once again, in a relationship. Bravo.

3. You post cryptic statuses on Facebook suggesting that the world or somebody specific has wronged you in some way and then say ‘oh, nothing’ when people inevitably respond with ‘Awh, you okay hun?’

Millie: “Ugh, stop taking selfies, you’re so embarrassing.”

A photo posted by Caroline Foran (@carolineforan) on Feb 1, 2015 at 9:13am PST

Even the dog is pissed off…

4. You trawl through your old photos of a Thursday, looking for one in which you were looking particularly toned and tanned (and maybe five years younger) in a bikini along with the hashtag #TBT. Yep, still don’t care.

5. You can’t even eat a plate of fish fingers without snapping a pic of your below-average dinner. You might even think you’re ironic by posting this, when others usually post more elaborate meals, but you’re still posting a pic of your dinner. Who cares? You know the answer.

Week two of @andreamlawlor kicking my ass at #educogym #fitness #weights
A photo posted by Caroline Foran (@carolineforan) on Mar 9, 2015 at 11:21am PDT

Feeling the burn in EducoGym, Blackrock

6. You’ve returned to the gym after years of strengthening that arse-mould on your couch, and despite the fact that everyone else has probably been working out all along, and keeping it to themselves, you feel the world should now envy your motivation and your filtered-to-high-heaven, post-work-out bod. They don’t.

7. You own a dog. You’ve owned this dog for several years and it’s no longer a puppy. Owning a dog is news to almost none of your Facebook friends, given you’ve posted that many pics in the past. You continue to post daily photos of you and your pooch to show that you’re such a sound animal lover and that when you’re not working or photographing your breakfast, you’re tending to your pets. Nawww.

8. You simply cannot get together with your friends without posting an entire album to your various social media channels, documenting a night that’s happened a thousand times before. You don’t look any different in the pics, you relentlessly pose like a teapot and guess what? Sorry, we must have nodded off mid sentence.

Cannot recommend The Healer enough. In green heaven.

A photo posted by Caroline Foran (@carolineforan) on Mar 8, 2015 at 5:47am PDT

This is a smoothie called The Healer, from Greenbeards of Ranelagh, if anyone’s interested…

9. You’re so smug about the fact that you’re drinking something green, you’ve got to get that juice on at least several hundred newsfeeds. Of course, you are the first of few people to embark on a juice-heavy regimen and you’re all about ‘detoxifying your body’, despite the several Mexican mojitos you necked the previous night.

10. You can’t step one foot out the door without telling the world and its mother about your outfit of the day. There isn’t a more annoying hashtag than #OOTD. Are you Alexa Chung? Are you related to Alexa Chung? Than why are you expecting praise for the fact that you’ve succeeded in dressing yourself? The only exception to this social media faux pas is if you’re dressed head to toe in Penneys. Penneys is untouchable on social media.

Well, as you can see above, we’ve (well, mostly me) been guilty on several counts here. Have you? Go on, admit it.

@CarolineForan