Why are people so unoriginal?

You get what you pay for.

You’re talking about Facebook, specifically. It isn’t strictly a platform for creativity, there is no obligation that anyone has to be creative to survive Facebook, and most users at least the one you know are just average people, and their purpose of using Facebook isn’t about creativity. They are just relaxing, and sharing things they find interesting.

It isn’t the “unoriginality” you are thinking of. They are just normal users looking around for fun. If you talked about a Facebook page it would be a different story though.

That’s advertisement. It has nothing to do with one’s originality.

And, of course, not all people are unoriginal because your friends like sharing stuff.

You get what you pay for. ~

You get what you pay for.

Is there an echo in here?

People get original and talk abut their lives on FB, and then they get criticized for being self absorbed. People post videos and stuff from others, and get criticized for being unoriginal.

There are plenty of places on the web for original content. FB is not the place for it, as you can discern by the price of admission.

If you are going to copy, reword to look original!

I just recently, re-opened a FB acct. after deleting my old one way back in 2011. The only reason I opened a new one was to follow my daughter on her travels in Europe in May and then, when I was suspended here for a few weeks in June or July, I was invited to join the fluther group there. I am quite original being a very creative type and I post, near daily humorous photos, funny Engrish pictures, vintage commercials, pick unusual animals to profile and mix up my creative postings. Not everyone on FB is a sheeple.

@elbanditoroso What an interesting supposition. I agree that we do more forwarding than original thinking. What’s worse it’s too much trouble to CUT and PASTE! You get the fwd fwd fwd!

Oh, @elbanditoroso, how harshly you judge people you have chosen to interact with on Facebook. I imagine they would be delighted if you posted this Q as your status.

My original thinking isn’t appropriate for Facebook. Facebook is where I goof around, share stuff with my friends, enjoy silly comics, etc.

I am glad we’re not friends there, now that I know I would have to perform to some standards you set.

I have some friends who post poetry and their own ideas and conversations…

It’s a way to reach people who otherwise would be harder to reach, but there’s SO much noise and FB has auto-filters that may not even show friends what you post sometimes, so it seems like a very “lossy” and annoying channel, but strangely no one has made much competition for it.

This is probably why I hate facebook and prefer forums.

(1) You get what you pay for

(2) No one is required to be “creative” on Facebook.

(3) It is weird to be different on Facebook and Fluther

(4) What an interesting supposition. I agree that we do more forwarding than original thinking. What’s worse it’s too much trouble to CUT and PASTE! You get the fwd fwd fwd!

(5) Copycats and unoriginal thinkers

(6) It’s a way to reach people who otherwise would be harder to reach, but there’s SO much noise and FB has auto-filters that may not even show friends what you post sometimes, so it seems like a very “lossy” and annoying channel, but strangely no one has made much competition for it.

(7) Cutting and pasting is SO EASY on Facebook, Fluther, etc etc.

You get what you pay for.

“People” is a bit of a generalization, couldn’t it be said?

I consider myself and most of my friends extremely creative. Sure, we often forward articles we consider worth sharing without comment because they have headlines or captions that speak for themselves. But more often than not we do add creative commentary.

Maybe you need some new people to follow. ;-)

Search me. I don’t mess with FaCIAebook.

What it comes down to is, on Facebook and other media sites, people aren’t really all that original.

For me Facebook is a way to keep in touch with friends. Back in the day our hangouts were stuff like watching Beavis and Butthead while baked. Now it’s posting Beavis and Butthead clips and articles from The Onion and, occasionally, having a political discussion. For creativity I have my camera and a Flickr account.

Well, they just find a source that says what they want to say, only that source says it better.