Facebook Has a Whole New Way for People to Creep on You
It all started with a Poke. Now Facebook is offering a new and weird way for you to creep on your friends (or, more like your “not reeeeally” friends) with the addition of the Ask button.
“An ASK button,” you ask. “What on Earth could I possibly want to know MORE about from the people who turn every daily activity into a monologue on this most pervasive social network?!” Believe it or not, there are some folks who haven’t updated every inch of their profile or, by honest human error — even choice, left off things like hometown, high school, current city or relationship status. You may even be one of them! The horror, we know.
Now when you go to your friends’ profiles or scope out their About section, certain areas they haven’t filled in will show up with the little “Ask” button or an ask prompt next to it so you can pry a little to get the info you’re looking for.
The Creepiest Way to Use the Ask Button: The most invasive way we’re sure you’ll see this feature used might be to ask someone what their relationship status is. Anyone who has ever gone through a breakup and had to (ugh) update their relationship status on Facebook only to get flooded with a stream of sweet-but-mildly mortifying “aww”s “what happened?”s “sorry, girl :(“s might be trying to keep her relationship info off of FB forever. So you could ask… but also, maybe just respect their choice not to put it out there for the world to Like.
We can’t imagine people would actually use this to ask people they’re interested in if they’re single. Are you thinking about it? Don’t even think about it. Chivalry may be hanging on by a thread, but don’t let it totally die with an “Ask Button FB Ask Out.” We never thought we’d type this out but, if you must, just shoot ’em a Facebook message.
The Least Creepy Way to Use the Ask Button: Say, you’re moving to a new city… or visiting a new place for the weekend and want some tips, tricks and maybe a coffee date with an old friend who you swear moved there, like, last year or something. You can use Ask to see if they’re actually in that city and have any recs for you. Fine, fine, not that creepy, we guess.
What’s also not creepy about the ask button is that you, The Asked, have the option of ignoring (thanks!) or responding solely to that person (phew!) with your answer. So maybe your bud does want to hook you up with a hottie and wants to know if you’re single + ready to mingle. At least opting for the Ask button over a status for all to see is better, but, there’s always the original and even more intimate Ask button for personal Qs — email? Text?
What do you think of Facebook’s latest feature? Is the Ask button creepy or helpful? Sound off below!
For this experiment, my colleague Alexis let me creep on her FB profile. Thanks, Alexis <3