Web sites mock bad online behaviour

A growing backlash against obnoxious online behaviour is fuelling a series of hugely popular websites that mock the cringe-inducing updates flooding the social-networking feeds of exasperated friends and family members.

From parents posting details – and photos – of their children’s toilet visits and Bridezillas delivering mind-numbing accounts of their fairy-tale romance to status updates that boast of being "excepted" to university, these websites provide a place for fed-up netizens to call out the narcissistic, the smug and the outright annoying.

"Would you walk up to someone in public and say this?" asks Brittany, the Florida-based creator of STFU, Believers, a site that pokes fun at those who cram their religious beliefs down other people’s throats online.

Like most of the other website creators, she maintains anonymity because her friends don’t know she’s behind the site.

"I know from a lot of the people in my friend list that they’re not that bad in person, so I don’t know what it is about Facebook that makes them think they can say whatever they want. It’s almost like they turn off their social filter."

STFU is Internet shorthand for "shut the f- up".

STFU, Marrieds contains public disputes and gag-worthy updates from gushing couples.

One wife announced she and her husband spent the evening trying to conceive, while another kvetches: "After preparing dinner for my ungrateful husband . . . I tried to eat some of my labours only to find out he RUINED it and it’s so disgusting I’m throwing the whole batch out, the husband included."

STFU, Conservatives calls out overzealous right-wingers, while STFU, Racists and STFU, Homophobes are two of the newest entries to the public-shaming genre. STFU, Parents documents over-sharing parents who believe their online contacts will appreciate graphic birth photos or updates on Junior’s bout with diarrhea.

"Status-jacking" is a common offence in which someone hijacks a friend’s update with a non sequitur about their deity of choice, beloved spouse or little darling in a bid to grab the spotlight.

"A couple of people notice themselves on the blog and like it, they think it’s funny," says T., the creator. "I’ve had a couple of really brave moms say, ‘This is me and I’ll admit this is not a shining moment for me.’"

Andrea, a southern California graduate student, created STFU, Marrieds a year ago after being inundated by "increasingly obnoxious" updates from twenty-something friends flush with love and smugness while they planned their weddings.

She says some people take leave of their social senses online because they lack the cues that indicate no one cares about their wedding flowers or whether their wife really has the most beautiful eyes in the world.

"When it’s on Facebook, you don’t have to deal with reactions face-to-face. You’d get the eye-roll; you wouldn’t talk to somebody like that in person," she says. "But when it’s on Facebook, it’s not anonymous, but almost. You don’t get that reaction of, ‘You’re annoying.’"

Lamebook, the most popular of the social schadenfreude sites, launched a year ago and attracts an average of one million page-views a day. It shows screenshots of people’s Facebook pages that have been submitted by their friends. As with similar sites, faces and names are obscured, but the workers caught slagging their bosses, photos of hideously misspelled tattoos and self-deprecating confessions are addictive, in a Jerry Springer way.

"Went to the career fair today. handed out many resumes to find out later they say I have a bachelor o farts degree . . . Top that," reads one post.

Co-creators Jonathan Standefer and Matt Genitempo, both graphic designers living in Austin, Texas, just landed a book deal and quit their jobs to manage the booming site full-time, although they initially intended it only as an amusing venue where their friends could vent.

"It came out of frustration. We were talking about all the stupid stuff we would see on Facebook from a lot of our friends, people we barely know, and how ridiculous was some of the stuff," says Standefer.

"Hopefully as the technology spreads and everybody becomes more familiar with it, people will start to put some limits on what they post."

And Standefer and Genitempo are nothing if not fair: both have been "Lamebooked" by their friends.

"I had posted something about Harry Potter and I’m 27 years old. A friend of ours sent it in, he took a screen shot of it, and I thought, ‘Fair enough, that’s pretty bad. I need to put that up,’ " Standefer says with a laugh.