Social media is turning us all into creepers, and I use the term creeper lightly. I used to hate that word. It just sounds like something a valley girl would say: “Oh em gee, Josh is just like, such a creeper!”. But really, there is no better term to describe the side of people that social media (and status updates in particular) bring out than creeper. People are just creepers, plain and simple. Some are more open about their…creeperness? Creepiness? Creeperniess? Whatever the term may be, these people find a way to insert themselves into their targets lives, no matter how uncomfortable hilarious it is for the rest of us. These are the people who, when someone, usually of the opposite gender, posts a status about enjoying their coffee says something along the lines of: “Nice! We should get coffee sometime.” Totally unprovoked and with nothing else to say, the original poster is now left in the uncomfortable position of either ignoring the comment and others to follow, or leaving one of those awkward one word comments like “LOL” that, while obviously meant to end a conversation, seems to cause the commenter to further comment. This is especially true among men.
Some creepers, however, are much more nonchalant. These are the creeperiest of the creepers. They look at your pictures but don’t comment. Their pointer hovers around the “Like” button without ever actually hitting it. They just like seeing who’s online without ever actually talking to them. Then there are people like me; people who like to read ridiculous updates and comments and look at pictures and how people live and create fictionalized and yet equally absurd characters in writing. It used to be a writer would go out and observe what people did and how they acted and what made them who they are. Now I can just scroll through the days updates on Facebook and get the same general idea. Only much more hilariously ridiculous and loud.