Squirrel Thoughts

Hey, you know that person you’re friends with on Facebook? The one who you kinda-sorta know because you went to the same high school/university/clown college, but who you’ve never had an actual conversation with? The one who, despite not really knowing you, finds it necessary to comment on Every. Single. Thing. you post?

Yeah, that guy. Don’t you wish you could make him stop doing that without having to block him from seeing your posts, because, well, he seems like a perfectly nice guy, just with some FB boundary issues, and you really have no interest in hurting his feelers?

Well, I have just the solution: Bozo Filter for Facebook.

Resident bozo/clown college graduate

“’Bozo Filter’?” you inquire. “Squirrel, just what is this ‘Bozo Filter’ you speak of?”

Well, I’m glad you asked! The Bozo Filter (at least the one I’m speaking of) is an amazing tool many media outlets use to control unruly users on their comment boards.

See, sometimes people have absolutely nothing better to do other than troll their local newspaper’s website and post obnoxious comments that manage to insult people of every race, creed, nationality, gender, political belief, sexual orientation, dog vs. cat preference, dancing ability, etc. He or she also manages to do this in the most obnoxious way possible by CAPITALIZING random WORDS and LetTeRS, blatantly mispeling werds over and over again, not knowing the difference between “you’re” and “your” and launching personal attacks at other users that have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

For example, when I worked at the Great Falls Tribune, there was a guy who posted under the moniker “RedneckHippie.” As you can tell by his username, he was a real charmer. He disagreed with just about everything anyone ever said in any Tribune article and also with just about every other poster on the forum. Basically, if it  didn’t come out of his mouth, it was wrong.

When someone didn’t agree with RedneckHippie, he’d reply using his comeback of choice: calling them a moron. Except he spelled it “maroon.” And capitalized and elongated it, so the published result usually looked something like this: “You don’T agree wIth ME, so your such a stoopid MAROOOOOOOOOON!”

Now, what can you do about someone like this, who basically ruins any semblance of civil conversation possible in these comment forums? Apply the Bozo Filter to him, of course!

When applied, the Bozo Filter still allows the offensive user to post, but – and here’s the absolutely genius part – only he can see that post; no one else need be bothered by such nonsense. Basically, he’s under the impression he’s still posting and people simply aren’t responding, which no longer provides the fuel needed to feed his fire of obnoxiousness.  Ta-da — problem solved!

Now, imagine how you could apply this mechanism on Facebook. That guy you went to clown college with who happens to think Glenn Beck is the greatest philosopher of our time? BOZO’D! The girl you barely remember from middle school who apparently only knows how to communicate via acronyms and emoticons? BOZO’D! The possibilities are endless!

I’m sure we can all agree the Bozo Filter would be an invaluable addition to Facebook, and much more useful and less creepy than the “poke” feature. Are you paying attention, Marky Z.?