What is vaguebooking? It’s being vague on Facebook. And it’s super annoying.
Here’s what happens. A friend will post that they’re happy about something but they can’t say what it is yet. Even worse is what occurred this week several times with vacation photos. A friend posts a pic of themselves with someone and caption it, “Look who I ran into!”
This isn’t the 1970s. We aren’t all watching six channels and seeing the same TV shows. The era of Fonzie is over. It could be someone from a podcast or a live show or a rock band or … you get the idea. Vaguebooking requires you to guess. If you dare to ask, you will endure the shame of not knowing in public. And that’s the intended result. “Huh. You don’t know (obscure person I love)?”
I conducted an experiment. On the royalty-free photo site Creative Commons I searched Flickr for a photo of “man on a beach”. I chose one of them and posted it with “look who I ran into”.
My pal Vera was the first to give up and ask who it was. When I replied with what I was doing (and that I didn’t know!) she agreed that she has noticed vaguebooking too. It’s as if the person posting is too cool for school. It’s picking teams for Red Rover all over again and leaving someone out.
The photo drew lots of comments, some funny, most in agreement. People are also annoyed by those who don’t identify buildings, cities and airports as if everybody will know. Unless it’s the Queen, the Pope, Justin Trudeau, Donald Trump, Oprah or Tom Hanks, please tell us who it is. On behalf of the world, I thank you.
Maybe it’s reality show syndrome and everyone likes a cliff hanger or they want attention by making people ask who or what is in the picture.