So I have been looking into trying to find the best Facebook status of all time, and today I saw one which completely convinced me! First of all, what makes a funny Facebook status into one of the best of all time?

The funniest Facebook status ever!

- Funny

It sounds obvious, but the funniest Facebook status ever must be funny! It doesn’t need to make you belly laugh, but it should at least make the reader smile and giggle. It could be the type of message which makes you think to yourself for a few moments, before having a good chuckle – but it should not be in the form of an actual joke – leave that to the professionals.

- Ironic

When I talk about the funniest Facebook status of all time, often people think about just saying something crude or coarse – but actually it should be noted that irony or sarcasm are often much better ways of passing a message inside a Facebook status than a one-liner. Irony can make people confused for a second before realising the humour (and crackign up), which is generally the best thing!

- Comments and likes

How do you get comments on your Facebook statuses, and how do you make people click the ‘like’ button more? Simple – make the message a funny one. If people like your status or comment on it then your update message will be passed across more people’s home feeds, which means good things for you in the future! Don’t ignore this fact!

So now we know how to spot the funniest Faceboko status ever – what is it? Sorry…I’m not going to tell you yet! Next time!

This is a continuation of the post ‘What is a funny Facebook status’ – hope you enjoy it!

Funny Facebook status type number two – The joke

The second type of funny Facebook status perhaps shouldn’t be really called a ‘status’ – it’s more of a recycling. Jokes are one of the main constituents of the Facebook status update, and repeating jokes or copying them from other places (websites, movies, TV shows etc) are one of the hobbies of many Facebook users. Why? Because sometimes (and not always) they can make people comment and react. Why do you want this? Because the more reactions you have to your jokes or status updates, the more people will see them. The more people who see them, the more coverage you will get and eventually the more people will respond to what you say! Surely that is what everyone wants, right?

Funny Facebook status type number two – The special symbol

Facebook has been relatively ‘clean’ for a long time – in fact ever since it was first developed eight years ago. What do I mean by clean? I mean that it is not cluttered with glitter images, not full of emoticons and not populated by flashing banners. In fact, a short time after Facebook introduced plugins and widgets for its site, it was close to becoming another victim of the Web 2.0 curse (which Myspace has now almost completely died from) – letting the lunatics run the asylum. If you give people too much freedom to operate the site, they ruin it with chintzy crap. What did Facebook do to counteract this? They hid a huge number of apps and widgets from the user inside different tabs. It was a very smart move by the Facebook management team because it meant that it retained its cool and clean persona. We can, however, get around this partial block by using special symbols and characters – there are many ways to produce symbols such as music notes, suns and clouds among other things. We’ll probably cover this in future posts, but for now – these are the three main funny Facebook statuses!

The way people use a Facebook status now falls into roughly three categories. Each of these categories can contain many different quotes, phrases and sayings, but for now let’s focus on these three types of Facebook status and go from there:

So what is a funny Facebook status?

Funny Facebook status type number one – The obvious
Sometimes people like to be very obvious with what they write online. The world of blogging was never really open to the majority of web users because, in all honesty, normal people did not have anything to write about and to share with the world. Or did they? Well this microblogging platform (which Facebook has basically become) has given the opportunity to many people to begin their own blogs, and to tell the world exactly what they’re doing at any given time of day.

Let’s look at an example: Lisa is cleaning the house before the kids get back from school.

Who in their right mind cares about Lisa and what she is doing right now? Nobody. Most of the people on Lisa’s friends list are probably people she used to go to school with (and who didn’t keep in touch with her), but now she feels like everyone is interested in her mundane life. Well guess again honey!

Let’s check out another example: Jake is eating pizza! Pepperoni!

Ok buddy, I’m sure you like to eat, but so does everyone. You eating (even if I am hungry) is not something that is going to make me want to converse with you (or comment on your status, or ‘like’ your status). So why are you telling me? Becasuse you have nothing else to say! Don’t feel bad, it happens.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably just read the history of the funny Facebook status – Part 1 – which is all about the origins and evolution of the update structure and home feed system in Facebook. Now read on for part 2…

Funny Facebook status updates

Facebook also changed the structure of their site slightly, probably to bring it in line with Twitter a bit more. The ‘home feed’ for Facebook users (what you see when you first log in) was streamlined and a lot more emphasis was put on people using their feed to tell their friends about what they thought or were doing through this channel. Recent figures show that due to people using funny Facebook statuses, their pageviews have increased a huge amount over the last twelve months, whereas their opponents and competitors (like Myspace, for example) have seen their figures drop by half.

What is the future then, for Facebook and its statuses? Sites have been popping up all over the internet which are full of amusing phrases and comments for people to put into their update messages – and you can tell that people are using their update as a ‘live stream’ to communicate more and more with the people that they care about most – family, friends and other contacts on Facebook. It is obvious that there are different types of Facebook status, but which type do you use? In later posts, we’ll discuss the different types of update message and quotes available to users, and which one suits your style! Until then, why not go and update your Facebook status right now!

There you have it! A brief introduction to the funny Facebook status. Check back soon for more info about this from the site!

This is part one of a look at the history of the Facebook status and in particular, funny quotes, phrases and jokes which can be used within the Facebook status to entertain and amuse your friends. For part 2, please check back to the blog later!

Before we go in to definitions etc, let me tell you how much I love Facebook. In fact, if Facebook was a woman (and sometimes with its constant outages and annoying quirks, I think it is) then I would marry her (even with those faults). I use Facebook chat a lot, and am constantly looking for new emoticons and smileys to use in my chats – but this is not what I’m going to talk about right now. Right now I want to talk about a new craze which is sweeping the Internet – the funny Facebook status.

Facebook used to have a status system in place, so that when you click on someone’s profile page you could see what they were ‘doing’ at any one time. So far, so simple, however a few months ago they decided to change this sytem from ‘User is…’ to just a simple question – ‘What are you doing now?’. The change was staggering – suddenly instead of people uising convoluted and often boring phrases “User is eating pizza” – people were able to put their favourite quotes, jokes and other funny Facebook statuses into their updates.

Stay tuned for more about the history of the update message and how it came to become one of the most powerful marketing tools in the world today!