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As part of a series of ongoing efforts to better serve our community, a large portion of individual users will be asked to submit returns this year.We refrain from using the word “taxes.”Suffice it to say that if you are reading this, you have the good fortune of being a part of this exciting new initiative!Please take a moment to complete the following.Our sincere hope is that, one day, ours will be the only annual form of its kind you’ll need to file!
1) Were you aware that you would be asked to pay for your 2010 use of Facebook’s services? If no, check all lines below that apply:
_____declared your full-time employment as a “professional updater”
_____once described our site in the status field as “a staggering waste of time” or “a portal of infidelity” only to wait patiently to see what kind of comments you might get
_____expected unending service from anything else entirely free of charge
2) Please provide social security number and personal bank account details here.Naturally, we have this information.We just enjoy seeing how much you can remember.
3) In a separate attached file, itemize all posts, from the most “liked” and commented upon to the least.If you received nothing whatsoever on any posts in the past year, please make a case in the space provided on Schedule F of the value you could possibly represent to us and your friends going forward.We encourage you to make it interesting.
4) List the names of either, or both, of your parents who friended you in the past year.
5) List all of your own children with whom you have become friends.
6) If you have subtotals from both lines, can we all just agree that they cancel each other out for now?
7) Place an X beside the item which bests describes your general status in 2010:
_____ Famous.
_____ Always assumed you were famous within your group of non-famous persons.
_____ Starred in a major motion picture, was elected to a public office at the national level or won a Nobel Prize but still didn’t receive any cake icons for your birthday last year.
8) Have you had your widely-posted political protests shut down because it wasn’t serving the interests of the State and its Almighty Leader?
9) Were you, at any time in the past year, an Almighty Leader?If so, please read the tutorial on our “Getting Started” page to complete your profile.
10 If you are pretty sure you toppled several despotic regimes around the world thanks to the profile photo of yourself wearing a “Subvert the Dominant Paradigm” T-shirt, please fill out Schedule N.
11) Below is a list of popular Facebook scams.Please check all that you fell for in 2010:
_____a supposedly hilarious video of you
_____someone with an application that lets you see who’s reading your profile
_____someone who claims to know Facebook’s IPO date and market valuation
_____ someone insisting, in an acerbic, smart-alecky tone, that IPO is Internet-speak for “In my Pompous Opinion”
_____an invitation to tweet
12) Did you choose to speak to your life partner through his or her wall last year?Multiply each instance by 3% (0.03). Use the rate of 6% (0.06) for every time in which this occurred while both sitting in the same room.
13) If you’ve never met your life partner in person, you may claim this as an exemption.
14) Add total number of friend requests that you let languish for over a month until it became too embarrassing to accept them.
15) List all friend requests you actively ignored, hoping this taught them a lesson after what they did to you all those years ago and that being treated in this fashion has really made them reconsider things.
16) Add total number of friends who are better described as enemies, though you found yourself misty-eyed after the video he or she posted over the holidays.
17) Check here if you believe that every day is a miracle.
18) Check here if you can’t WAIT until winter is over.
19) Check here if you shared the post “I am awesome” while muttering out loud to an empty room “I am an idiot.”
20) Check here if it still really hurts.
21) Check here if you never said so.
22) Multiply the number of checks in lines 17 through 21 by the approximate percentage by which you overestimate everyone else’s self-actualization.
23) Add 8% (.8) along with your encrypted password to your subtotal if you joined the fan page of one of the following persons:
_____ David Fincher
_____ Lord Voldemort
_____ Snooki
_____ Lebron James
_____ Joe Biden
_____ a newly hatched bedbug nymph
_____ Aaron Sorkin
24) Calculate the number of times you mentioned the excellent films Black Swan or The King’s Speech or even Toy Story 3 in a post.Multiply by $250.Apply this to your standard deduction.
25) If you own an actual paper copy of Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” issue, add 12% (0.12) to your standard deduction.Double that amount if you know the correct number of freckles pictured.
26) List total number of posts in which you mentioned your enjoyment of a Facebook-sponsored product.Include, each time you “liked” a sponsored link, assuming it was a friend’s genuine interest in said product.
27) Calculate number times you wondered to yourself if all your friends were collectively able to read your mind. (Feel free to include a contribution that will go toward helping us add a mind-reading function to our platform.)
28) Do you believe, truly, that the unexamined life is not worth living?If yes, name one person you may know who still leads an unexamined life. Receive an additional credit for successfully introducing that person to Facebook.
29) Check here if any of this seems to add up.
30) If you have credit due, please convert that dollar amount into Farmville seeds.Enjoy!
31) If you have a payment due, send check or money order to the address provided and post the total as your status for the day.
32) If for whatever reason, you don’t want to share the above information, please go to your home page and reconfigure the default profile settings.The information may take several days to be fully removed from the news feeds of all your friends.
33) Rest assured, we’re not sure what we’ve just done either.
Ha! I could laugh at this from way up here on my high horse until #24. Damnit, you got me! But, I did not mention Toy Story 3, not one single time, so that has to count for something. Hilarious post! *Like.*
Thank you for liking this. And I’m sure the people of Facebook are equally baffled as to why Wallace Shawn didn’t get the supporting nod for his work voicing a plastic dinosaur.
I’d like to file for an extension, please. What is the procedure?
I am sending this to actual friends from high school–via Facebook–because this is so their sense of humor. (You must have enjoyed writing it!)
You may file an extension under the condition that you explain yourself on your notes page.
Thanks, Ronlyn. I did enjoy writing this, almost too much.
13. What if I’ve never met my life partner either online or in person? Do I get a Working Single Credit for this?
28. I’ve found life easier to examine since I deleted my Facebook 8 months ago. I’m pretty sure this disqualifies me for a return.
Dang, you may have found a loophole, Gloria. You should hire yourself out as a Facebook tax consultant, you may be the only one equipped to walk the rest of us through this.
OMG. This had me ROFL. NATHANIEL MISSILDINE FTW!!!11!1
P.S Stop reading my mind. (:
(Above is the extent of my Facebook kidz speak, unless you count an occasional sad attempt at LOLcat language.)
(Really excellent, funny piece, Nathaniel.)
Thanks, Tawni. You know more kidz Facebook speak than I. But at least it’s nice to hear that the new mindreading function is up and working smoothly.
This had me hooting all the way through! And I only cringed a couple of times.
Reposted. To facebook, of course.
Hooting and cringing always go well together for me. Thanks for the repost, hope it didn’t get mysteriously flagged as spam.
Nathaniel,
Both my mother and my father friended me on Facebook, but they have been dead for 20 and 30 years respectively. Does that mean that Facebook has a link to the dead?
(They don’t say much.)
They should start allowing people to include “deceased” as their current status, they’ve got a whole untapped market there. Only a matter of time I suppose.
Nat-
Well freaking done! Loved the bits about the scams and liking the Aaron Sorkin page. Clearly your research has served you well. This needs to be linked far and wide for mass consumption.
Thanks, Joe. I’ve spent way too much time researching this piece for the past two years or so. Sometimes, I do wish I could say my work here is done. That would make a good status update.
i am so happy that i don’t have any kids at the moment that i have to be facebook friends with. i assume you have to appear responsible if you have kids and you’re facebook friends with them. that is too much for me. i am facebook friends with my mom, but she already knows all about me so it’s okay.
I’m holding out for the fact that by the time my own kids are old enough, the site will be so thoroughly passé thanks to my continued presence on it that they will move onto whatever, scarier technology is then available.
Nathaniel,
By the time your kids are old enough, they’ll be applying electrodes directly to their heads.
Sorry to be the one to tell you.
I bet the electrodes have already been applied. I’m not hip to the scene yet.
Naw, not yet.
It’s still for the future self-abuse in the name of fun for our children.
Seriously, 15? The sweetest, sweetest taste I have ever tasted (and I’ve tasted it twice now) is when I refused a friend request and they came back and asked again.
Ah, Ratboy. And also Douchebag Warehouse Dude from a different workplace.
I’m so happy I don’t have to pretend to like you no more.
My own Douchebag Warehouse Dude and Ratboy continue to poke me to this day.
My favourite thing about Ratboy is that was his accepted nickname.
Except to him.
He didn’t know about it.
I love it! This is a great and funny post. Now I’m going back to read it all over again!
Reading it all over again? That’s the best compliment anybody could ask for. Thanks, Zara.
Brilliant, man…although you now owe Zuckerberg 15 percent.
I know, and something tells me he’s gonna ask for more than 15 percent. Thanks, Greg.
I fanned Lebron. I’m gonna go file my Zuckerberg taxes now.
The shame…
Yes we all have a few shameful fan pages, maybe you’ll be granted a deduction just for admitting to Lebron.
I need to start mentioning a lot of contemporary movies in status updates. I think I’ll get started right now.
You once got Farrah Fawcett to touch your back, Duke, I think you finally get a large credit this year.
That may be some compensation for the loss of the Farrah dollar.
It is kind of amazing to think that Farrah once touched my back. Thanks for reminding me, Nat.
15 is brilliant. 16 – 18 are the worst. I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to posting status updates about stuff everyone else is also thinking, like the weather, but of course I’m wayyyy more ironic than all of them, so that makes it okay. Hahaha.
And like Cynthia, I was humming along pretty well until the Black Swan thing. Damn you, Nat.
This is hilarious. Nice work, sir.
Thank you, sir. But don’t forget that you and Cynthia get deductions. Mentioning other Best Picture nominees could have been instrumental in swaying voters away from that awful, untrue film about those Harvard guys, whatever that film was called. So please, continue to hum along.
This is hilarious! I hope you posted it on FB somewhere!
Indeed, I did broadcast this as my status, for a particularly acute meta experience. Thanks for the comment, Jessica.
Great post. I’m looking forward to purchasing a book you’ve authored! (fingers crossed it’ll be soon)
Your sense of humor, cracks me the hell up. Cheers!
Thanks for this kind comment, and for joining me over here with the fingers crossed.
I knew the Tea Party had a purpose, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until now: to enact this hilarious reform.
To be honest, I had a hard time concentrating after the phrase a portal of infidelity…….
The Tea Party could use social networking to topple powerful regimes, as soon as they get permission from Ailes and Murdoch. Also, the relationship status field is a threat to small-town values.
It doesn’t appear that my gratuitous cussing and glowering counted for any benefit at all.
I understood there would be a benefit.
And where is the penalty for posting 90% (mis-attributed) quotes?
For fuck’s sake, cussing and glowering should count for something. I think Henry David Thoreau said that.
That guy was always so bad about taxes.
it’s funny because it’s true.
I’m happy when I can manage to be both honest and funny, which makes all those times that I’m a liar and deadly serious even worse. Thanks for commenting, as always.
Damn, man, I laughed so hard at this. I’m such a Facebook asshole. I wake up in the morning and sneer at the stupid posts people make, and then tell myself over and over not to make them… So I don’t really update very much. I have, however, made several drunk posts… Never a good idea. Technology was never meant for alcoholics like me.
Thanks, David. One day technology will catch up to the hard-drinkers of the world, until then I guess we have to settle for inappropriately poking our friends.
Funny as hell, Nathaniel. Laughed the whole way through.
Thanks, Erika, it’s especially sweet when funny people like yourself find it funny.
[…] NAT MISSILDINE submits his Facebook returns. […]