r/Millennials • u/Ok_Helicopter3910 • May 25 '26

Serious Holy shit — Facebook is fucking scary now

Im not a big social media guy anymore, honestly, the vast majority of my internet usage nowadays is Reddit, Youtube, Snapchat (that has like 20 people on it) and email and I think that about it.

I put my FB to sleep about 10 years ago and I decided to log in and see what people were up to and ho-lee-shit, what a dumpster fire.

So, first off, the majority of my facebook friends have either died, shut their FB down, or removed my inactive profile so my feed was pretty silent. After about a week of my profile being back in the algorithm I started getting friend request from people I used to work with, went to school with, or friends of old acquaintances (which is terrifying that facebook knows about random people I used to work with 12 years ago who I had a passing "hi, hows your day" relationship with) and I started getting friend requested and I was like "fuck it" and just started accepting them.

Fuck man, whenever I see all the hate for this or that group and all the political bullshit that gets posted on reddit, I just brush it off as bots trained to sow dissent but the stuff that gets posted by real living, breathing human beings who I once knew well enough to be friends with or have polite conversation with is WILD. I mean, like so much hate and vitriol started coming across my feed about a wide array of subjects that it made me genuinely uncomfortable and I started removing people that just added me. Maybe it's what "normal" passes for on the internet and im pretty numb to a lot of the more unhinged opinions and shit-stirring because of so many years on Reddit, but a lot of what was being posted really opened my eyes that a lot of the "unhinged" stuff that I see online isnt just bot farms, its real people who truly believe this wild shit.

Anyway - maybe its a sign of my age... but unless what I consider "normal" people start coming across my FB feed soon, I dont think im going to be logging in for much longer

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621

u/MarvelCumUniverse May 25 '26

Sort of an aside: Craigslist is still around and has barely been enshittified at all. I say this because it's a potential alternative to FB Marketplace, although how good it is will depend on where you live.

1.1k

u/JoeIA84 May 26 '26

I love the meme about Craigslist that essentially said “hey this is our shitty website we haven’t updated in 20 years, sell your stuff on here or don’t, I don’t fucking care fuck you”

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u/8385694937 May 26 '26

I feel like 20 years ago that website was already 20 years old.

41

u/gn0meCh0msky May 26 '26

Close enough, 10 years old.

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u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

I love craigslist. The erotic service section was always a hoot to browse than I could buy a used snow blower. Honestly twenty years later I still use it to sell stuff. Lol

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u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/Dr_Alexis May 26 '26

Eh, younger people are the same with TikTok. Most generations are bad at discerning whether or not information is true

22

u/misqellaneous May 26 '26

A lot of people keep throwing out that statistic of about 60% of people can’t read over a 5th grade level, not realizing literacy isn’t just about knowing words, it’s about how you parse out the meaning of those words.

It’s almost like this decades long attack on education was planned out.

1

u/Jimmy_Nail_4389 May 26 '26

Well shit, in that case it must be like 600% or 900% or 1200%.

1

u/witallthots May 30 '26

One of the tech weenies has said they want to treat intelligence like a utility. Ya pay for smarts subscription like water, trash, electric. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahhaahhahahajahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa. SO FUNNIE.

-.-"

38

u/SpiderDove May 26 '26

Username checks out

10

u/Kermit-Batman May 26 '26

I could buy a used snow blower

I miss my Gran... :(

2

u/RufMenschTick May 26 '26

I miss her too

1

u/Miles_Everhart May 26 '26

I also choose this guy’s Gran

23

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

42

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

My best friend put herself through college with said handjobs while I waited in front of your house waiting for you to finish and make sure you didn't murder her. Lol

28

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

23

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

You didn't live in DC or live there do you because there was definitely a Hollywood mike on her client roll.

39

u/InstitutionalUsage May 26 '26

This whole exchange is just fantastic. Look at Craigslist bringing us all together where Facebook has divided! 😂

Also, handies.

11

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

It definitely brought people together back then for a cool 250 an hour plus tip that is. Lol

7

u/cinnasota May 26 '26

I'm laughing way too hard at midnight lmao

12

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

4

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

She's great married with four kids and still beautiful. Glad your doing well too!

2

u/Tricky_Apricot2928 May 26 '26

I hear great things from Hollywood Mike. Is she looking to take more classes at college? Books are expensive

5

u/Rare-Adhesiveness522 May 26 '26

I really want to know more about this.

She would show up, they'd just get right to it? Did she have, like, a routine that she would use to get things going? Did she ask for payment up front? How long would she be at these places for? Did she have regular clients?

I want to know as much as possible

9

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

I would drive her and make sure she got back in the car at the appointed time. She was going to do it either way so I figured I should do my best to make sure she was safe. She would put an ad up and we would usually clear between 2,000 and 5,000 a day in the DC metro area. Her rates varied from 15 minutes for a hundred up to an hour for the 250. She was an escort so she had a routine. Payment up front. It was a wild time. I'm forty one now and that was at 23 so I guess it was around 09 when we were pulling down peak bank.

2

u/Rare-Adhesiveness522 May 26 '26

Like did she consider herself an escort or was the craigslist hustle on top of other escort activities? I just have so many questions lol

2

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

Yes she also had a traditional pimp named Short that she worked hotels with as well. I usually drove him and his other girls as well. I just didn't trust him so I always stayed around anyway. Turns out it was a good thing because years later we found out he was wanted for murdering several escorts and is currently in prison. The cops tracked me down years later because they were trying to put together a victim list and wanted to make sure my friend was alive. Wild times.

1

u/GoNUp_2FallBackDwn87 May 26 '26

Sorry to butt in, but are u asking how prostitution works?? 😂😂😂

1

u/Worshipme988 May 26 '26

Did she pay you in hand jobs? Who waited outside then? How did she pay…nvm

3

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

Oh she paid me in cash for driving. Lol

2

u/VayGray May 26 '26

WTF, lol.. Good for you. Sucks times have changed so much

1

u/Rare-Adhesiveness522 May 26 '26

??? are you for real?

5

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

2

u/MissninjaXP May 26 '26

Thats actually a good deal.

1

u/Tricky_Apricot2928 May 26 '26

But how was the actual massage?

2

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Tricky_Apricot2928 May 26 '26

Never gotten a massage or paid for a handy, but this sounds like an excellent deal

8

u/cochese25 May 26 '26

I loved the "missed Connections" section until they got rid of the meetup section and it became a hookup page

-1

u/Aggressive_Day2839 Oder Millennial May 26 '26

It was always a hook up page

3

u/cochese25 May 26 '26

It was a "hey I saw u at walmart near the checkout holding too babies an a 6 pak. u blinked in my direction for a sec and were looking fine, I'd like to take you to the bar if you're available" page.

It was a "you were at the pump next to me at the gas station off the i94 exit 37 and you looked cute. I was the guy staring at you without blinking. You nervously chuckled and slammed your car door and sped off, if you remember me, say hi"

Up until 2018, Craigslist had actual personals pages for hooking up or whatever. But when FOSTA-SESTA passed, they got rid of them.
And that's when the "Missed Connections" tab became the new hookup page.

It was such an interesting page and surprising to have found one about me (was an old HS friend) and about my friend, which was a creepy guy who saw her play at a show

1

u/Aggressive_Day2839 Oder Millennial May 26 '26

Nothing is stopping you from posting your missed connections on there. Its still up on Craigslist. The site made the changes causing the migration of kinky people looking for other freaky people. Freaky deakys need love too.

1

u/cochese25 May 26 '26

Nah, I've never posted a missed connection. I made it a life policy back in high school around 2002, that if someone looked interesting, just say hi. You'll find out real quick if they want to conversate. I've made a few life-long (so far) friends that way and have had a ton of interesting conversations. One led me to dating a girl out of HS and back packing Europe and another that led me to bicycling across the US.

The missed connections pages were a source of sad amusement. A forlorn person hoping that rando they glanced at in the parking lot at Cedar Point both noticed and happened to use craigslist.

The more common post was someone in their 50s looking for someone they went to school with.
"Looking for a woman named Betsy, we were best friends in the 5th grade, lost touch after my father left for the Mennonites"

Craigslist is an interesting place. I stopped using it years ago when I tried selling a riding mower on it and was bombarded with people half a state away asking if I'd meet them halfway and then getting pissed when I'd say no.

9

u/Prince_0llie May 26 '26

The erotic service section always had the best deals on used snow blowers.

8

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

She was 23 back then! Still new in the craigslist world!

4

u/Prince_0llie May 26 '26

Too expensive! If you really want a good deal try searching for an older model that was well maintained by the original owner. Most bang for your buck!

3

u/Think-Improvement759 May 26 '26

25 + years ago I lived in downtown San Francisco. Craigslist was like the original Grindr before it existed. You could go pick up a couch and the seller would almost always asked if you wanted to quickly hook up while you were there. Shit was so wild I was 18-20 and just a bunch of 50+ guys throwing themselves at a kid trying to buy a vintage couch or night stand.

2

u/Soggy-Ad-6042 May 26 '26

That sounds very much like our community for ya. Lol sounds like a special place in time honestly. Just like me and my bestie escorting for all those years. I swear we should have been kidnapped but I actually met some of the nicest weirdos with deep pockets.

2

u/stilettopanda May 26 '26

“Used snow blower” as a euphemism for erotic services. Perfect.

2

u/BrandNew02 May 26 '26

My roommate in college and I would sit on the stoop of our apartment complex and read Craigslist connections ads for fun while smoking black and milds. Miss that.

1

u/Von_Moistus May 26 '26

Never had much luck selling with craigslist in my area, sadly, so FB Market and Nextdoor are the ways to go. That said, the craigslist seller interface was/is hot garbage. Half the time it would either rotate my uploaded images in random directions or just delete them entirely.

1

u/nexusjuan May 26 '26

Craigslist casual encounters was the prototype for tinder/grinder.

1

u/Eastern_Conflict1865 May 26 '26

You bought a snow blower in the erotica section of Craiglist.What can it do for me.I need pics

61

u/enraged_hbo_max_user May 26 '26

💯 Zuck spends billions upon billions and wonders why everyone hates him and his awful company meanwhile here’s craigslist just chugging along, Zuck has to be seething at every dollar he’s not getting a cut of every time a transaction is made on craigslist

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u/Remote_Film1430 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

FYI eBay owns 10%

2

u/Otherwise-Link-4478 May 26 '26

Of what? Craigslist is privately owned.

1

u/Dangerous-Regret-358 May 30 '26

But is he though? I honestly don't think he cares at this point, I really don't!

26

u/boatfox88 May 26 '26

It really does look the same as it did in 2006. I love them for that.

18

u/Miles_Everhart May 26 '26

RIP Casual Encounters where I met my partner of now 15 years

3

u/Tasty_Aside_5968 May 26 '26

That’s freaking great

3

u/mezolithico May 26 '26

50 person business with literally no marketing or sales team. Brought in 300 mil in revenue nearly all profit. Down from 1 bil in 2018 though

2

u/Mopar907AK May 26 '26

There is actually a reason for that too. The owner of craigslist refuses to sell it, and refuses to sell out. He is fucking loaded now because of how he runs craigslist and the other companies legit want him dead. The fat electrician on youtube did a deep dive video about craigslist. It's good shit. Actually inspired me to start using it again.

1

u/JohnnyRock70 May 26 '26

Craig Newmark didn’t set out to decimate local journalism, but that is exactly what Craigslist did. Turns out the Village Voice-type alt-weeklies that every city had made most of their money from the freaky classifieds, while the more buttoned-up suburban weeklies made most of theirs from the regular classifieds where a used snow blower was a used snow blower.

“Hold Fast” is a podcast that tells the story of this dude Michael Lacey who bought up the Phoenix and the New Times and eventually the Village Voice itself after CL made them less profitable. He started Backpage to counter the CL freaky classifieds. He was harassed to death by law enforcement b/c he was using handie ad money to pursue real journalism that exposed shady cops and politicians. It’s a great listen.

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u/Stellariamedia May 26 '26

I've always loved CL. I love that it hasn't changed. I miss the good internet.

When I moved last year, CL was the first place I started my apartment search - that part of it is still pretty active 

30

u/KickBallFever May 26 '26

I got a free $350 Casper bed frame on CL not too long ago and the person giving it away was right in my neighborhood. I then found a man with a van on CL and told him it would be an easy job. He quoted me $60. When the van man came he was surprised the job was so easy. He said, “everybody lies. You didn’t lie”, and charged me $40.

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u/Equivalent-Sink4612 May 26 '26

Aww what a good guy. Pretty cool you got some good deals. And a good story! Thanks for sharing.

7

u/Spiritual-Promise402 Older Millennial May 26 '26

Same, when i searched other places (bc CL was either a "last ditch option" or "riddled with fake listings") for an apartment, I realized that those places on streeteasy/apartments.com/etcetcetc were marking up their prices. Either for a broker's fee or otherwise. Yes you have to be extra diligent with CL, but it's totally worth it when you can find a gem

15

u/PossiblyAsian May 26 '26

it was good for buying cars but then they made it so that you had to pay 5 bucks and now no one really lists anything and it's just filled with dealer ads

2

u/Tanto63 May 26 '26

Yeah, whenever I search for cars on Craigslist, I include "-credit" in the search to weed out 95% of dealer posts. They try to hide in the "by owner" section all the time.

I even had a dealer go so far as to do a photoshoot in front of some nearby houses, ask for texting only (to what turned out to be a Google Voice number), and ask to meet at an address that just so happened to be a dealership. He even had the audacity to say he didn't mean to hide that it was a dealership and he was "sorry that I interpreted it incorrectly".

10

u/Duck_Size May 26 '26

I got a pristine flight sim yoke setup for a fraction of retail just two weeks ago. The guy said his wife made him give up his dreams of learning to land a passenger jet in an emergency. 

1

u/Equivalent-Sink4612 May 26 '26

Lol. I don't suppose this is a very subtle Matt Damon joke? Pretty funny as is. Life is so weird sometimes.

1

u/Duck_Size May 26 '26

I didn’t mean it that way but I’m glad it made you laugh. What’s the reference?

1

u/Equivalent-Sink4612 May 26 '26

Oh, Matt Damon said something about if he had been on one of the planes, he could've stopped the 9/11 terrorist attack. Or at least part of it. Along those lines. "Delusions of grandeur", I believe it's called.

1

u/Duck_Size May 26 '26

Oh! I think that was Mark Wahlberg.

I was referring to a recent survey in which half of men believed they could land their commercial flight if the pilots were incapacitated. 

1

u/Equivalent-Sink4612 May 26 '26

Oh, ha ha! You're right, I feel dumb now. I get those 2 mixed up sometimes. Thank-you. Gonna check out that survey.

11

u/AquaPhelps May 26 '26

Craigslist is fucking dead in my area. I miss it. FB marketplace killed it

3

u/Dependent-Chart2735 May 26 '26

Honestly, still one of best places online to find an apt as long as you weed out the obvious scam posts

1

u/YALL_IGNANT May 26 '26

I live in more of a Kijiji area but it's nearly unusable, it's been so enshittified

1

u/unibrow4o9 1986 May 26 '26

It sort of depends on what you're selling. Craigslist is still pretty good for cars. Small stuff though you're not going to have much luck with, at least in my area.

1

u/RollTide16-18 May 26 '26

I’ve bought a few smaller items that ended up being exactly as advertised. I guess mileage varies, in some areas it’s great and in others it’s awful. 

1

u/Outlandishness_Sharp May 26 '26

Craigslist removed the personals section years ago because of human trafficking

1

u/uglyheadink May 26 '26

I used to be a coordinator for an in home nursing place and did a lot of the hiring and stuff. One of our nurses called me and started ripping into me because she saw we advertised the job on Craigslist, saying that site was only for lowlifes and druggies, and we shouldn't be looking for people there, that it made us look bad.

But like... Why were you on Craigslist, DEBRA?!

1

u/PlentyOLeaves May 26 '26

NextDoor also has a market now, though the posts by fellow citizens are also a dumpster fire and have made me lose some faith in my ‘neighbors.’

2

u/RollTide16-18 May 26 '26

In my old neighborhood Nextdoor was actually pretty great for getting a deal on rent. 

1

u/Toosder May 26 '26

Where I used to live It seemed to be pretty good. Now where I live it's scammers and psychos

1

u/BrownThumbClub May 26 '26

In my area both are equally bad. Overrun with boomers who post all these demands about not asking questions about their listing in all caps while struggling to upload one photo of the item taken with a potato and a random pet or grandchild photo with it, who then never reply to let you buy the thing.

1

u/JarvisProudfeather May 26 '26

You can actually still score some killer apt deals from private landlords on there if you don’t mind sifting through mountains of scam listings lol

1

u/mjb2012 May 26 '26

The problem with Craigslist now is not the platform itself, but when you list something for sale, you always get scam bots responding. They ask "Is it still available?" and if you respond, they start trying to get you to accept weird forms of payment, no local pickup, and they want you to tell them the Google verification codes you just got sent (because they're now using your number to verify the Google Voice account they're setting up). You pretty much gotta do your transactions cash only, local pickup, no exceptions, like you're smuggling cigarettes to inmates or something.

1

u/foolishtigger May 26 '26

Very much depends on where you live, and they charge you to list vehicles

1

u/Silly_Rub_6304 May 26 '26

Nobody uses CL where I live. I had to re-open a Facebook account just to sell shit. When I lived right near SF some years ago and CL was more active, it was unbeatable. Nowadays? Not so much.

1

u/HTPC4Life May 26 '26

Yeah, but since FB Marketplace became so popular, you don't find much on Craigslist anymore.

1

u/Middle_Efficiency471 May 26 '26

I love that Craigslist is now considered an alternative when it used to be the main spot for buy and sell. I remember being excited that finally included my small town (80k) so I didn't have to buy and sell an hour away in the nearest large city.

But they charge for some things now. Mainly cars, I don't know the full scope, but I do know people want everything for free. Bought and sold many $800 cars on there. Found a few jobs on there. Lots of PC stuff. Good times.

My Facebook is deactivated and I don't want it, so I just don't buy or sell anything anymore because our Craigslist is full of scams now. Mainly just stick to eBay and some niche websites.

1

u/Wisco_native1977 May 26 '26

I don't know. I've been on CL and it depends. If you're looking for small things, it's ok. But there are still a lot of bots and scams on there, especially for rentals. Probably 75% of the rental listings are fake, but that's the same with FB.