[dstein]

What is starting to really irk me about Facebook is how birthdays are handled. It's like the site is basically one big happy birthday wish site. Each day it's somebody else's birthday and all their friends take turns trying to write a somewhat unique birthday wish, like:

Friend #1: Happy Birthday!

Friend #2: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE!!

Friend #3: happy b-day!

Friend #4: Have a wonderful birthday!

And it goes on and on down the list. Some unfortunate people feel the need to individually reply to each and every birthday wish. Each day it's like this for a different person, until once a year when it's your birthday and then everyone's doing it to you.

It's really, really stupid. And I wish there was just a way for me to automatically generate and deliver my friends a birthday wish on the right date. But the Facebook API prevents you from being able to post to your friends wall.

Tear down those garden walls Mr. Zuckerberg!!

[maxawaytoolong]

To each his own. Personally, the birthday reminders are the only reason I use Facebook. Also, each year, every attractive woman I've met in the past 4 years wishes me happy birthday, which is a nice ego boost.

[c3o]

It's not like you don't have control over your participation in this silly ritual... I think automating a meaningless post would be the wrong way to go. I try to write thoughtful, detailed birthday messages for people who really mean something to me, ignore birthday notifications of more casual friends and temporarily hide my own birthday when it's getting close to prevent the avalanche of hollow wishes.

[_fool]

my solution: don't read other peoples' status updates, don't have your birthday posted publicly, don't get annoyed.