Defriendicization

Have you ever defriended anyone on Facebook or MySpace?

I can’t think of anyone that I’ve defriended. It’s not like you are actually friends. Even if you stop being friends in real life are you going to make the effort to defriend them? You still want to see what that person is up to and maybe someday they will be in a position where you need to use them for your own personal gain. I guess perhaps defriending an old girlfriend would be a good idea, I’ve been lucky enough to not have to deal with that. There have been some cases in which I’ve thought I had grounds to defriend someone, I never actually did but I thought the reasons were interesting enough to explore.

The Supporter
A few months back, I logged in and in my feed it said one of my friends had become a supporter of Rick Santorum. What? Why now? He lost in 06, by a ton. What is he now, a lobbyist? Now if this happened while he was in office or running for office, then it’s slightly different. Not much though, I still would question this person’s judgment. How did this happen? Was this person wandering around Facebook and thought, ‘Hey, I’m a big Rick Santorum fan. He isn’t really doing anything important right now but I think I’ll support him as a person.‘ Can I have my own page for people to support me? Actually, I probably can. I should look into that. Using that logic in reverse I supported Michael Moore, hoping to weed out some friends. As of yet I don’t think anyone has taken the bait.

The Commenter
Recently my feed has been overrun by someone who comments on other people’s pictures at least six times per day. Is this necessary? I don’t mind the occasional comment but have some self control. If you have that much to say, pick up the phone. These aren’t even my pictures, I post to Flickr, any on Facebook were because I wanted to try it out. Maybe I’m just jealous because I’ve never had any of my friends comment on any of my Flickr pictures. Not a one.

The Pointless Status Updater
I only recently started changing my status on occasion. Actually, I don’t change my status, I just hooked it up to my Twitter so it happens on its own when I update that. I haven’t encountered anyone who updates too constantly with completely inane updates, but I feel it will come one day and I’m just warning you now. So far my friends are sticking to what they are doing. Once it starts during into AIM away messages with quotes and such I will be forced to turn off status messages.

The Relationship Changer
Sadly for 90% of the people I know, the relationship status on Facebook is our strongest bond. I may not have talked to them in forever, but at least I know their about their relationship. Some people are out of control though. A constant change from single to in a relationship to it’s complicated and back again on a weekly basis. Please just be truthful. Seeing as it’s our strongest bond, if it’s not correct, then are we even friends at all? If it is truthful and your relationship status is in constant flux, then just stick to ‘It’s Complicated’ for a while until it changes to ‘Engaged’ because clearly that is where the relationship is headed. That is only until the inevitable ‘is no longer listed as Married’ message. On a related note, you girls who are in a relationship with your friend. Knock it off. You’re on notice.

Defriended Alerts
There are two ways to look at the defriending: 1) Who cares, the person won’t even notice or 2) I want them to notice. That’s is where the alerts come in. I want to defriend someone and let them know it. In fact, I want it in my feed and I want to include my reason. I want everyone, especially that person, to know I have defriended them for making too many comments or because they supported someone ridiculous.

Defriendicization
The hardest part has been coming up with the name. Dave is to thank for this one, although he suggested Debefriendicization but I thought that got a little long. I’m open to other suggestions, but I think this gets the point across.