"I'm Cleaning Out My Friend List!"

[blas87]

What's really enertaining are the people who constantly go from "single" to "in a relationship" to "engaged" to "single" two weeks later, back to "in a relationship" another week later, back to "engaged"...........

[Sableonblonde]

There was a person on my friend list who did this recently.

It was a girl who used to be friends with my brother...I hardly even knew her, I think I met her once? maybe. She was the one who sent me a friend request in the first place. We never talked or anything. So I read how she was cleaning out her friend list and really couldn't have cared less...

Then the strange part was, she still kept me as a friend. I never really understood the point of it, but oh well.

[Boozy]

I have cleaned out my friends list on Facebook a few times. I've only deleted a small handful of people, but it's usually because they were vague acquaintances to begin with and they are extremely active on Facebook.

Basically, if I see someone's name all over my newsfeed, I'd like it to be because I care about the things they have to say. If I barely know you, I don't care that you're happy it's Friday, or that you enjoyed granola for breakfast this morning.

I've kept a lot of acquaintances on Facebook, but they post so rarely that I don't mind having them around. And when they do post something, it's so noteworthy that I want to know about it, mere acquaintance or not. Like a pregnancy or marriage.

I later discovered that you can remove someone's updates from appearing on your newsfeed and still keep them as a friend. This was convenient for my brother-in-law, whose political rantings I don't want to read, but cannot un-friend completely for reasons of family harmony.

[fireheart17]

I hate the guilt trip messages, too.

Some of them are downright nasty, encouraging others to be racist, sexist, homophobic and so on. One of the ones that's doing the rounds at the moment is explaining all of these things that we "supposedly" can't do anymore because of the immigrants/refugees coming into the country (we can't say Merry Christmas etc.). The thing is though, is that I have seen that apply to both Australia AND America. The exact same wording, just with the word America replaced by Australia.

I quietly pointed out to them where they went wrong and deleted them.

[LadyBarbossa]

The only time I can remember deleting someone from my list was the person from this thread, but the only people who knew it were my coworkers who were as equally infuriated by her comments as I was, I didn't announce it.

"If you can read this, congratulations, you made the cut!"

Um . . . thanks?

After a while sometimes I noticed I've been unfriended by people who used to claim to be close to me. I have to wonder what I did or posted to offend them, but I really don't care.

[jackfaire]

90% of the time I don't even notice I have been unfriended until I am bored and thinking, "Hmm I haven't seen posts from so and so in awhile"

Personally I don't unfriend someone until they start with personal attacks .

[blas87]

Apparently, it was "necessary" for the person who was my inspiration to post this to do it that way, because if he didn't proclaim it out loud as a status update, people would be "dramatic" wanting to know why they were deleted.

Half of the time, I don't know or care if I've been deleted by someone until much later. If someone's going to delete me over a fight at work or something stupid like that because I take up "space", do it and don't announce it.

Still, I think it's a super dramatic whiney diva way of saying "Look at me I have problems I'm getting rid of you all because you make me so mad! If you really like me you'll agree with everything I say and beg and plead to stay on my special list!"

[Hyena Dandy]

I've done that sometimes. Usually when I do that, I post the status because there are certain people I really intend to keep, and I want to delete the rest. But if someone still wants to be friends, like they read my statuses and don't comment, or possibly they just want to be able to IM me sometime, or have any other reason to want to read my FB without me having talked to them lately, they can post that they don't want to be deleted off the list so that I don't delete someone who would actually care.

[AdminAssistant]

The person I knew who would post things like that would always say something along the lines of "Gotta clean out the friend's list, too many haters on here! If you can see this in an hour, congrats you made the cut!" Basically making it sound like being one of the 1000 people on her friends list was an honor. She ended up deleting her FB entirely...I don't know if she made a new one under a new name, but if she did, I apparently didn't make the cut. Oh shucky darn.

ETA: People who litter my feed with hateful crap, Jesus-filled messages, or Facebook game-related junk don't stay on my friend's list long, but I also don't see the need to publicly proclaim it before I defriend someone or hide their updates.

[Andara Bledin]

People who post about cleaning out their friends list are usually people who have a lot of friends who are only friended for games, in which case the non-active players get dumped so that new active players can be added (because there's a limit on how many friends you can have).

If you're not friended because you're a 'neighbor' in some game, those messages usually aren't aimed at you.

^-.-^

[Lace Neil Singer]

I sometimes clean out my Gaia friendlist. I only ever delete people who haven't logged in for a year and I never broadcast it.

[dendawg]

Anyone ever notice how many people post this on their Facebook/other social site and never follow through on it? Talk about your empty threats.

[Bloodsoul]

I've seen this occur on Xbox LIVE, I just tend to ignore the messages. I only send out friend requests to people I've actually met and known, and am rather, "meh, what the hell?" about receiving them in turn.

So far, I think the only people I've deleted from my LIVE friends list are those who appear to have been absent from LIVE for a number of months.

[jackfaire]

Not a test, and certainly not bait, just a note that FB was taking up too much of my time (or whatever) and I had to cut back and it doesn't mean anything beyond that.

Will annoy the people that will see it as "oh god another grab for attention" and still offend the people that you unfriended because how dare you unfriend them no matter what your reasoning.

[HYHYBT]

What if its done a different way? I don't think I have even ten to begin with, but if I ever felt my friends list was getting unwieldy, knowing that some people get offended at being unfriended with no explanation, I might try to put up some sort of explanation first. Not a test, and certainly not bait, just a note that FB was taking up too much of my time (or whatever) and I had to cut back and it doesn't mean anything beyond that.