Facebook Purging

So, I am back to my usual sarcastic inquires. As much as I can always find something melancholy to lament on, I am reverting to the original purpose of this blog: making fun of incredibly inane prevailing trends.

To that end, I would like to discuss "facebook purges".

I am the absolute first person willing to acknowledge the unlikely power of facebook. And now that I have seen "The Social Network", I am more inclined to believe that even Mark Zuckerberg himself is taken aback by the influence his website- developed out of spite more than anything- has had on culture and the digital landscape as a whole.

However, at the end of the day, it is still a website where you amass "friends" that are, more often than not, nothing more than acquaintances, that you intentionally represent that best version of yourself and your life to. You know what I am talking about. Unfortunate pictures are hastily untagged and check-ins and status updates attempt to point out all of the amazing and gratuitous moments of your existence.

"Just met Dirk Nowitski at Chipotle" you taunt to your "friends" so they can envy your fabulousness and apparent access to the rich and famous. If we are all honest with ourselves- which I attempt to be as much as possible- it is a digital pissing match of who has the better life/boyfriend/body etc. than others within your network.

And in a brief aside- I want to make sure to point out that I do recognize that legitimate businesses, interest groups, and non-profit organizations utilize facebook to further their movements and messages, and for good reason. When you have immediate access to over 250 million people, you would be a fool NOT to participate. Yet, I digress.

In the last month or so, I have noticed a growing trend in facebook users who feel the need to not only advertise, but actually set-about a grandiose "facebook purge" of their friend list. They publish a status that warns their "friends" that they are going through their contacts and deleting individuals with whom they do not ultimately find a profoundly significant connection with. They warn, either by directly stating or by clever suggestion, that they simply find themselves in need of some digital housecleaning and set about removing users from access to their personal page. Some perpetrators even state, "you'll see where you stand!' while they are in the process.

Well, I don't get it. Beyond that, I think it is an incredibly narcissistic load of crap. UNLESS YOU ARE KATE MIDDLETON, and your association to anyone unsavory could really be an issue of national security or otherwise, whatever random drunk dude you met at a party in college that friended you that night that you have never spoken with since, is not someone you need to go out of your way to disassociate with. I have too many people on my friend list that fall in that category. Moreover, friends from high school and college that got married and changed their facebook to reflect their new last time, frequently throw me for a loop because I am used to the previous moniker. Regardless, it is not a big deal. These people are not all invited to my house for a dinner party, and are not by sheer value of being designated my "friend" on facebook, taking up any physical space in my life. They are digital associations. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, I am constantly dismayed by people who feel the need to edit their digital contacts like they are cleaning out their sock drawer. You are not being charged per friend to be a member of facebook, nor is your life REALLY interrupted by someone who you don't really know posting a status about their recently completed marathon. You are NOT cool because you have 1500 friends and decide that you want to scale back to only those that you "know". And if you are the person that has 1500 friends that you do know and just want to scale back to the people you deem worthy, then you're an asshole. The entire POINT of facebook is to forge "connections" with people on, about, or around your life that have similar associations with you. Because at some point in time in the future, you may find yourself looking for a job or a pet groomer or a freaking couch because yours got pissed on by your puppy, and that random dude you met at a party one night might have a connection to a job/pet spa/furniture store that you really need. But joke is on you; you decided to go through and delete a thousand people on facebook, and as a result, now have no income, an unfortunately hairy dog and a pissy smelling couch and very little ideas as to how to improve your situation.

So, way to go, to-cool-for-school facebook user who cannot be bothered with too many "friends"; i'll take my free leads- and random, hard-to-remember-friends, every time I get them. And you can just be cool with everyone you really "know".