Daily Dose of Common Sense

It was recently announced that “unfriend” was Oxford Dictionary’s 2009 “Word of the Year.” (Don’t those Facebook holdouts feel stupid right about now?) If you’ve used Facebook to any large degree, you know why this word is so popular. It’s occasionally necessary to separate the “friends” from the “unfriends” on your list.

Some are bolder about weeding out than others. In fact, we heard of this status update on Thanksgiving Day:

“Time to slim down the facebook friend herd. Check back in an hour to see if you made the cut.”

Ouch. You can be thankful you weren’t that guy’s friend.

If you need to whittle down your friend list, we put together a quick guide to help you determine who should go. Here are eight reasons to unfriend someone:

#8: Anyone who announces they’re cutting their friend list and then asks you to check back to see if you’re still a friend. No thanks, ass-clown. UNFRIEND.

#7: Someone who habitually leaves inappropriate comments on your updates/links/photos. Usually someone you don’t know very well, he or she assumes they are witty. They’re not. UNFRIEND.

#6: Along the same lines, someone who habitually tags you in inappropriate photos. Yes, the “untag” button is helpful. But there’s a good chance mutual connections could still see it. UNFRIEND.

#5: Anyone who posts marketing messages (or SPAM) on your wall. This is becoming more and more prevalent as people use social media for business. Leave the business to LinkedIn or Twitter. Facebook should be about friends, not the weekend marketing seminar you’re trying to book. UNFRIEND.

#4: People who can’t be bothered with a real status update. “Jodi is” is not a status update. If you have nothing to say, don’t bother updating your status. Also in this category are the jokers who say, “Jodi is XYDFDKALJC” as a status update. Mashing your keyboard is NOT a status update. UNFRIEND.

#3: Those people who relentlessly send you invites to FB games. One word: Farmville. UNFRIEND.

#2: Anyone over thirty who continually brags about how drunk they were the night before or how hard they party. Maybe we’re just bitter because we have lives and responsibilities, but we DON’T want to hear about it. Besides, your mom is probably on FB, too. She definitely doesn’t want to hear about it. (Unless you were partying WITH her, in which case…ewwww.) UNFRIEND.

#1 reason to unfriend someone on Facebook: you can’t remember who the hell they are.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.