Friend Fat

Jimmy Kimmel stole my brilliant idea; my friends and family can testify!

This week, Kimmel declared November 17th “National UnFriend Day” because he believes Facebook is “cheapening the meaning of friendship”. I completely agree.

About a month ago, I scrolled through my friends and deleted over one hundred people from my social network contacts. These were either people I knew at one time or acquaintances I’ve met through mutual friends.

The question is, how do you decide who stays and who goes? The criteria I used was simple, but might be considered ruthless according to Facebook’s unwritten rules. If I would be pleased to run into the person at a grocery store and strike up a conversation to either catch-up (and care about the updates) or make plans to get together, they stayed. Otherwise, delete. Are you sure? Yes, I’m sure… delete. Harsh? Why stay cyber friends with someone pretending to care what’s going on in their life by viewing pictures, status updates or conversations with other people you may or may not even know? Do you really care? I don’t.

To clarify, I understand being cyber friends with people you might not necessarily interact with in person on a regular basis. Why? It’s nearly impossible to keep in verbal or face-to-face contact with everyone you care to keep in touch with at all. Facebook works as another form of e-mailing, text messaging, making that once-a-month call just to “keep in touch” or even sending Christmas cards once a year. It works as a forum to let everyone keep in touch with people they do care to hear (or see) the life updates from, but not always get together with on a regular basis. On the other hand, it’s become quite a phenomenon that most Facebook users become friends with their true friends, cousins, classmates, neighbors, landlords, landlord’s parents, boss’s nephew, co-worker’s great-aunt who lives in Timbuktu and, well, you get the idea.

Didn’t get the chance to participate in Kimmel’s NUD? You can do it any day you feel the willpower; I did. According to his website, “…all Facebook users shall protect the sacred nature of friendship by cutting out any ‘friend fat’ on their pages occupied by people who are not truly their friends.”

Cut out your friend fat. I did. Just think… would you pivot your cart and scoot down the next aisle at the market, or would you gladly approach with a sincere, “How have you been?”