"I'm Cleaning Out My Friend List!"

[blas87]

God, I HATE when people on Facebook do that.

If you feel you want to go through and delete a bunch of people, FFS, do it. Don't broadcast it and announce that people should feel they need to explain why they need to stay on your list. And anyone who actually sinks to that level of where they actually beg or plead, you're just as bad.

Especially, we can all do without the damn drama surrounding it. You've matured, you've changed, people are assholes, political differences, whatever, JUST DO IT.

Some people pull that threat multiple times a year, and I wonder if they truly delete anyone.

[powerboy]

I agree with you. I think that it is stupid. IF you want to delete people, just go and do it.

[jackfaire]

*nods* Or they do the "If your really my friend you will read and share this. Or correct it or whatever other action that proves to me you read every single post of my need for attention page without fail. "

[Ree]

That bugs me too.
Just because I don't always respond doesn't mean I don't read.
I know I have people on my list who probably never even bother with facebook, but so what? Why bother trimming them?
If I do decide to trim, why announce it?

I hate the guilt trip messages, too.
"I want to see which friends are reading my page..." (Usually a "Copy and paste and I will reply" thing that requires you to think of a word that starts with a certain letter in your name. I hate those. It's almost always the letter "K" and I suck at thinking of words to fit the request.)
"If you are my friend you will repost..."
"I already know which of my friends will repost..."
"Only X% of my friends will do this..."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

^-.-^

[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.

[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.

[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!"

[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 .

[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.