I’ve been on Facebook since 2007 (back when they forced your status to start with your name. “Corey Blake is sleeping.” is an actual status of mine from April 11, 2007, that now just displays as “sleeping”). It’s fun, and one of the things that amuse me are some of the habits or quirks of how people behave on Facebook.
I was once de-friended by someone because he decided that all his Facebook friends had to have real photographs as their profile pic. So he went through his list of 5,000 Facebook friends and de-friended anyone that broke his rule.
For years, I have used a cartoon drawing of myself that was given to me by Scott Shaw! when we were both working on Dig Comics. I love that drawing, because it really captures by double interests of performing and comic books. It’s not like it’s a drawing of Wolverine as my profile pic. This is an original piece of art that is intended to represent me. But I’m sure this person didn’t do that much research on it. He just saw a drawing and hit unfriend.
It was so ridiculous but really he was just finding ways to free up spots. Facebook caps you out at 5,000 friends and he kept getting new requests from people that he wanted to let in. Which I get. It’s not like we personally knew each other.
While I really liked some of what he posted, I was kind of relieved because half of his posts were just updated declarations of new rules. A week would not go by where at least one new edict would not be issued.
I still have a couple of other Facebook friends that do this, and it just cracks me up. Is anyone keeping track of all these rules? I don’t know how you could. They’re spread out across so many individual posts, and Facebook’s algorithm may not even show all of these high priority notices. Then it looks like you’re flagrantly disregarding their rules if you accidentally break one. Ignorance is no excuse, after all. Just try using the “I didn’t know” excuse with the police. It just doesn’t fly.
Maybe Facebook can generate a downloadable user manual-style PDF that compiles all of my friends’ various rules for being friends with them. I just can’t keep them all straight and it would be super convenient to have them all in one place where I could ignore them.
If you’re one of my Facebook friends that does this on a consistent basis, don’t worry about my silly post. You keep being you. I’m sure there’s a good reason. If it makes being on Facebook and life in general better for you, then I’m in full support. I just don’t know if anyone else is keeping track quite as closely as you.
And it makes me wonder: are there some Facebook users with only 2 friends because they’ve disqualified everyone else?
Corey Blake 