Defriending
The act of removing someone from your list of friends on Facebook. The motivation for a defriending and the result are rarely in proportion with one another.
Just The Facts
- Defriending is the social equivalent of an undo option.
- On most social networks, such as Facebook, you won't realize you've been defriended until your so-called friend disappears from your news feed
- Most people have defriended at least one person.
- It is possible to refriend someone you've dumped in this fashion, but this implies a degree of mental instability.
- If you find yourself frequently defriended, it probably means you're doing social media wrong.
So what is Defriending?
Defriending is the deliberate removal of friends from your social network profiles such as Facebook, Twitter, or, if it were 2007, Myspace. While considered passive-aggressive or cowardly by some, defriending is the perfect option for a reasonable person who has no room for childish drama, constant streams of nothing-filled updates, or blatant hate speech in their lives. In other words, we're all for it.
Why does it happen?
In this age of social networking, we often 'friend' people we presume to be like-minded, only to find out that they are 100% batshit insane after the fact. Especially if you've added someone you haven't spoken to on a regular basis in a decade, or a co-worker you'd only consider a passing acquaintance in real life. Here are a few perfectly justifiable reasons for undoing these social network friendships:
- You don't actually know them. You thought you did, maybe through a tenuous link and you just couldn't place them, but no, actually, you really don't know this person. And since this person is going to swamp your news feed with irrelevant nonsense, removing them is akin to turning off a dripping tap - the cessation of endless, irritating noise. Defriend away.
- They love applications. These people are literally on Facebook for the Farmville fun and not much else. And even though we hear there are ways to block that crap, why bother? If the only thing this person can bring to the table is pleas for help with their fake agrarian experiment, maybe it's just time to cut them loose.
- They are bananas. Politics and religion are awesome in their places, which would be churches, private homes and assembly halls specifically built for discussing the issues of the day. But people who incorporate both 'Nobama' and their personal salvation experience into every single status update are pushing their luck with nonreligious, apolitical friends.
- You are related. Many a Facebook virgin has connected with their family, only to realize that their drunken party photos and friends' four-letter-word-filled rants posted on the public wall are going to get commented on by their Granny. Even worse is when you realize it's your Granny showing up in drunken party photos and posting four-letter-word-rants all over the damn place. DEFRIEND.
Is it safe?
While defriending is entirely anonymous and your victims will not be informed that you no longer deem them suitable to view your drunken photographs and banal status updates, the defriended will notice that their friend counter has gone down and may be able to locate you by the process of elimination. The chances of detection from a socialite slut with over three thousand friends are slim. If you're the only friend of Bill "Norman" Bates and his seventy four notes on why President Obama is the Antichrist, he's probably going to notice and be a tad upset.
If you haven't already done so, make sure your privacy settings are watertight. If anyone can see your profile anyway, defriending is little more than a slap in the face.
How do I do it?
Social networks vary, but the procedure is pretty much the same everywhere. With Facebook, for instance, simply go to the profile of the person you wish to defriend, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the link marked "Remove From Friends". After an "Are You Sure?" box pops up, and you agree to break your link with this person, the deed is done. Quick and simple. If you change your mind, you can always request to be friends again, but don't be surprised if they refuse on grounds that you are an emotionally unstable, antisocial bastard.
Those people who keep trying to get me down on the Farm, or to the City, or in the Mafia etc, I defriend and block. They're like a damn cult. I don't want to play the stupid games! Enough already.
ReplyI defriend or unfollow anyone who social networks about what "team" they are on. I give zero fucks if you are on "TEAM f**k TIHS RANDOME PERZON BCUZ DEY R A BAGG OF DOOSH"
ReplySo glad I deleted all but the very few people I actually give a s**t about. I'm down to eighteen Facebook friends, though I should probably delete another couple that I don't know too well. I don't see the point of friending acquaintances, or anyone who's company I don't particularly enjoy in real life.
ReplyIf ony Facebook was a Book of Faces
ReplySounds like you want the Necronomicon then.
The only thing on my friend's account is his face drawn on a book.
*ba dum tss
so... this facebook thingy isn't a book made of faces?
Replycrap. i was almost to the printing phase of my scrotumbook, too...
Scrotumbook is still a good, sexy, sexy idea.
Add wannabe performers to the list. The people I don't know who are on my facebook are mostly harmless, so the only person I've defriended was a friend of my cousin who called himself a comedian. The problem was he was as funny as a dead fish and he kept inviting me to his gigs - not only through events but by FB chat too. I haven't seen his name in lights yet so I still think it was a wise choice to make.
ReplyI usually do it for the political idiotic rants people go on. Also for the drama cases who post along the lines of "I hate my life". Its surprising to see that it is mostly the Jocks.
ReplyThat and stupid whore ex-girlfiends when they accuse me of stalking their profile. So what if I friended their boyfriend who I never met?
I prefer to just block them and then if they ever ask its easier just to tell them i deleted my account
Replyuntil they ask friends of friends.
I'm just saiyajin
When I use to have a facebook, I would delete anyone who I assumed was a drama case or anyone who I didn't know. The people I didn't know would normally go about their ways, the people whom I speculated were drama would always prove me right.
ReplyI've done that, because I remembered why we stopped being friends in the first place haha. If a long time has passed, my memory might be hazy and I might think I actually like the person, then a few posts later, I remember, that no... I don't. I'm sure lots of people have done that to me too, but I don't keep track of friend totals, so I never know. :)
ReplyFirst, I never accept friend requests from people whom I don't know, so I only ever have old classmates, current friends and people I actually interact/have interacted with in some social capacity. Second, whenever I reach 200 friends, I do a bit of pruning, because I believe no one ever has 200 friends. It's just impossible.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesUsually I readily find at least a dozen people to remove- elementary or secondary school classmates who only added me because someone tagged everyone in a yearbook photo, whose interests and lives diverged from mine long, long ago and have nothing interesting to say; people who drunkenly remember me from a party; friends or relatives of friends etc.
Wow, thanks for that golden lot of insight into your Facebook's innerworkings. Please share more, we're dying to hear it.
Wait, a person that uses facebook thinks their boring internet rituals are important enough for other people to read? That's absurd.
Whooooooooooooooooooooo cares?
3 replies...Despite your rants, Al-literati-on wins.
TL;DR
Hahahha, everyone who says they don't care is replying anyway. Funny how that works.
I also like to block the people that I defriend jsut so that if they even want to try and find me they cant. I just disapear
ReplyYou can say that again.
Incur. Incur my wrath. Not "incure".
ReplyI have deleted only one person from my friends list and that was only because once he commented on my status...in Arabic. Up until that moment I didn't even know he was my friend or who he was lol
ReplyI was defriended by an unstable, newly 'religious' kid I talked down after suicidal rants because I didn't share his views on gay damnation. Who knew?
ReplyI was defriended by an unstable kid I talked down after suicidal rants because I didn't share his views on gay damnation. Go figure.
ReplyI literally had to deactivate my FB account because I knew defriending people would seem offensive. And sure enuf, I had folks coming to me with wistful looks asking why I had defriended them. Some others traded emails or searched profiles to confirm that I deactivated- which I guess was interpreted as a Mass Defriending.
ReplyYou know whats weird? My friend count goes up and down for no reason. I'm serious, I logged on one day, and it was at 357. Then I logged off, and when I went back on it was 355. When I went back on again, it was back to 357, and I hadn't recieved any friend requests. Has this ever happened to any of you?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIt happens when people decide to deactivate their Facebook for whatever reason and then later on decide to reactivate it.
It happens as people shift between alternate dimensions... or maybe as YOU shift- it's really hard to tell.
ButtChocolate gets all the up votes.
I defriended a guy because he was stalking my sisters through my profile.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWere you mad because he wasn't stalking you like he should've been?
Hannh,
I'm so glad to find you here on Cracked! Yeah, so, anyway...Um... How're your sisters? What are they up to what are they wearing describe their smell to me I want to eat their faces I want to eat their feeces Blawrbleghrawrrrr!!!
ButtChocolate, I just died laughing. Literally. Dead, right now.
The problem is that our generation tends to think that social networks replace actual interaction, and as a result, act ruder in person because HEY I CAN ACT THAT WAY ON FB.
ReplyI tend to look at it as people who are so clueless in real life that they don't realize it's just as much a faux pas to act that way on the Internet.