49. Removable Facebook Friends

A good status update: “KB thinks Facebook should install the ‘Dislike’ feature for these entries. Fifty dislikes, you’re suspended from Facebook. A hundred dislikes, and the police are called.” ~ a witty friend who got a *thumbs up* from me.

From the Facebook page of the person whose DNA is most like mine, my brother.

To Removable Facebook Friends:

I said at the end of TMCY’s first letter (1. Facebook Friend Purgatory) that the day would come when I wrote a letter to you people. Please believe that there are several of you whom I have considered deleting.

They include, but are not limited to, the following: the person who asks inappropriate questions on my wall, the person who uses inappropriate language in every status message or when he/she comments on mine, the party promoter who sends 12 different messages about the same event (thank you R-Dub for halting that), the person who sends me invites for every new Facebook application that I will never use, my Not-So-Super Ex-Girlfriend (actually deleted a few times) and former co-workers whom I don’t want to have access to my life/profile.

Anyone on Facebook with at least 14 friends has pondered deleting one of the aforementioned persons. But they are not who this is about. This letter narrows its focus on a special kind of friend.

This letter speaks to you — the mindless pals who continue telling me that you are  “sleeping,” “eating,” “walking the dog” or “at home.”

Time.com’s Claire Suddath, a good young writer, recently penned a piece saying that she doesn’t want to know what you’re thinking in your Facebook status updates. I think she’s got it wrong this time (but she killed the “25 Random Things” meme … twice). Most people don’t want to know what you’re doing. Humor us — your alleged friends — with your profound insight. Make us chuckle to the point that we might want to leave a compelling or witty comment/response or strike up a serious dialogue. If you can’t, stop posting status updates.

The only people who care about your whereabouts or what you’re doing are your significant others (in case you’re cheating), your mother and/or your children. But you can text them that mess … or even go back to The Stone Age that is the 1990s and PLACE A PHONE CALL.

I digress.

You waste my eyesight, brain matter and time by constantly telling me stuff I don’t want to know. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t care. That is, unless you happen to be sitting next to Pacman Jones in a strip club when he’s preparing to make it pour Ben Franklins in a tornadic fury. The irony of your whereabouts in that situation merits a Facebook status update.

This is how I feel when I read about 62.3 percent of the status messages on Facebook, like I'm getting rained on. At least it's rain and not bullets. I wouldn't mind it be money so long as Pacman was nowhere near.

If you pick up 33 Benjis and take a few days off work, I don’t blame you. If you get shot when bullets start spraying the club, know that I do care. But you shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Trouble follows Pacman like the rain cloud chases Charlie Brown.

Listen, I don’t care for you to tell me that you are asleep … unless you’re willing to admit that you’re snoring on top of a picture of Scarlett Johansson. Do you get it? Be interesting. Tell me what you think. Be witty. Be sarcastic. Be enlightening. As Common says just “Be” … thinking something or shut … the … [insert anger word] … up stop typing.

There’s a reason Facebook’s innovators changed the status update to ask “What’s on your mind?”  They hoped to stop you from telling us:  “[Insert name] is watching ‘For the Love of Brandy’s Brother.'” They want you to let us know what you’re thinking, hence the question.

Mark Zuckerberg’s minions should force Facebook users to begin their status updates with the words “thinks” and/or “wonders” just like they made us use the enabling “is” for-e-ver. That would solve this problem tomorrow.

But that’s not happening. So I’ll just say this: Don’t tell me that you “are bowling” unless you’re doing so at The White House with President Obama, you beat him and do so while rocking stilettos(women) and/or male skinny jeans so tight you can’t properly bowl. Considering his misguided bowling game, that wouldn’t be much of a feat. But it would interest me. If it’s just you, I don’t care unless you slip and bust your (bottom) and are willing to admit it. Bowl a perfect game, and I’ll congratulate you with a “like” because that’s worth my time.

Capiche? Good.

Deuces,

Damon

P.S. Whodini’s “Friends” or Common’s “Be”
P.S.S. Share this letter on Facebook with your friends.