What do people get out of posting "I am about to go through my friend's list and will be getting rid of a few people" on Facbook?

Attention seeking. I hate that shit.

Basically they are flagging up the fact they have nothing better to do. It’s a choice between writing crap on facebook and sitting on the couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into their mouths.

^ What they said.

Looking for attention.

I unfriended an ex flatmate recently because I hated her rubbish posts and pictures coming up. And she was mean to me when I really wasn’t well.

Preceding apology.

@lemming Why announce it to the world?

”... So if you do any annoying shit on Facebook, you have about 3 hours to cut that crap out and win me back over. Jenny and Tom, this means you.”

Ugh.

@Jude announce it to who? The only person who knows about it is her.

To make themselves feel special by actually thinking people care, or to have people ask them “what’s wrong?”

@lemming What does that have to do with my question then? I am asking why people announce it on FB? Putting it as their status update: “I am in the process of deleting some friends. You may be next..”

Maybe it’s a mass communique that if you find yourself no longer Facebook friends with that person, it’s because they’ve moved on from a friendship with you, and with their life? Though, you’d think then it might not appear in that person’s feed, because they weren’t friends anymore…

I dunno. Who knows why anyone does anything on Facebook, ever? Twitter/Fluther is where it’s at.

Attention. And also, they want all the remaining friends to think that they have a special place in their lives. God, do facebook users of all ages do that ? I thought it might be a teenage thing. I’ve so far only seen teenagers post this. Very mean and unnecessary.

Actually, they are not posting that. If you look at the post carefully, it’s a question one person asked (probably someone you don’t know, and your friends don’t even know) a long time ago. When people answer that question, it shows up in their newsfeeds, and then all their friends think that the question is being asked of them, so they answer it. It’s a nuisance gone viral, in my opinion.

Sorry @jude i never heard of people doing that, very childish. Thought you were talking about unfriending people

I never saw it as anything bad. I have had people ask to be my friend on FB, and then I never hear another word from them, not one thing after six months, after a year, after two years. No postings, no messages, nothing.

I imagine other people have “fake friends” like that too and they are just trying to weed through them. It seems kind of silly to have a bunch of friends on your list (who requested to be on your list, not the other way around) that have zero interaction with you. I assume that those people were “collecting friends” in the first place.

If you weed through those people and remove them, then you don’t have to be so picky or diligent when you’re trying to post your own messages to specific people.

So I just think people are trying to clean out the unnecessary and cumbersome lists of people that they never interact with.

@Kardamom But why announce it? I totally get clearing out your friends list, but I don’t get why it would entail a status update.

Oh, very attention-whoring indeed. Of course, one could argue that almost anything done in a Facebook status is attention-whoring. Just some more than others…this one is certainly at the top of the list.

@DominicX . . . Passive/Aggressive attention whoring.

An attention boner.

I’m going to unfollow anyone who doesn’t give me lurve for this answer.

<< Waiting for someone to push GA on @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard‘s answer after which I’ll claim it was me who gave him lurve.

Edit: It wasn’t me.

I thought it was so someone who didn’t want to be lost could speak up.

They’re just seeking attention and hoping people will comment begging to not be deleted.

Drama Queens….

And nothing better to do.

I’m going to jump on the attention seeking bandwagon. These people need to get out more :/

@Aethelflaed Some of my friends made the announcement and they asked if you wanted to be removed or stay. Some of my friends post tons of interesting things, but I don’t necessarily post a comment, nor do we correspond by PM, but I do like reading their stuff. Some people are not MIA so much as they are just quiet. So asking if we want to continue being friends makes sense to me, and if you don’t, no harm no foul, but the other party can clean out his list.

That’s all.

Its a worldwide threat that means absolutely nothing.

Its like if on FB, I make this statement: I am going to destroy all the Wanted Posters for criminals.

Who would actually care? The criminals would be happy. No?

I see no point in posting something like that other than to seek attention. I have deleted many friends, all without announcing it to the world.

Most updates on facebook are to either seek attention or to gain sympathy.

Attentiong seeking. They are hoping their friends will beg not to be deleted or apologize for any perceived wrongs.

I don’t have a facebook account but I don’t think that this is any different then when people make these types of statements on other sites, or even to other people offline. There is a huge difference between eliminating contact with a person/s for legit reasons vs bragging about it. The latter scenerio is nothing more than bragging about how ‘cool’ that person must be and how it must be a priviledge to be even considered as their ‘friend’.

You should ask them.

Wow, everyone seems pretty judgmental about this kind of thing. Here’s the thing, facebook is about getting attention. Nobody posts a status or a picture or a video in the hopes that no one will comment or notice. People put things on facebook to get attention, not to blend in and be forgotten.

I’m with @YARNLADY. I think a lot of people who post these statuses do it so that other people have the opportunity to say, “Hey, I know we don’t interact much, but please don’t delete me.” That’s what I did when I posted that I was defriending a bunch of people. I was hoping that if someone saw that, say, someone who looked at my profile a lot but commented very rarely or someone who simply decided to get back in contact with me, they would speak up and I wouldn’t delete them. I have seen members of fluther with whom I am facebook friends do this and I will just pop on and say, “I know we’re not real life friends, but I hope you’ll keep me.” Seems like a practical way to keep from losing all contact with a friend that it may be difficult to stay in contact with anyway.

@KatawaGrey Yeah, that’s what I was saying, about everything on Facebook being for attention, but this just seems a little…I don’t know, “snooty”, I guess? As if you’re trying to get people to vie for your friendship or something, like it’s a contest or something…

I usually do that a couple days before I clear out my friends list. Sometimes life changes and people that I added on Facebook I don’t talk to anymore on Facebook or in real life (like when I changed colleges, or switched jobs). I do it as a heads up, so if people actually want to be Facebook friends still its a chance to say, “Hey, it’s been a while, we should catch up.”

Sometimes it works. Sometimes people ignore it and then refriend me after I’ve deleted them and still don’t say a damn thing directly to me, and when I try to say, “Hey, what’s up?” They just respond with, “Not much.”

I like to be notified so I can say to the person that even though we haven’t had much interaction I’m still interested in what they are up to. I don’t think it’s all about “attention seeking”, I think it’s a nice heads up. It would be ridiculous to expect someone to send out 300 private messages. All of you who don’t like it? Then be delighted that you’ll probably be deleted. Me? I like to have the reminder to reconnect.

I think that the whole thing is ridiculous. Still think that it’s attention-seeking behaviour and only that.

Someone unfriended me in December, and when I realized what happened, I looked and read that he had sent me a pm which said that since I no longer seemed to pay him much attention, he no longer wanted to be my friend. I had a pm discussion with him about it. I told him don’t be insulted, I don’t have much contact with anybody on FB. Once in a while, I’ll do some pm’ing about some gossip or something like that, but otherwise, that’s it. I told him if you’re lonely, FB is not the answer for that!