can i be on your a-list?
By heather | January 15, 2009
Boy this has been a week full of positively genius ideas. Prepare to bask in the glow of today’s inspiration: We need A-lists and B-lists on Facebook.
Don’t pretend you don’t know…when you’re making the guest list for your wedding, there are people you might invite if the ones you really want can’t come…you know, to round out the gifts and all. Those are the B-listers.
But who do you turn to when you need to pee and want someone to hold up your eight layers of skirt and twenty feet of train and not make fun of your girdle? That’s the A-list.
Can we also agree that there are work friends (WF) and then there are friend friends (FF)? Some of my very best friends started as WFs and became FFs but before Facebook, the crossover happened naturally.
Maybe you became FFs through conscious effort because you like the person. Maybe it was because you got thrown together on some shit project and the only way you survived was by getting a few drinks after working 12 hour days and then you said a little too much and now you have to keep them close because they know too much.
Ahem.
On Facebook my WFs and my FFs are all mixed up and I don’t like the WFs getting even a peek into my personal life.
When I first joined Facebook, it was like a really cool private club that I couldn’t figure out. It took me 6 months to post a photo album, and I still don’t know how to do pages and plant little green patches or send drinks and join groups.
Or WHY, but that’s another issue.
Regardless, I had a few friends and when I remembered (which was not very often) to log on and see what people were doing it was always low-committment fun. (Nothing as high-committment as a phone call for God’s sake because who has time for actually talking? With your voice?)
Then all of a sudden lots of people I hadn’t seen or heard from in years were joining - my friend count zoomed along with my ego. I started to get a little addicted: posting things at 1am, searching vainly for people I knew in my quest to take my friend count over 100, and making a little more effort to actually figure out how Facebook worked. (Again, failing miserably.)
At that point it was like being at a club and you’re pleasantly buzzed and no matter who comes through the door, you are super EXCITED to see them. So much that you jump all over them like an ill mannered dog and hug and kiss like you haven’t seen them in 15 years (which you haven’t). You message each other and write on walls and yippee!!
Then you look up and things are lame. First your club was private, then it was hoppin’…well now, it’s time to GO.
The hangover sets in. You have no idea what the people you are actually interested in are doing because your status updates are cluttered with people you could care less about.
You accepted the friend requests because you didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and find yourself with some “updaters”. You know, the person who updates twenty times a day with things like, “Becky is eating lunch” “Becky is taking a nap” “Becky is making dinner” and you just want to scream at someone who is able to take a nap on a Tuesday morning for pete’s sake.
Or maybe you accepted because you wanted to be a bigger person than you were in high school, and not NOT be friends just because someone was weird or they smelled funny or you didn’t think they were really very nice.
Then you find out they are still weird, probably still smell funny, and have a relationship status that says, “It’s complicated” which makes me insane.
If you’re going to put that as your relationship status, Facebook should not let you proceed unless you write down a synopsis of WHY it’s complicated. Did he cheat on you, but you have no self-esteem so you just keep taking him back? Are you secretly sleeping with his sister? Details I tell you!
I had a point.
Which was…
The Facebook A-List and B-List Sorter Application! Let’s call it Compartmented Friends.
How great would it be if you could take the people that you don’t want to know about your blog (because then you couldn’t make fun of them) and stick them in isolation? Then maybe I could link my blog on Facebook and get some more readers and the sponsors would start rolling in.
And how about if you could take your inner circle of friends and put them in another group? Kind of like your feed reader, where there are blogs that you want to know instantly when they update and you almost always comment, but there are others that you only read when you’re bored at work.
Next you could take the work friends – the ones who should stay work friends and not crossover -and put them in another group where your updates make you sound all smart and professional, like “Heather is reading Organizational Strategy in the Workplace…and loving it!”
In the meantime your real friend updates are all, “Heather is watching the Rock Of Love marathon and doing tequila shots, dudes.”
How has no one thought of this before? After I finish writing my diet book, I’ll get started right away.
Topics: bloggity blog, deep thoughts...or not | 9 Comments »
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January 15th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I LOVE IT! I’m already getting status updates from AA that only amplify the whining done during work hours from about five feet away. Which makes me want to sucker punch him. See, the B-list app is really for his own protection!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:44 am
About once a day I contemplate starting another blog where I would remain anonymous. But nothing nice would ever be said and therefor I refrain.
Vicki’s last blog post..Exactly where I’m supposed to be
January 16th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I still don’t understand Facebook and thus treat it like I do the rest of my communication devices, badly.
I would die if my real life peeps found my blog. I like everything very compartmentalized too.
skiplovey’s last blog post..Whateve
January 16th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I LOVE your post. As an FYI – you CAN sort your facebook friends into groups. These groups determine WHAT those friends can and cannot see on your profile. Also, you can click on the little right hand icon next to a feed/update and select “less of Sally” for example and they won’t come up as often. Hope that helps.
I have all my work friends on a limited profile list.
SeaBreeze’s last blog post..Quote: Thomas Edison (and Musings)
January 16th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
You are so totally A list. But I wouldn’t want to know if I was someone’s A list friend or B list friend, my self esteem couldn’t take it.
Honeybell’s last blog post..The One When I Curse A Lot
January 16th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
What SeaBreeze said. I’ve been using the “Less of this Friend” feature for a week or so now, and it’s really helping to screen out the weeds. But I will say that I would HATE to share Facebook with work colleagues. I don’t think I could use it then – too much censoring would be involved!
rimarama’s last blog post..I Can’t Get No Respect
January 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Hilarious, and you’re totally right! I don’t put work friends on Facebook, that’s what LinkedIn is for!
LIAshtangini’s last blog post..Random videos
January 19th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I’m actually thinking this is a fabulous idea!
And hello! We need to be on facebook together! Because you’d be on my A-list yo!
Miss’s last blog post..Weekly Winners [Jan11/Jan17]
January 20th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Like the idea, but I don’t really put things on facebook that wouldn’t want WF or anyone else do see. I am who I am…
Ronnica’s last blog post..Snow Day!