"Remove connection"... what a friendly way to say I hate you.

You’ve heard it before (maybe you’ve even said it yourself): “I just purged a bunch of people from my Facebook account.” Here’s how I translate that irritating statement in my brain: “I’m a douchebag who likes to pretend that the ‘throngs and throngs’ of people–people who I either added myself on Facebook or accepted their friendship request at one point–were just bogging me down so much and I had to cut them out of my life. Because I’m a douchebag and I need to complain that I’m just too popular. And I hate sunshine and dolphins and Project Runway marathons on Bravo.”

So, douchebags of the world, here’s my response to you:

  1. On behalf of those people that you deleted, thanks. We enjoyed being your friend just as much as you enjoyed being our friend (read: not that much). The only difference is that we didn’t have the buckets of time that you clearly have to one-by-one systematically delete individual people from your account. Which brings me to my next point…
  2. Clearly, you have waaaay too much time on your hands. Now I’m not going to say that deleting Facebook friends is a difficult task; it’s not. But deleting hundreds of friends (which is usually the number people toss around as they brag about this accomplishment) is.Here’s some math: It’s a two-click action to sever a Facebook friendship (one to remove, one to confirm). Let’s estimate that it takes two seconds to complete this process (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt with a fast connection), and about 8 seconds on average to make the decision to sever a Facebook friendship (“But I can decide much quicker than that if I don’t want to be friends with someone” you say. Yes, but let’s be sure to factor in all the wandering that you will inevitably do when a scantily-clad profile picture draws you in; really, I’m being generous with this as well). That’s 10 seconds for the whole process, or roughly 6 friendships a minute. If you were to delete 100 friends at this rate, that would take you a little over 16 minutes. So to purge 300 friends (the most common number I hear) would take around 45 minutes. Good lord, what a miserable use of your time.

Seriously, it’s a digital connection. It’s of no cost to you to maintain this electronic relationship. What has our society come to where someone will go out of their way to electronically break off all communication with you, just because they felt like they had “too many friends”?

Before you come back with a douchebag retort that “justifies” your action, let me just say that I’ve heard all of them and they’re all nonsensical. Here are two, followed by my retort:

“But their status updates were annoying.”

Simple solution: hide them from your news feed.

When you see a chronic annoying poster, simply click the “X” to the right and hit “Hide [name]“–easy, right?

Also, your Facebook feed learns what you like reading based on what you’ve clicked in the past. So really, it’s your own fault that your feed is annoying (disclaimer: this is an example of an unverified statement of fact which sounds correct, so just take me on my word). I can personally state that there’s one person in particular whose updates always get shoveled into my feed. Annoying? Yes. But do I click on every single one of them? Absolutely.

“I don’t want them to see my profile anymore”

Simple solution: Create special categories for groups of people and only give them limited access to your profile.

Seeing how your profile looks to other people: just another cool privacy setting brought to you by Facebook.

As much as people bitch and complain about Facebook’s privacy settings, they’re actually pretty straightforward; while they’ve built a lot of interesting features, most people are just too lazy to take advantage of them. One of those features is the ability to setup special groups; here are some examples: “Family”, “Coworkers”, “People I’ve Slept With”, “Aboriginals”, “People I’ve never met before but their profile picture was hot so I friended them”. Another cool feature is the ability to see how other people view your profile, based on what privileges you’ve given them.

Also, what is on your profile that you don’t want them to see? Slutty Halloween costumes? A picture where both of your eyes aren’t lining up correctly because you’re wasted? Really, this begs another question: if you don’t want Aunt Mildred seeing a picture of you doing body shots on a beach in Cancun, should those pictures be up on the internet at all? And maybe you shouldn’t have been so slutty in the first place (there, I said it).

Do you know what those pictures say to me: wow, you graduated from college. So did I. So did your parents. We all have pictures like that somewhere (our parents’ pictures are just in boxes stored in a basement in Boca Raton). And I guarantee you that you only know of about half of them on Facebook. When you run for Congress, they will be found, whether or not you delete me from Facebook (in fact, I think you’re only incentivizing me more if you delete me).

Pretty soon, we’ll get to a point in our society where those photos won’t mean anything anymore. Do you know why? Because in 20 years, you and I will be writing stories for the Washington Post, we’ll be sitting on the other side of the interview table, we’ll have our own kids, and we won’t care about those useless photos anymore because I’m sure we will have had worse. So I’m votingwithmyfeet.com by not caring.

If you’re planning on deleting me on Facebook, do me a favor: let me know, so I can delete you first.

kanye-doucheLast night’s VMA debacle only confirmed what we already knew: Kanye West is a huge douchebag. Like on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being humble old Mother Theresa and 10 being that Ed Hardy-wearing guido, Kanye is like an 11 or 12. Yeah. He surpasses this guy.

So I decided to compile some of the most douchey-est quotes from Kanye. Without further ado, let’s jump in:

  1. He told Michael Jackson’s parents that he was going to take over the role of “King of Pop“:

    “You know everyone loves and respects Michael but times change. It’s so sad to see Michael gone but it makes a path for a new King of Pop and I’m willing to take that on…First there was Elvis [Presley], then there was Michael, now in the 21st century it’s Kanye’s time to rule. I have nothing but respect for Michael but someone needs to pick up where he left off and there’s nobody better than me to do that. I am the new King of Pop.”

    So this actually turned out to be fake. But still, it sounds like something he would say, right? And in my blog, that’s good enough…

  2. He tried to sue Twitter. Because people were making fake accounts impersonating him. But the best part is what he posted to his blog (the caps lock is from him):

    “I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING TWITTER… WHY WOULD I USE TWITTER??? I ONLY BLOG 5 PERCENT OF WHAT I’M UP TO IN THE FIRST PLACE. I’M ACTUALLY SLOW DELIVERING CONTENT BECAUSE I’M TOO BUSY ACTUALLY BUSY BEING CREATIVE MOST OF THE TIME AND IF I’M NOT AND I’M JUST LAYING ON A BEACH I WOULDN’T TELL THE WORLD. EVERYTHING THAT TWITTER OFFERS I NEED LESS OF.”

    He only blogs about 5% of the time on what he’s actually doing. Well, Mr. West, I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank you for giving us a glimpse into 5% of your Caps Locked-filled life. Really, it’s fascinating.

  3. He thinks he’s an etymologist. He’s not. But just for shits and giggles, let’s let him try:

    “Only white people and older black people say ‘bling’ now. If a white person uses slang too early, then that makes them look like a wigger. But if black people use slang too late, then it makes them look like a wigger.”

    Thanks for that grammar lesson, Kanye.

  4. He titled his apology to Taylor Swift “I feel like Ben Stiller in ‘Meet the Parents’ when he messed up everything and Robert de Niro asked him to leave.”Really, Kanye? That’s the best you could come up with?? Well, you see, the difference between you and Ben Stiller is that Ben Stiller is likable. He has a pleasant disposition. You aren’t and you don’t.
  5. And my personal favorite; his douche bag-y lyrics. There are a lot to choose from, but how about these from Stronger: “Do anybody make real shit anymore?
    Bow in the presence of greatness
    ‘Cause right now thou hast forsaken us.
    You should be honoured by my lateness,
    That I would even show up to this fake shit.

    My contention with these lyrics is that this song is a cover of a Daft Punk song that came out six years earlier. Don’t get me wrong–it’s a really good song. But the premise, Mr. West, of you calling out other artists for not “making real shit” anymore in a song that’s a cover of another song is just, well, hypocritical? Ironic? Stupid? Yes!!–that’s it, stupid.

So, in summary, you’re a huuuuuuge douche bag, Kanye. It just sucks that you make really good songs. Because other than that, you’re a douche.