Buddy Lists and their Meaning

A "buddy list", "friend list" and all that bull is basically a list of contacts that allow Internet Muckety-Mucks map us all and knwo who knows who, why, profile as as "followers", "loners", "opinion leaders" or "social butterflies" (which I friendly call "social whores"... but in a good way! (yeah right...)). Most people, particularly those with a very, very, very low self esteem seek to have friend lists far more populated than an average small country. Damned, I think there are people out there who have more friends than population in Iceland! Others have moderated lists, though then again, "moderated" seems to hoover somewhere around 100. The "wimpy" users, who can't really say "no" to any John Doe who wants to engross his f-list, who may run up to... 200? Maybe 300? At this point I guess we have all received requests or invitations that say something like: "Hi, I'm John Doe. Add me to your friend list." Some get even more agressive and if you don't add them tight away, they send you a "Hi, I'm Ravi from India. I've noticed you haven't added me to your friend list yet". (You do know these, right?) Some get really agressive, like this jackass I ran into once (where I able to check my Facebook I'd even publish his name for you all to point fingers at him) who kept sending shit like "You must friend me. You have no idea what you are missing! I'm the best thing that could happen to you." At the end I sent him a short missive: "Well, I'll take the risk. Thanks for your interest, nontheless." The jackass answered with a long string of bad words that would put me to shame. Let's put it this way: if you think my writing si "colorful", his is an explosion of all color ranges available, visible and invisible to the human eye.

No harm done. I blocked him, reported him and that's that.

Anyway, back to topic.

Sure, many of us have several friends, and it ain't until you start doing a "cleansing" that you realize, that, yes, maybe you do have 100 friends or so. Then, some of us like to keep it short. And some of us like to keep it so short, you'd say we "close crop" our friend list.

However, no matter to which group you belong, the friend list takes an interesting meaning in the mind of people. For many, being in a friend list means to be "taken in account", though then again, now a days most people are aware of the fact that a lot of contacts dust and fade away in looooong friend lists, and it doesn't mean they are actually friends, but as much, they are "acquintances". Having your blog listed on the blog of your friend, or have your livejournal pop up on the f-list of someone's livejournal might mean a big deal, thought it might not mean a thing. So, in the end, the f-lists, buddy lists, friend lists and whatever other name they may have, are a social, particularly a cyber-social pretense of contact. It's the "facial" marker of a friendship. Maybe if you are on "the list" it means something FOR YOU, but not necessarily for the person keeping you listed. However, when the "de-friending" occurs, when someone erases you from their list, dude, that means something!

You may not talk to each other---

I just zoned out. Multitasking is a killer. I totally forgot I was writing this, and went looking for Supernatural fics while updating the 43rd week report data to my formulas and sheets... And just read two not-so-good fics, and clicked on the third of the day. Do you know I have been thinking on rewriting Scholomance as an original story, all set up nicely--- That's the fic I wanted to read! And here I was stuck working also on "I Dare You To"! --- Well, if I do something other than work, I should be doing thesis, don't you think? My mind always does this to me. But let's resume.

This post, before I went running around doing 10 thousand other things came to my mind on the line of "what happens when you are erased as a cyber-friend"? Thing is, today contact mostly happens through the web, but being on someone's list doesn't mean you ARE in contact with that person. When I wiped off the 66% of my friend list of the FB, I doubt seriously they noticed. I doubt people notice when you take them off the Google Talk or the MSN. I for one, never notice. And what happens if I notice? *lifts her shoulders* Not much. However, it does mean something like a "break" in the cyber-society where what's registered, what can be seen is what makes reality. Truth is that the cyber-society unfolds much more on the individual space, a kind of dimension located on the ... "meta-individual" level. This whole social world exists based on far less physical evidence than the social structures which we comprehend inside our heads, and which goes on around us. This is basically unfolding between the individual and the Internet terminal of his or her choice. So, it doesn't matter what happens and what other think, or whether X or Y is really the person he or she says is. One individual can unfold in five or a million different cyber-individuals, each of them as valid as the rest.

So, the actual individual may not care and not like a big chunk of his f-list, but that's not what it looks like when those people are still on it. Each of them think: X is my friend. But when X takes the time to match the cyber and the real and erases all of those that he no longer considers his friends, that action, that cyber-act has ripples. Then, without any chance to keep deluding themselves, people know they are no longer considered friends, and now that a link has been severed. For many the question "why" pops. For others bitterness unleashes.

I wonder if the problem is actually the fact that someone has no longer the desire to keep a liaison with them or the problem is that it shakes the virtual reality of the erased "friend". Certainly, for people with no self-esteem, whose excuses to stay alive are directly proportional to the number of people on their friend lists, the loss of one liaison is a terrorist attack to their life, and they would curl up in a corner or throw themselves to the street in a huge and embarrassing display of drama, asking why they are no longer loved. (Oh yes, I despise low self-esteem people. Perhaps because they are different, or because they are so ineficient, in my eyes, or because I have been surrounded by so many of them, wanting me to provide them the love they denied to themselves. Honestly, dude, if you don't love yourself, why should anyone else? And if you question why are you alive and find no answers, there are millions of ways to end your miserable life. Pick one and stop picking on the others. Nobody cares whether you live or die. Well, maybe I do. I care if you live, because if you live you bug me, so be a good sport and do it for the world. Go hang.)

One way or the other, the erasing of a contact, or a "friend" is one of the few and irrefutable clear signs we can get from the cyber-society: someone has decided to no longer share with us. Someone wishes not to know us anymore. Hey, it happens. After all, if you can break with your lover, why can't you brek with your friend, right? Well, says me, who has a record of breaking friendships that could wrap around the world and make it into an official, Olimpic Game sport. Breaking a liaison doesn't necesarily has to happen in the frame of a big, Earth shaking fight, but sometimes quietly, too. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes it's joyful (I have a lot of these) and sometimes it is irrelevant.

Today I had one. A sad one. I severed my liaison to César. He has changed so much and has become such a pain in the ass, I no longer wish to know him. He just took so much after Iván, he's veritably turning into an Iván 2. It makes me really sad, because I would have loved to see him turn into a good, respectable, tasteful, educated man, but he chose the path of the pathetic drama queen. Pity. I respect his decision, but I'm not staying to witness the mess. Today I have lost a son.