Stay Social
Awhile back Facebook killed the ability to scroll through your feeds via custom lists, thus eliminating my ability to focus on the fifty or so people in my tier one list — I had it organized in three tiers, in terms of interest level and closeness I guess. On Sunday evening, while I was laying around in bed, I started to unfollow people to see if I could make my Facebook feed a useful place again.
Everyone has a mea culpa about why they haven’t left Facebook but broadly speaking, it’s useful to me as a minor keep-in-touch tool and ever since living in Asia, Facebook is a must — although I was scoffed at recently for asking to exchange Facebook info so maybe it’s Instagram now for the younger set. But mostly my retaining Facebook is its primary use case as a way to vet potential friends. Stalkers gonna stalk.
So what I’m basically asking myself as I go through this most recent round of Facebook culling is to ask: Does this person’s posts add value? It's like the Kondo method but really, I/we've been using "Is this person value-add?" for years and I could see it taking off just as successfully once JMZ and I get our own television series.
What I’ve discovered through this process is that I’m basically only interested in very few people’s Facebook lives — or in general? — and most of the people I’ve chosen to still follow fall into the acquaintance camp. The DJ from China. The photographer who somehow posts A-level links 90% of the time. A food writer that I only sort of know but have been following for years. A dancer from that I’ve met once but somehow I’m still watching his dancing videos even though I don’t think he’s actually that good; I just wonder what his life is like. A super cool bartender from Taipei that I only sort of can understand most of the time when we chat.
Basically it boils down to any creative and anyone who has something to promote.
All my real friends who post about their lives basically got unfollowed -- some for only thirty days though, because I must give people a chance. I mean, I actually have quite a bit of interest in the mundanity of most friends’ lives, just not presented via Facebook. So I was trying to figure out how I’d like that mundanity to be served up. I used to love Snapchat for the snippets of people’s day, but now that I’m not a watcher of Instagram Stories, that avenue is closed off.
Who's working on an app that will allow you to keep abreast of your IRL friends' lives but also eliminate all the stuff you don't actually care about? How is AI learning not working toward a solution?
So what has been kept around? Glad you asked. Facebook has actually been quite key for me for fandoms My entire feed now consists of MTV Challenge, Old School Magic players, Dragonlance Adventures, and some NBA. Then there are groups like Asians in Publishing, Taiwan expat bloggers, and the like. Throw in notices from my YA book club, an upcoming Asian American podcast I’m on the community panel for, old summer camp people’s lives and that's about it! My new Facebook feed.
Basically zero good links come from Facebook, except from that five percent of people I kept, which I guess I knew already.
The other night I had a dream about a college friend that I hadn’t thought about in forever. We were sitting with another friend on a campus-like bench after classes and there was some big gossip that we were just so excited to gabber about. I don't even know what the news was because I woke up so startled by this moment's past possibility, and improbability, that I had to message this friend immediately. And of course, the only way to connect was via Facebook. So thank you Zuck, for all you’ve done.
I just now discovered that FB has a mass unfollow tool that is not difficult to use, although you still have to essentially click on people's faces one by one. Which just seems extra-personal doesn't it? I'm sure they don't provide an actual mass unfollow tool because that would just be too easy.
Everyone has a mea culpa about why they haven’t left Facebook but broadly speaking, it’s useful to me as a minor keep-in-touch tool and ever since living in Asia, Facebook is a must — although I was scoffed at recently for asking to exchange Facebook info so maybe it’s Instagram now for the younger set. But mostly my retaining Facebook is its primary use case as a way to vet potential friends. Stalkers gonna stalk.
So what I’m basically asking myself as I go through this most recent round of Facebook culling is to ask: Does this person’s posts add value? It's like the Kondo method but really, I/we've been using "Is this person value-add?" for years and I could see it taking off just as successfully once JMZ and I get our own television series.
What I’ve discovered through this process is that I’m basically only interested in very few people’s Facebook lives — or in general? — and most of the people I’ve chosen to still follow fall into the acquaintance camp. The DJ from China. The photographer who somehow posts A-level links 90% of the time. A food writer that I only sort of know but have been following for years. A dancer from that I’ve met once but somehow I’m still watching his dancing videos even though I don’t think he’s actually that good; I just wonder what his life is like. A super cool bartender from Taipei that I only sort of can understand most of the time when we chat.
Basically it boils down to any creative and anyone who has something to promote.
All my real friends who post about their lives basically got unfollowed -- some for only thirty days though, because I must give people a chance. I mean, I actually have quite a bit of interest in the mundanity of most friends’ lives, just not presented via Facebook. So I was trying to figure out how I’d like that mundanity to be served up. I used to love Snapchat for the snippets of people’s day, but now that I’m not a watcher of Instagram Stories, that avenue is closed off.
Who's working on an app that will allow you to keep abreast of your IRL friends' lives but also eliminate all the stuff you don't actually care about? How is AI learning not working toward a solution?
So what has been kept around? Glad you asked. Facebook has actually been quite key for me for fandoms My entire feed now consists of MTV Challenge, Old School Magic players, Dragonlance Adventures, and some NBA. Then there are groups like Asians in Publishing, Taiwan expat bloggers, and the like. Throw in notices from my YA book club, an upcoming Asian American podcast I’m on the community panel for, old summer camp people’s lives and that's about it! My new Facebook feed.
Basically zero good links come from Facebook, except from that five percent of people I kept, which I guess I knew already.
The other night I had a dream about a college friend that I hadn’t thought about in forever. We were sitting with another friend on a campus-like bench after classes and there was some big gossip that we were just so excited to gabber about. I don't even know what the news was because I woke up so startled by this moment's past possibility, and improbability, that I had to message this friend immediately. And of course, the only way to connect was via Facebook. So thank you Zuck, for all you’ve done.
I just now discovered that FB has a mass unfollow tool that is not difficult to use, although you still have to essentially click on people's faces one by one. Which just seems extra-personal doesn't it? I'm sure they don't provide an actual mass unfollow tool because that would just be too easy.
