Social Media Breakup: 7 Friends You're Allergic To On Facebook
Facebook is leaving you with teary eyes, FOMO flareups, frustration and disappointment.
It’s likely that you’ve become allergic to some of the people who keep popping up in your news feed. This list will help you to identify and unfollow problematic “friends.” It’s science, guys.
The Favor-Finder:
Favor-Finders deserve credit for their resourcefulness, as they use Facebook as a virtual marketplace for free labor, cat sitters and rides to the airport.
Once you agree to lend a hand for their garage sales, they’ll ask for even more elaborate favors that weren’t part of the original plan.
If you back out of your offer or if nobody responds to the Favor-Finder’s pleas, they’ll follow up with not-so-subtle statuses about “knowing who your true friends are.” Think of unfollowing the Favor-Finder as good boundary practice.
The Fake Icon, aka The Fauxcon:
Why aren’t you in a "Top 30 Under 30" list yet? You have a long way to go if you’ll ever catch up to the Fauxcon. The Fauxcon’s long posts fill up your news feed and thank everyone who helped him or her along the way to achieving his or her prolific status.
You’d love to believe it's all legitimate and that The Fauxcon’s studio photo shoot had a greater purpose than just snapping a killer profile picture.
At this point, though, you’re actually too embarrassed to ask the Fauxcon what he or she actually “does.” However, being openly skeptical leads others to believe that you’re just a hater. You have two choices: accept The Fauxcon as your sort-of-celebrity friend or accept your allergy to BS.
Open Letter Author:
When life gives you lemons, write an open letter to those lemons and wait for people to “like” it and agree. Open letters started out as a great way for obscure celebrities to become relevant again.
Once regular people discovered this to be an excellent source of attention, they ran with it, too. Open Letter Authors love to talk to inanimate objects (“Dear Segways”) and people they’ll never see again (“Dear Lady On the Train”) all for the sake of showcasing their snarky ‘tudes.
The Selfie Addict:
Many people assume that a Selfie Addict’s face is a 20-something girl with chemically straightened hair and a killer duckface. Those people are mistaken.
Grown men are Selfie Addicts. Moms and dads are Selfie Addicts. I’m pretty sure there are grandparents who are Selfie Addicts, too. The Selfie Addict’s face pops up in your news feed too many times on a daily basis. It’s easy to get tired of seeing a Selfie Addict, and after a while, you’ll lose your desire to see this person, well, in person.
Get the Selfie Addicts off of your feeds and back into your lives to save your friendships. They can’t help themselves!
The Fisherman:
The Fisherman thrives off of people who fall for his or her lures, like making empty threats to delete his or her Facebook account “for good, this time.”
(Omg, don’t do it! We’ll miss you!) Other fishermen will post a status updates with vague, yet targeted lines to spark intrigue: “Once you lie to me, I will never trust you again. Nice try.” (Who lied? Does that mean you’re single now? Nice.)
Advanced Fishermen enjoy baiting by telling tales of receiving compliments from strangers: “A lady came up to me today and said I’m a beautiful spirit and I look like a skinny cherub.”
There is no room to disagree with this — not publicly, anyway. It’s a one-sided game: Unless you decide not to engage, The Fisherman always wins.
The Sniper:
The Sniper catches you off guard with horrifying images and auto-play videos that you wish you’d never seen. Snipers believe they are pulling up a curtain to make the world less ignorant, but they’re not really sure why.
Rather than sharing an infographic or trusted source of news, The Sniper hits us with articles from obscure websites — articles surrounding conspiracy theories accompanied by images of burnt, de-beaked chickens.
Who knew that Colonel Sanders was plotting to kill us all? Revealing their meaningless intentions, The Snipers add commentary like, “Eww,” “So nasty,” or “This is messed up,” but can’t investigate any further.
The Gym Rat:
Following The Gym Rat has its perks, like making us privy to some incredible ideas for quinoa recipes and guilt-free desserts. The Gym Rat doesn’t leave it at that, though.
He or she inspires us by force, if necessary. This comes in the form of photos of his or her “rockin’ abs” with captions underneath like, “If I can do it, so can you.” Other times, The Gym Rat will publicly track his or her fitness progress and challenge friends to join on this “incredible journey.”
Gym Rats are about that #paleolife. They check into Crossfit daily and talk about how they’re “so sick of people who make excuses.” You feel judged when you take a photo of a great meal and The Gym Rat says, “I’d love this... on a cheat day.”
Thanks to The Gym Rat, you’re followed around by a virtual trainer all day who tells you that you should “aim higher” when you’re already winning at delicious pizza consumption and living your life.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
