Social Media isn’t your friend.

There is an ongoing myth about Social Media: The “friend.” It is insidious, dangerous, and honestly weakens the concept of what a friend is. So let’s set fire to this myth. Come with me, and grab a point stick!

Back in the days of yore, when old people like me were first poking at using websites as “weblogs” (In my day we didn’t shorten it to blogs! We used the whole term, like a hunted animal!) LiveJournal came along and offered us grazing land for the herds. And you would add people you wanted to read.

You would friend them.

Now, sure, some of these people were already friends of your in life, and some might become actual friends, but the sickness, that unique mental fuck-poke of thinking that because someone wants to read you they are your friend, started for a lot of us there.

I like to read Alan Sepinwall’s TV reviews. I am not his friend. He is not mine. I mean, I hear he’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong. But just because I want to read his words, it doesn’t entitle me to be his friend, nor does it imply I am his friend.

As it should be.

And that idea carried over. And still carries over.

Now, on Twitter, you have “Followers” who you can follow back. They aren’t called friends. But because Twitter is a much smaller packet burst system, it comes across as less “reading” and more “conversation,” be it a fractured, fucked up conversation where we’ve all sitting with pots on our heads, beating at them with sticks, and shouting “I can hear you, too” into the wind, while peeing on ourselves.

I love Twitter. I can’t explain it well, I fear, but the general level of interaction, coupled with the ease of use and shortness of required attention make it something I can use and still get shit done around. Sweet spot.

But: Followers. It’s an issue. Because I follow people and they follow me and – well who cares?

I don’t. I have some decently good friends that I follow, because I am deeply interested in their lives, and they don’t follow me back. Though they are interested in mine as well. Some people I care about and don’t follow.

It all comes down to available bandwidth. Everyone’s brain has an internal capacity for plugging directly into someone else’s. you have to find out what it is for yourself and find a way to work with it. For some that’s “Follow ten people” for some it is a thousand. Whatever it is, you work out where you are the most comfortable and then decide how you like to use the tools available.

See how this is tool based, brain space based, and comfort based – but never “friend based”? That’s because all of this, all of social media is a fucking fire hose aimed at your ass. And if you don’t want the signal to noise to overwhelm you and blow your kidneys out of your throat, you have to learn how to adjust the nozzle and protect yourself. It is, seriously and literally, a basic tenant of sanity now to be able to do this.

Friends don’t enter into it. And certainly not “friends” the way social media defines them. A friend is someone you count of, call on, and cherish. Some of them may also be friends of yours on social media. But I’ll bet 90% of the ppl you are forced, by system programs, to label in a site as “friend” aren’t. Acquaintances, maybe. Folks you like to read? Sure. But friends? Naw, not so much.

And that’s fine. It’s good! I have a very small circle of actual friends and a very wide circle that the internet seems to insist I label that way. So we need to all be careful.

But here’s the key: You use social media your way. I use it mine.

I know people who use lists on Twitter to follow 1000s of people, but only read a handful. I don’t like to, personally. Nothing wrong with it, but for me, for my own brain, I like to follow the number of people I can, at that moment, and go from there.

I don’t judge people who use social media in their way, and I refuse to be judged for how I use it. It’s all good. Some people follow only friends. Some follow everyone. Some only broadcast advertising. Whatever it is – you decide if you want to tune in and you do so. But placing expectations that the person you are choosing to tune into has an obligation to you, ever, outside of “There is a friendship here” and I mean a real one, is trying to make other people play your game.

Instead – find your best use case. Use it to whatever degree you get the most out of it. And know your real friends, and your labeled friends and remember the difference between them.