FACEBOOK FRIENDS: A WHO’S WHO

via round-two.me

All Facebook friends are not created equal.

Vanity Fair loves Facebook. Who doesn’t? Can a billion people a day be wrong?

Or maybe they’re cuddling up to Mark Zuckerberg, The Man, The Face, of Facebook.

Understandable if they are. He is one of the big biggies of the online world.

His is the biggest face of social media on the planet. If he’s not the richest guy, he’s the youngest with the mostest.

Then there’s the rest of us. Do we love facebook? Do we LOVE Facebook. It seems so.

In a connected world, Facebook stands apart. Part business model, part tech miracle, and part clock killer, Facebook rules its niche.

Google made a run at them with Google +, which makes sense in Google land. Microsoft is warming up for a run at them when they bought linkedin, the Facebook for professional people. But it’s too late.

You know it’s too late with your hear things like, ‘the Facebook of (insert topic.)’

The biggest reason for Facebook’s dominance, aside from the tech and business part, is the part about Facebook friends.

Now we’re all friends. Or are we?

If we’re all friends, why would anyone unfriend someone?

Facebook friends are all about education.

Read between the lines of an innocent post and you find fear, judgement, intolerance. In others you find acceptance, love, and forgiveness.

And it’s all from Facebook friends you never thought of in those lights. Some are brighter than others, but outside the true dim bulbs, no one is getting burned beyond recognition.

It just feels that way when people you thought you knew better go off on things you care about.

An educated baby boomer feels guilt about not serving their country, so they post negative images of the millennial generation compared to Vietnam Veterans and WWII Veterans to feel better about themselves.

Their Facebook friends know the drill.

Everyone who didn’t serve have the same empty place where military memories lay. Most of them see themselves are commanders, leaders, the first guy off the boat on D-Day, the soldier walking point in the jungle to show ‘the men’ what leadership means.

We get it. You’re not a PFC, you’re better than that, but it doesn’t make you a bad Facebook friend.

Do you have a Facebook friend who encourages healthy living, animal kindness, and a calm lifestyle? It means more to a meat eating, derelict, dog kicker to see those posts than any others. It can’t hurt.

You should have a Facebook friend named Brenda Tracy, a woman who speaks for those who can’t, or won’t. She’s proof the human spirit lives strong.

Instead of letting an event in her life define her as a victim, she’s a leading voice against sexual assault, extending the statute of limitation on sexual assault cases, and processing back-logged rape kits.

When she decided to break the victim silence, it surprised one of her assailants: “I haven’t thought much about that crazy stuff at all,” he said. “One day, I’m a model citizen. The next day, I’m an accused rapist on TV. There was no proof. We have to live with the consequences. I wouldn’t say scary is the word. I would say I was humiliated.”

Facebook friends have a limit.

You’ll know the limit when you get this call:

“You don’t answer your phone or listen to messages. You never return calls. I know you speak to the world from a blog. My wife says you’re on Facebook, but I never hear from you.”

Have you heard this one?

“What’s is it with you online people who don’t have time for their friends in real time? That’s not how it’s supposed to work. And why are you talking in such a quiet voice?”

He heard my apology voice, the one you share with friends outside of Facebook friends.

First my voice said I’m sorry, then I said, “I’m sorry.”

Friends have feelings you can’t ignore, and a friend won’t.

What’s your Facebook friend story? Leave it in comments.