Ben Bashford

If you are one of these people maybe you could explain why you do it. Do you need to have a massive friends list to feel valid?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get all “everyone wants to be my friend” or anything like that. No no no. I’m under no illusions – I’m sure people just randomly browse people’s friends lists and go “add, add, add” for no reason other than to expand their social network and make themselves look cool. It’s not so much the random adds I have a problem with, it’s doing it without even saying hello. Who are you and why do you want to be my friend on the googly internets?

I don’t mean to pick these particular offenders out and if there’s a genuine reason for them adding me as a friend I apologise…

Why is Monty Loree from Canada trying to befriend me on Twitter? Why is Nicol trying to befriend me on Myspace? Myspace is the worst for this – I get countless adds every day from bands that must be using some kind of automated “add everyone and their friends” script. Come on, do you really think I’d like you – or your music? Some people might – but not me. Talk to me first – find out a little bit about me – you might realise that I’m not going to like you, your music, your “tweets”, your whatever or you might even realise that you’re not going to like me. Again, I’m under no illusions. Really – you probably won’t like me.

It’s not like I’m a band or anything – I add bands to my friends list on Myspace because it’s a convenient way to find their pages when I go looking for them and I understand that some people use bands in their friends list to define themselves as a character. That’s not bad at all. In fact I endorse that behaviour wholeheartedly. I’ve even designed websites with that kind of behaviour in mind.

I’m not a Pokemon. By all means carry on expanding your fake social network, but please stop trying to collect me.