Words of an ailurophile

I never really understood those people who when "cleaning" their facebook friends list, make a status update saying something like "I'm cleaning my friends list and remove a lot of people ... if you still want to be my friend, comment on this status within the next 24 hours"...

If you want to clean out all the people who really aren't your friends any more, or you know actually doesn't give a shit about you as a person, just do it for heavens sake, and let people discover for themselves that you suddenly disappeared from their list of friends... If they ever found out, however.
Making a status update "giving people a chance" to stay your friend, is only something people do to see how many of their friends are desperate enough to stay your friend no matter if they are your friend or not, and at the same time give you a feeling of power because now you are in charge, and its so pleasant to see that for once in your life your friends will "fight" (at least a bit) for the right to stay by your loving side. (And the second after they did so, they won't really pay any attention to you ever again, unless you make another clean up another day)

And then on the other side, it not really a fair way to remove people, is it? I mean, not everyone is a facebook addict who checks the page every single day, so a lot of good people might get deleted because they actually have a life. Ironic really, those should be the sort of people you most of all should keep!

If you want to do a clean up on your facebook friends list, don't make a status update about you doing so, just like you have to make a status update about every other little thing you do in your life.
Just do it. Get on with it, and enjoy that destructive feeling of getting rid of all those acquaintances from your old school, or the place you worked 3 years ago, or that guy you met at that one party and never really spoke to again, not even a bit on facebook. Just remove them God damnit, and don't tell them. Let them figure out for themselves, because all those who never notice you removed them, is exactly those people who you had best reason to remove.

Then when you are done, you can make a status update about it, now that you've done something new and "exciting" with your life.
Then everyone who can still read it, because they are still your friends, can feel happy and special for being one of those who you didn't feel the need to remove.