Self

8 Times It's Perfectly Acceptable To Hit The Unfollow Button

Photo: weheartit
middle finger

By Tina Plantamura

There might be people in your social media bubble that make you irritated and annoyed. Why do you keep them around?

Would you go out of your way to surround yourself with people who make you cringe in real life? Why do it online? You deserve better.

Here are a few telltale signs you might want to clean up your list of social media "friends."

1. Their face is annoying. 

They post too many photos of themselves. While this person can and should continue to do whatever they want, there's no way to get away from the fact that their face annoys the shit out of you. They are posting five selfies a day with an absurd amount of hashtags, no clever comments, no funny stories, and no captivating photographs, ever.

2. You lost respect for them. 

At some point, they did something that made you stop taking them seriously as a person. It may be something that's none of your business, and very likely, something that does not warrant a confrontation, but still, it might be time to say bye-bye and unfriend.

3. They are boring. 

And you don't understand why they alert 800 friends/followers to the fact that they have a headache. Or their back hurts. Or they’re picking up a pizza because . . . starving. You went to school together, or maybe you met through a mutual friend, but you don't need to waste your reading comprehension skills on their dull life.

4. They are fascinating. 

Really. And that's why you have to delete them. You waste far too much time and brain space on what is going on in their life, even though you never speak.

They are the reason you don’t watch reality shows — the drama in their life is far more interesting. You take screenshots of their posts and share them with friends. However, they are not here for your mindless entertainment. Let them go.

5. They share in riveting detail, every problem they have with their children. 

Every day you watch a mini-train wreck about their children in slow motion on social media. You are following these horror stories — why? With the hopes to watch their kids grow old enough to create their own social media accounts and start posting private shit about them? Break it off. Now.

6. They rant about politics. Every. Single. Day. 

And even if you agree with them, you don't need memes about which politician sucks and who is taking our country/state/town to hell in a handbasket everyday. So stop subjecting yourself to the cyber-whining and delete them.

7. They can't go 24 hours without telling everyone how great their life is. 

And if it's so great, why do they bother to interrupt the awesomeness constantly by sharing on social media? And adding filters to photos of how great it is? Or making stupid photo collages to showcase their incredible life?

This person makes you a judgmental and skeptical asshole. They don’t deserve this. And neither do you. Get rid of them.

8. They "like" or "favorite" every single thing you share yet you've never actually met in real life. 

In a sense, this is flattering, but it's also a gigantic WTF. There is no way you are that fascinating. You don't want to assume they’re creepy, but you definitely think they’re creepy.

You don't have to dump them all at once. Delete a few at a time. If you stop dwelling on people who make absolutely no difference in your life, you'll be surprised at how much better you feel.

After all, they probably won't even notice you are gone.

This article was originally published at Ravishly. Reprinted with permission from the author.