Want to commit Facebook suicide? No, really, there's an app for that!

I just stumbled across an article on FastCompany and it sheds light on something I've never put much thought into: unfriending. Sure, it entered the English language this year, but we don't really do it all that often, do we? We might talk about doing it, but rarely do we go through with it. It would be a bit like committing social suicide.

Ah, suicide. A contentious topic. But let's face it: shit happens. Sometimes it all just gets a bit too much. You're being poked on all fronts by parents, coworkers and your local parish priest -- there's no way out. Drunken, debauched photos of you are being ruthlessly tagged. You can't stop hitting F5 in case the boy you like updates his status -- I must be first to 'like' his status!!! It all mixes and congeals into something truly monstrous -- and addictive.

Let's face it, social networking, in its current, vacuous, self-adulatory and time-wasting form is a bit sad. Wouldn't it be nice to just... get away? For ever? PERMANENTLY?

Well I bring good news, there's an app for that: The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.

What it does is... well... it kills your entire social presence on the Internet. Blammo. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace -- all gone in the blink of an eye. Your life(stream) literally flashes before your eyes as the Suicide Machine kills your friends and deletes your account. If you want to know more there's even a (really odd) introductory video at the end of this story.


But it gets worse: I can't imagine why -- really, this smells more than a little nefarious -- but Facebook hates apps or groups that condone social suic-- unfriending. Apparently there was a Burger King promotion that rewarded you with a free Whopper if you went through with a 'Whopper Sacrifice' and unfriended 10 people -- it quickly got banned. I'm sure they must have a good reason for shooing people away from the unfriend button. I just can't think of one that isn't really, really creepy.

Over 100 years ago, Ambrose Bierce wrote on the subject of unfriending -- or 'disintroductions' as he called them. It never really took off, probably due to importance of society back then. Surely contemporary society is different; surely it's time to load up Madame Guillotine and begin the unfriending Revolution?

One day soon your entire list of friends will be automatically generated by Facebook's algorithms. Heck, we're not far off Facebook automatically Googling your name and importing the details it finds -- schools, health records, employment history and so on. You will be friends with your old school friends whether you like it or not.

You'll log in each day to find out which new friends you've been match-made with. No effort, no problem. Everyone will live in a spoon-fed, computer-assisted, social utopia positively full to overflowing with pokes and FarmVille.

And then the machine will stop.

Tags: facebook, rant, social networking, social suicide, SocialNetworking, SocialSuicide, suicide machine, SuicideMachine