Maxed Out
by ted2112, HSM team writer
How many friends do you have on your friend list? How many Twitter followers do you have? What’s your Facebook friends number look like? Is it about quantity? Or is it about quality?
As far as the PSN is concerned, I sometimes feel a little guilty for having what I consider a full friend list. For the record, I have about forty people, but in my opinion, that’s a lot! Each and every person on my friend list is someone I hope to interact with; you know, to be a friend. It boggles my mind sometimes to see people maxed out at one hundred friends. Do these people really interact with a hundred people? It must be a full-time job in itself. Or, is it about picking up a friend request along the way and not really connecting, but feeling bad about removing them? Most likely I bet it’s a matter of the list just being too big to know what’s going on with it.
If your friend list is full, the way I see it, you are now cut off from potentially meeting some great people. Once you pass that line in the digital sand, the system denies you receiving any more friend requests. So, should that cut off number be higher? What if Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie want to friend you and personally come by and check out how you decorated your Harbor Studio? Should we have a friends list number of two-hundred or more, or should we simply look at our friends list and take out the people we are not actually friends with? Maybe Sony could create an acquaintance list; a perfect spot would be right under the players met icon. Here we could dump those random requests from people whom we have no idea who they are.
We gamers are a competitive bunch; we go the extra mile for that elusive trophy. We do our best to level up, so why should our friends list be any different? Is it in our competitive gamer nature to have a full friends list? Maybe we should have a trophy for reaching one-hundred friends! Is it in our nature to get that number as high as possible, even if we have no idea who half of them even are?
How many friends do we have in real life? I bet that number is significantly lower than one-hundred. Does the fact that we don’t meet our friends list or followers face to face make us more comfortable accepting or denying them, or is a friend list “friend” simply not a real friend at all? Imagine having our real life friends having to sign something validating our friendship. That would be preposterous, but in the digital world, it’s just how it works.
A fellow writer friend of mine follows over ten-thousand people on Twitter. She is a talented writer and a good friend, but I kid her mercilessly about it. To her, it’s a matter of raw numbers. It’s not the actual people, it’s the number itself. If you follow ten-thousand people, you will have about ten-thousand followers, and if you are promoting a book, like she is, then this helps to get the word out. I recently challenged her to name just twenty-five out of the ten-thousand people on the list, and she couldn’t. Again, she uses this as a tool, not because she is interested in what these people actually have to offer. In fact, she has a separate twitter account just for her real friends — but she does sell a lot of books, so what do I know?
Do we collect friends in the hopes of hanging out with somebody? Not all your friends can be on-line at once, and even if they were, what are the chances of them playing the game you want, or even being available? If you heavily pad your friend list, you just might stand a better chance of finding somebody to hang with.
So what does this all mean? What does our friend list say about ourselves? Does it define us like a high school popularity contest? Am I in the wrong clique because I only have forty friends? Well, like the saying goes, I’d rather have four quarters than a hundred pennies any day.
How many friends do you have? Can you name them all? What is that friend magic number of balancing people you really want to hang out with versus how much time you actually have to do that?
I bet to each person it’s a different number, and I am the last person to judge. I’m just a writer, and it’s my job to point out silly things like this. A friend list is a lifeline to many people, and something that doesn’t mean much to others. So whether we follow, friend, hang, post or send an invite, its good to have friends.
April 23rd, 2013 by ted2112 | 7 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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I try to keep mine at a reasonable level, but the damn thing is like an unruly garden hedge, it just keeps sprouting extra bits you dont notice until it gets properly outta hand. I have general rules for my list based on my own age and the stuff I’m into; No one under 18 gets on and only regular Home users or people who know about games. That’s it really. Other than that I ain’t fussy. I do make exceptions from time to time depending on situation, and sometimes those decisions leave me scratching my head as to who someone is when I find a name that I’ve only ever spoken to briefly, then they fall into the 6 Month Hole, my last-resort rule where anyone inactive for this much time gets auto-deleted -- I’d say that’s extremely fair.
But yeah, I’m always at my limit usually where my list is concerned, but, even with around 90 odd people on it, I can tell you pretty much who everyone on there is, what they’re into etc.
If you are involved with large Home clubs, the 100-person Friend List limit becomes cripplingly small.
that’s understandable, but do you actually keep in contact will all 100 people on your list?
To some extent, yes. I have up to 31 as my Homeling MotherShip crew at any given time, plus the other 12 Generals, plus many of the Commanders and Subcommanders, plus most of the other HomeStation team writers and editors. And of course a number of people who are not affiliated with either of these groups. It does add up.
At one time I sought to max out my list, but then I got smart about it. I add people that I have some connection to. I have a set that are Gray Gamers, this magazine and then a lot of people that are just separate friends. I, now would much rather have less friends that mean something. I recently went through a couple rounds of drops, and now I feel that my list more represents a list of friends, though there can be a few more drops, I will stay my cleaver for now. Great article Ted, made me think, and that’s rare.
Great article. My friend’s list is under 20 on the PSN. Everyone on my list is someone I have hung out with or interacted with. I used to add everyone who asked me but I would say a good portion of them were “trolls” that wanted to be my boyfriend (LOL) so I have since deleted and cleaned up my list. I rarely hang out in public places and like my small friends list. I am not opposed to adding more people to it, but as you said Ted, I would rather have 4 quarters than 100 pennies. I don’t get to spend a lot of time on Home, so when I am on, I want to catch up with friends that I don’t get to hang out with in the real world and don’t get to see too often. As for Twitter, I probably have about 800 followers, but I don’t mind that at all. Anyway, great read!
I don’t do Twitter at all, don’t really do Facebook either. Home is my connection place. Most of my list are Grey Gamers, then there are the people on the magazine. I have a few others who are old friends that fall into neither category as well. I have a maxed out list on one account and about 50 others besides on a second one , most of who are Grey gamers I have added so they can follow me when we meet publicly. I have meet all of them and interacted with all of them at meetings, though I don’t see them every week.
I believe that having a large club changes things a lot when it comes to this subject, and having a 100 limit forced me long ago to create a second account to handle the overflow. I would still love to have 200 limit for the club reason alone, it would make my life easier for sure. I think they have the limit for a reason though, probably a technical one, like the load time when you sign on would be much longer.
Nice read as always Ted.