New Friend Requests!
The honeymoon is over
This must be a common tale. When I started my MySpace page up, all of three weeks ago, I was thrilled every time I received a New Friend Request! flashing in my inbox. I accepted everybody, keen to build up my friend portfolio and genuinely flattered that anybody had bothered to request my friendship. After two weeks, when it emerged that Richard Herring had doubled my friend total in the same time, I began to realise that accumulating random friends is without in-built merit. Without making a decision to do so, I started to consider new requests with more rigour. If the "friend" was a struggling indie band I had never heard of, and who appeared to have no other friends in common with me, I put them into a holding pattern. Equally, I started to do rudimentary credit checks; if I didn't like the look of the person's MySpace page, I put them into the holding pattern too. One girl, for instance, seemingly harmless, had used the c-word a lot, which put me off. I sometimes use the c-word in speech, but not in mixed company, and I didn't think it was big or clever to actually put it in your MySpace description, however light-hearted - hey, you've got to have a system. Another boy had a picture of someone, not himself as it turned out, dressed as Hitler. I found this in questionable taste and put him in the holding pattern too. I did not have the guts to actually press "deny". (What happens when you do? Does a big denied! flash in their inbox, Wayne's World style?) Anyway, over the past week I have collected almost 40 would-be friends whose requests I have not approved. And today, I denied somebody. She seemed odd, so I looked her up and all her Top 8 friends were current Big Brother contestants. I don't want to get involved, even on a superficial and virtual level, with somebody like that. Let us not completely devalue the word "friend". I stupidly accepted "Noel Edmonds" during that first flush of enthusiasm, not really thinking it was him, and then I checked his page and it strikes me as so dim to start an account just to pretend to be a celebrity, no matter how humorously, and so I deleted him from my friends. Now does he get notification if that happens? Anybody know? Perhaps I can do a deal - if someone here who's also a friend on MySpace could volunteer, I'll delete you and see if you get notified. Just as an experiment. Then you can reapply and I'll reaccept. Hands up.
Nothing more to report really, other than I expect everybody goes through this. It makes accepting a new friend more meaningful.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 8:50 AM
16 Comments
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16 Comments:
In the interest of research, how about I delete you, Andrew? Then you can see what happens. I've never deleted or denied friends before, and I'd like to know what kind of 'this person doesn't want to be your friend' message you get. I also have a queue of people in a kind of friend request limbo; neither accepted nor denied...
Can we have a full report of the consequences please? I'm in a quandry about denying and deleting as I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings!
As far as I know, when you 'deny' someone's add request nothing in particular happens. They might realise at some stage that you haven't added them, as the time goes by... but I'm sure lots of people don't even notice - especially bands etc who send out add requests all day!
I have denied loads of people. Had to set up a thing where you can block any bands sending out add requests because it was annoying me so much. Then there's all the sleazy men & lesbians... I love denying them!
Don't seem to get many add requests these days for some reason!!
Just re-read my comment and it makes me sound a bit anti-lesbian! I'm not! I'm just anti sleazy ones who also send you creepy messages!
Alice - I don't get any sleazy messages. What am I doing wrong?!?
OK, Prudence, delete me. Let's see if anything happens. Just post a comment here when you've done it, and it will automatically be forwarded to me. Then we'll wait and see (although I'm guessing from what Alice says that my world will not fall from its axis). Then, for a further experiment, when I reapply, deny me. And we'll see what happens then.
(Incidentally, Billy Bragg has yet to accept me, and he is my friend in REAL LIFE!) (Mind you, he is finishing a book.)
A most irregular honeymoon if I may say.
I suspect that this may be something of a let down, but Andrew, you are no longer my friend.
If you deny someone they don't get notified. The only way they'd know is if they looked in their Pending Requests folder and you're not there.
Same goes for deleting people, no notification. They may notice that their number of friends has gone down but that's it. I think someone deleted me yesterday but I don't know who...
I wouldn't feel bad about rejecting or deleting. Especially random bands.
Thanks, Ian. Thanks, Prudence. Experiment successfully conducted. You can reapply, Prudence, and I'll be quick to accept.
And I might do a bit of pruning. It's not a competiton! (I'm telling myself that.)
Well that was fun.
I am proud to have been involved in such a worthy experiment, and I hope that the results will be of value to all MySpace users.
Andrew, I sent you a friend request after stumbling upon your blog and thus reading your previous MySpace musings. I was pleased to find myself accepted almost instantly, and now even find myself slightly flattered after learning you've become quite picky about the whole thing!
For what it's worth, I sent the request because you seem like a good guy. You've popped up quite a bit in various media things I've enjoyed in the last fifteen years - starting with your NME days in the early '90s, through Select, Empire and your TV and radio shenanigans with that Maconie fellow. Have I been stalking you or have you been stalking me?
Ooh, Select. Life isn't quite the same without that august tome. Anyone know of any fansites?
Actually, august tome- what am I on about? Why do I keep using "big" words where small ones would do? Hmm.
Thanks, this is really helpful. It should be in the MySpace help.
Hi, I'm just a random fellow myspacer who googled: "what happens when you deny someone on myspace" and got redirected to this page --- I found your entire conversation back and forth quite hilarious, and the experimental results made me feel so much less guilty about denying that creepy guy I knew in college! Thanks!
See above ^^^^
same here hahaha
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