'National UnFriend Day': Jimmy Kimmel Tells America to Trim Facebook Friends [VIDEO]
Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel declared Nov. 17 “National UnFriend Day” on Facebook.
“Last year on this show, we started a movement. Half of the people in this country are on Facebook, and many of those people have hundreds, if not thousands of ‘friends,’ and I find this unacceptable,” said Kimmel on Wednesday’s episode. “If you have 10 friends in your life, you’re doing very well.”
“I created a national day of action on which we encourage anyone with a Facebook page to go through their list of friends and cut anyone who is not actually a friend,” he continued. “It’s like Spring Cleaning, but instead of trash, you’re throwing out people.”
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A study released this week by the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found that 66 percent of adults online use social media, and two-thirds of those said connecting with friends was a major reason for using the websites.
Kayla Bourgeois, an account executive at advertising agency Howard, Merrell & Partners in North Carolina, wrote an online essay recounting how she cut her Facebook friends list from 1,000 to 333.
"The trend with Facebook for a while was to connect with as many people as possible,” said Bourgeois. "Boost your friend count by keeping up with networking connections, spying on past high school friends, and Facebook-stalking random hotties you met at the bar.”
"But after graduating and joining the real world those needs change, along with the people you Facebook friend," she added.
Moreover, friend-bloated Facebookers seem to agree with Kimmel’s half-joking movement.
“Gosh, I love Jimmy Kimmel, and yes, I have removed people that who knows where they came from,” said Facebook user Galvan Evana. “The funny thing is I have found a few who I thought were my friends from previous jobs who claimed they were real friends, boy, was I wrong.”
Kimmel is no beginner in social media stunts. Last month, he asked parents to tell their children they ate the kids' Halloween candy and film it. The video went viral and shot to the top of the YouTube charts.
