Deleting Your Social Footprint: Facebook 101

January 1st was a pretty easy day for me.

1. I went to Starbucks.

2. I ran with my husband.

3. I sat on the couch and read through a stack of magazines.

4. I had over 300 interactions on Facebook in about 30 minutes of total online time.

Not that it’s any of your business.

1. I participated in FB Messenger chats (“Happy New Year…”) with over 40 people. Some of those chats went on for a few rounds (“My kid puked in the hallway. We were in bed by 10…”) and some were very direct (“If I don’t get a new job, this year, I might die…”).

2. Then I liked and commented on nearly 200 posts.

3. Then I looked at a ton of Lil Bub pictures.

To be fair, I don’t live near my family or many of my friends. And a bunch of friends are newly engaged. Some just had babies. There were two birthdays. My ex-boyfriend’s son dressed up like Batman and set off fireworks, which was ridiculously cute. Carmen Hudson got married. And I feel it’s important to like almost all of Matt Stollak’s baby photosbecause his children bring me joy.

And, once again, it’s none of your business.

But I read an article on Business Insider about deleting your Facebook Timeline, and I thought, “I’m smart. Job seekers might want to know more about this. I should give this a go.”

Turns out that none of this is easy (as articulated in the aforementioned article) and none of it is really worth it.

I followed the instructions. I used two browsers and two different programs that run two different kinds of scripts. I cleared my cache, restarted my computer, let the programs run all night long, and watched the whole thing fail.

While some of my stuff is gone, it’s not all gone. Some of it is hidden. Much of it remains behind the scenes.

So FYI for job seekers: Fuck this shit.

1. Don’t put yourself in a position to be watched or judged. Stay offline. Never use a credit card. Look for black helicopters in the sky. Or just live your life to the fullest — however you define it — and realize that some people won’t like it.

2. Model good behaviors. If you are in a position to hire someone, make fact-based hiring decisions related to knowledge, skills and abilities.

3. You do you. Stop explaining yourself and go have fun. It’s amazing how much power you have when you don’t talk.

Now excuse me while I go talk about Morrissey and look at food photos from people I actually like while wearing eos lip balm.