Friends list

The Friends list, also referred to as FL or flist, is a primary and compelling feature of LiveJournal's software, and is often a stupid source of pointless drama. It makes gathering friends ("friending") and reading their posts a simple one-click task. But it is also what keeps many users locked into LJ's abusive and tightly controlled world, instead of choosing some other blogging system.

The Friends list is often wielded as a special register of importance, and removal from it ("defriending") can cause anxiety and questioning from the removed. Example: "I'm so fucking sick of that bitch, she is totally off my friends list."

A "Friend of" list shows who has friended that person. It can be a source of endless drama when people get upset about serial adders, trolls, people they don't like, or ex-friends appearing in their list of supposed "friends". These upset people often mistakenly think that people who have friended them can read their "friends only" entries. All the whining eventually caused LJ to make ban_set remove a "stalker" from the friend-of list, allow users to hide the list altogether, and implement the "Mutual Friends" list option.

In fandom, one sign of a BNF is their extremely huge friend-of list.

External Links

• LiveJournal FAQ - Friends & Security Levels
• How popular are you?
• Tool for the paranoid to see who's friended/defriended them lately

Friends list is part of a series on LiveJournal Visit the LiveJournal Portal for complete coverage.