Fake Friends

Yesterday I woke to an interesting Facebook friend request.  Over the years, I have received some odd requests, as I guess many people have.  The ones that annoy me are from men with profile pictures that look like they are models and have names I have never heard of.  I scoff at them, then sometimes curiosity gets the best of me and I examine them closely, because I am immediately suspicious. These jokers are always single. They are friends with a few of my Facebook friends; undoubtedly two or three young females. The bulk of their few friends are always female and many times they have no male friends at all.  Their female friends are always very pretty. My red flag goes up and I wonder if the young women on their friends list actually know them or just blindly accept their request, maybe feeling significant for the odd attention Facebook represents. I have scanned the requesters’ photos to see what is important to them.  There may be a token pet, child, or vase of flowers in a photo which seems out-of-place; a career too good to be true. Many times, they are from another country. I am not sure what is behind this activity, but it irks me. Maybe I’m just weird? Or naturally suspicious?

During our last election, we began hearing about fake news . . . fake news in mainstream media and fake news on social media.  I read many articles on Facebook where I would think to myself, Whoa, is this scandalous article really true?  I didn’t know that!  Is this a reputable news source?  Things became outrageous and I watched as acquaintances reposted some of the same news that I was sure just wasn’t true, like:  The Pope endorsed Trump, The FBI raided the CDC for data on vaccines and autism, Celine Dion can’t look at an American flag because she hates this country. And these are a small sampling of the less bizarre stories.  We were caught up in it. It was difficult to stay intelligent and insightful in the middle of an incredible story.

So what is the purpose behind the friend request I saw yesterday?  I have no idea, but I felt personally targeted. The guy’s name was Jude and I wish to goodness I hadn’t briefly looked at his Facebook page before deleting the request.  Jude was a handsome, middle-aged man with no noticeable friends. I have to give it to him; he employed all the tactics I have ever seen used from “fake friends”: the photo of a cute pet, a couple posts of flowers–one was of roses that spelled out “I Love You” to no one in particular, because no one was tagged in it–a couple of Christian quotes, a stance against abortion, a fairly benign political commentary.  You know, all admirable things you might like in a new friend or relationship. And those are the only ones I can remember.  None of them were his original photos or his own words. Every post was a meme from somewhere else. Every one of them. Other than a handsome profile photo, there were no candid photos of him or his friends. There was a photo (or meme) of a child, but he wasn’t in the photo with the child.  He said he was an engineer of some sort, with ExxonMobil in Irving, Texas.  I clicked on the Exxon link and saw a few of my own Facebook friends had previously “liked” the link, but probably not while on Jude’s page.  This was the only connection I saw to me–some of my pretty, young, female friends’ profile pictures staring back at me. Besides the warning bells and whistles going off in my head, something was pretty eerie about his posts.  There was not one post with a single “like” from someone else on it. And then I noticed every post was placed around one a.m. the night before . . . 12:26, 12:26, 12:26 (he must have posted very quickly), 12:27, 12:28, etc.  Who does this?  I deleted his request, thinking good riddance!

A few minutes later, I thought I might blog about these fake friend requests, and wished I hadn’t so hastily deleted him without at least taking a screenshot.  I have looked for this person’s Facebook account a few times and while I found a few Judes who have worked for ExxonMobil, none of them are the same profile picture or person.  If any readers have received this same friend request, I’d appreciate a screenshot of it. Better yet, tell me about your own strange social media happenings.