'WFF' is a person who you encountered briefly, but stays in your online life forever

Before social networks, there were episodic characters in our lives - people we've only met once or twice, and we haven’t heard from since. Nowadays whoever, we once add a person to our social media circle, we’ll stay in our news feed forever - and we’ll be regularly updated on their life events. They may even become dominant people in our online life.

As the years pass, the number of online followers is exponentially growing. While we can only maintain contact with about 150 people, the number of friends of the average user is high above it.

Some people check and clean their friends lists occasionally; this is an act similar to the seasonal cleaning of the closet, required for mental hygiene.

WFF is Whatever Friends Forever; a person who you encountered briefly, but stays in your online life forever.

From the Dictionary of Online Behavior; a project by NNN members TeYosh. Over the next few weeks, we will weekly publish a new word that describes behavior that has emerged on social networks and has changed our way of communication.