You Have 0 Friends
Encyclopedia
"You Have 0 Friends" is the fourth episode of the fourteenth season
of the American animated television series South Park
, and the 199th episode of the series overall. It first aired on Comedy Central
in the United States
on April 7, 2010. In the episode, Kyle
, Cartman
and Kenny
make Stan
a Facebook
profile against his will and he becomes extremely frustrated with everyone asking him for friend requests. After he gets fed up with Facebook, Stan tries to delete his profile but is sucked into a virtual Facebook world. Meanwhile, Kyle starts trying to find ways to get more friends on Facebook after he drastically starts losing them due to his befriending of a third-grade friendless Facebook user, whom everyone thinks is a loser.
The episode was written and directed by co-creator Trey Parker
and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. "You Have 0 Friends" features several references to Facebook
, and Stan's
plotline parodies the 1982 Disney
movie Tron
with Stan in the role of Kevin Flynn. The episode also parodies the CNBC
series Mad Money
and Chatroulette
.
"You Have 0 Friends" has received positive reviews from critics, and according to Nielsen Media Research
, the episode was viewed by 3.071 million viewers and became the cable lead in the 18-49 Wednesday night.
, Cartman
and Kenny
surprise Stan
by creating a Facebook
account for him. Stan protests, not wanting to "get sucked into Facebook", but is quickly pressured by family and friends to add them as friends. To his annoyance and frustration, Stan finds people such as Randy, his grandmother and even Wendy confronting him over his supposed disregard for them and judging his real-world
friendship solely by his Facebook configuration. Meanwhile, Kyle adds shy
nerd
y student Kip Drordy to his thriving friends list out of pity, the latter becoming ecstatic and over-enthused
, taking his computer
to movies and spending time on Kyle's Farm Town
farm. His parents, unaware of his use of the term "friend", believe Kyle to literally live on a farm.
Kyle's number of Facebook friends rapidly declines when he does this, in part due to a Mad Friends podcast
he finds Cartman has set up in which he berates Kyle for choosing a loser as a friend and asserts
that nobody will want anything to do with Kyle due to having such a loser
for a friend. Kyle understands this but, on principle and out of pity
, cannot bring himself to delete Kip to please others. Desperate to stem the loss of friends, he asks Cartman for advice. Cartman introduces Kyle to Chatroulette
as a way to make new friends, but all they find are men "jacking off
" on webcam
, although Cartman finally finds another Jewish kid named Isiah, who agrees to be Kyle's friend, much to Kyle's delight.
Meanwhile, Stan now has 845,323 friends (almost all of whom he hardly knows or does not know) on his account and has finally decided to delete it, only to find that Facebook refuses to allow him to. Instead of deleting his account, Stan is forcibly transported by the software into the virtual world
of Facebook, where he meets "profiles" of everyone he knows, who communicate in Facebook lingo, and is forced to engage in Facebook activities such as Yahtzee
, a game which Stan does not enjoy despite being particularly good at it. He wins on the first roll and is afterwards informed that he was not expected to win and that by doing so has made things complicated. Stan escapes and finds his way to Kyle's farm, blaming Kyle for getting him "sucked into Facebook" in the first place. Stan orders Kyle to check out his profile status and Kyle finds out that Stan is supposedly hosting a party elsewhere in Facebook at Café World
. There, Stan discovers that his profile has taken on a life of its own and has rebelled against him. Kyle makes it to Stan's party, only to find that Isiah has refused to be his friend because of Kip, even though he lives in New York City
and has never met him nor heard of Kip. Desperate to retain some friends, Kyle finally deletes Kip, leaving him with no friends. Kip, too, is disheartened to find his friend has abandoned him.
At the party, Stan encounters his online profile, which has the form of a huge monstrous version of himself. It challenges him to a game of Yahtzee and Stan wins, again on the first roll, causing the profile to be finally deleted. The victory returns Stan to the real world once more. He now has no Facebook friends, and Randy, upon realizing that Stan is no longer his friend, asks Stan why he deleted him. Stan explains what just happened to him and that he has "sent all his friends somewhere else" Randy asks if he and Stan are no longer friends in real-life, but Stan just says "Fuck off, Dad." Back at Kip's house, Kip is still depressed about Kyle deleting him as a friend, but is then overjoyed when all 845,323 friends Stan had prior to deletion have all suddenly been transferred to his account as friends.
The episode prominently features several aspects of the online website Facebook
, including the Facebook games Farmville
, Café World
and a digital version of the Milton Bradley
game Yahtzee
. Also, many aspects of the virtual Facebook world Stan gets sucked into in the episode parody the film Tron
. The episode also features the website ChatRoulette
, as well as the fact that many men use their webcams to show their genitalia. Cartman's podcast, Mad Friends, is a parody of a segment from the financial show Mad Money
hosted by Jim Cramer on CNBC
.
making it the second most viewed cable show of the night after In Plain Sight
and attracting more viewers than the previous episode, "Medicinal Fried Chicken
". The episode also received a 18-49 rating of 1.7 and a share of 5% edging out Tyler Perry's House of Payne
for the cable lead in the demographic.
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly
said "The half-hour was shrewdly precise in its targets: The older audience that communes on Facebook (such as parents and grandparents) as well as lonely kids; as usual, "South Park" is merciless when it smells a baby-boomer-adopted trend." Ramsey Isler of IGN
gave the episode a 9/10 saying it was "brilliant from beginning to end, and one of the best episodes the series has served up in a while." Carlos Delgado of iF Magazine gave the episode an A- saying "You have 0 Friends has the right amount of humor, intelligence, and sarcasm to match any South Park episode. The question is, does it become an instant classic?" Cristina Everett of the New York Daily News
called the episode "hilarious, yet heartwarming," adding that the Kip Drordy subplot was "endearing."
TV Fanatic gave the episode 3/5, saying there was "too much Facebook" in the episode and that "it was a great parody, but just a decent episode that could have had more LOL
moments."
set and two-disc Blu-Ray
set in the United States on April 26, 2011.
South Park (season 14)
The fourteenth season of South Park, an American animated television comedy series, originally aired in the United States on Comedy Central between March 17 and November 17, 2010. The season was headed by the series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who served as executive producers along with...
of the American animated television series South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, and the 199th episode of the series overall. It first aired on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on April 7, 2010. In the episode, Kyle
Kyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
, Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...
and Kenny
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...
make Stan
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
a Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
profile against his will and he becomes extremely frustrated with everyone asking him for friend requests. After he gets fed up with Facebook, Stan tries to delete his profile but is sucked into a virtual Facebook world. Meanwhile, Kyle starts trying to find ways to get more friends on Facebook after he drastically starts losing them due to his befriending of a third-grade friendless Facebook user, whom everyone thinks is a loser.
The episode was written and directed by co-creator Trey Parker
Trey Parker
Trey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
and was rated TV-MA L in the United States. "You Have 0 Friends" features several references to Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, and Stan's
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
plotline parodies the 1982 Disney
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
movie Tron
Tron (film)
Tron is a 1982 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Lisberger, and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It stars Jeff Bridges as the protagonist Kevin Flynn; Bruce Boxleitner in a dual role as security program Tron and Tron's "User", computer programmer Alan Bradley; Cindy...
with Stan in the role of Kevin Flynn. The episode also parodies the CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
series Mad Money
Mad Money
Mad Money is an American finance television program hosted by Jim Cramer that began airing on CNBC on March 14, 2005. Its main focus is investment and speculation, particularly in publicly traded stocks...
and Chatroulette
Chatroulette
Chatroulette is a website that pairs strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website begin an online chat with another visitor who is chosen at random...
.
"You Have 0 Friends" has received positive reviews from critics, and according to Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre films and newspapers...
, the episode was viewed by 3.071 million viewers and became the cable lead in the 18-49 Wednesday night.
Plot
KyleKyle Broflovski
Kyle Broflovski is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by co-creator Matt Stone. Kyle is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
, Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...
and Kenny
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...
surprise Stan
Stan Marsh
Stanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
by creating a Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
account for him. Stan protests, not wanting to "get sucked into Facebook", but is quickly pressured by family and friends to add them as friends. To his annoyance and frustration, Stan finds people such as Randy, his grandmother and even Wendy confronting him over his supposed disregard for them and judging his real-world
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
friendship solely by his Facebook configuration. Meanwhile, Kyle adds shy
Shyness
In humans, shyness is a social psychology term used to describe the feeling of apprehension, lack of comfort, or awkwardness experienced when a person is in proximity to, approaching, or being approached by other people, especially in new situations or with unfamiliar people...
nerd
Nerd
Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...
y student Kip Drordy to his thriving friends list out of pity, the latter becoming ecstatic and over-enthused
Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm originally meant inspiration or possession by a divine afflatus or by the presence of a god. Johnson's Dictionary, the first comprehensive dictionary of the English language, defines enthusiasm as "a vain belief of private revelation; a vain confidence of divine favour or...
, taking his computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
to movies and spending time on Kyle's Farm Town
Farm Town
Farm Town is a free, Flash-based browser multiplayer simulation game for the social network platforms Facebook and Myspace. It is social media developed by software company Slashkey in early 2009...
farm. His parents, unaware of his use of the term "friend", believe Kyle to literally live on a farm.
Kyle's number of Facebook friends rapidly declines when he does this, in part due to a Mad Friends podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
he finds Cartman has set up in which he berates Kyle for choosing a loser as a friend and asserts
Self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
that nobody will want anything to do with Kyle due to having such a loser
Failure
Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. Product failure ranges from failure to sell the product to fracture of the product, in the worst cases leading to personal injury, the province of forensic...
for a friend. Kyle understands this but, on principle and out of pity
Pity
Pity originally means feeling for others, particularly feelings of sadness or sorrow, and was once used in a comparable sense to the more modern words "sympathy" and "empathy"...
, cannot bring himself to delete Kip to please others. Desperate to stem the loss of friends, he asks Cartman for advice. Cartman introduces Kyle to Chatroulette
Chatroulette
Chatroulette is a website that pairs strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website begin an online chat with another visitor who is chosen at random...
as a way to make new friends, but all they find are men "jacking off
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
" on webcam
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...
, although Cartman finally finds another Jewish kid named Isiah, who agrees to be Kyle's friend, much to Kyle's delight.
Meanwhile, Stan now has 845,323 friends (almost all of whom he hardly knows or does not know) on his account and has finally decided to delete it, only to find that Facebook refuses to allow him to. Instead of deleting his account, Stan is forcibly transported by the software into the virtual world
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...
of Facebook, where he meets "profiles" of everyone he knows, who communicate in Facebook lingo, and is forced to engage in Facebook activities such as Yahtzee
Yahtzee
Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley , which was first marketed by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games, such as Yacht and Generala. The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations...
, a game which Stan does not enjoy despite being particularly good at it. He wins on the first roll and is afterwards informed that he was not expected to win and that by doing so has made things complicated. Stan escapes and finds his way to Kyle's farm, blaming Kyle for getting him "sucked into Facebook" in the first place. Stan orders Kyle to check out his profile status and Kyle finds out that Stan is supposedly hosting a party elsewhere in Facebook at Café World
Cafe World
Café World is a multiplayer restaurant simulation social network game created by Zynga. It launched in September 2009. Available on Facebook, players strive to become a master chef and build a food empire by completing catering orders....
. There, Stan discovers that his profile has taken on a life of its own and has rebelled against him. Kyle makes it to Stan's party, only to find that Isiah has refused to be his friend because of Kip, even though he lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and has never met him nor heard of Kip. Desperate to retain some friends, Kyle finally deletes Kip, leaving him with no friends. Kip, too, is disheartened to find his friend has abandoned him.
At the party, Stan encounters his online profile, which has the form of a huge monstrous version of himself. It challenges him to a game of Yahtzee and Stan wins, again on the first roll, causing the profile to be finally deleted. The victory returns Stan to the real world once more. He now has no Facebook friends, and Randy, upon realizing that Stan is no longer his friend, asks Stan why he deleted him. Stan explains what just happened to him and that he has "sent all his friends somewhere else" Randy asks if he and Stan are no longer friends in real-life, but Stan just says "Fuck off, Dad." Back at Kip's house, Kip is still depressed about Kyle deleting him as a friend, but is then overjoyed when all 845,323 friends Stan had prior to deletion have all suddenly been transferred to his account as friends.
Cultural references
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, including the Facebook games Farmville
FarmVille
FarmVille is a farming simulation social network game developed by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm, Farm Town,, and older games such as the Harvest Moon series...
, Café World
Cafe World
Café World is a multiplayer restaurant simulation social network game created by Zynga. It launched in September 2009. Available on Facebook, players strive to become a master chef and build a food empire by completing catering orders....
and a digital version of the Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley , an American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company....
game Yahtzee
Yahtzee
Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley , which was first marketed by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games, such as Yacht and Generala. The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations...
. Also, many aspects of the virtual Facebook world Stan gets sucked into in the episode parody the film Tron
Tron (film)
Tron is a 1982 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Lisberger, and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It stars Jeff Bridges as the protagonist Kevin Flynn; Bruce Boxleitner in a dual role as security program Tron and Tron's "User", computer programmer Alan Bradley; Cindy...
. The episode also features the website ChatRoulette
Chatroulette
Chatroulette is a website that pairs strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website begin an online chat with another visitor who is chosen at random...
, as well as the fact that many men use their webcams to show their genitalia. Cartman's podcast, Mad Friends, is a parody of a segment from the financial show Mad Money
Mad Money
Mad Money is an American finance television program hosted by Jim Cramer that began airing on CNBC on March 14, 2005. Its main focus is investment and speculation, particularly in publicly traded stocks...
hosted by Jim Cramer on CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
.
Reception
In its original American broadcast, "You Have 0 Friends" was watched by 3.071 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media ResearchNielsen Media Research
Nielsen Media Research is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre films and newspapers...
making it the second most viewed cable show of the night after In Plain Sight
In Plain Sight
In Plain Sight is an American dramatic television series on USA Network. The series revolves around Mary Shannon , a Deputy United States Marshal attached to the Albuquerque, New Mexico office of the Federal Witness Security Program , more commonly known as the Federal Witness Protection Program...
and attracting more viewers than the previous episode, "Medicinal Fried Chicken
Medicinal Fried Chicken
"Medicinal Fried Chicken" is the third episode of the 14th season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 198th episode of the series overall. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 31, 2010...
". The episode also received a 18-49 rating of 1.7 and a share of 5% edging out Tyler Perry's House of Payne
Tyler Perry's House of Payne
Tyler Perry's House of Payne is an American comedy-drama television series created and produced by playwright, director, and producer Tyler Perry. The show revolves around a multi-generational family living under one roof in Atlanta, Georgia led by patriarch Curtis Payne and his wife Ella...
for the cable lead in the demographic.
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
said "The half-hour was shrewdly precise in its targets: The older audience that communes on Facebook (such as parents and grandparents) as well as lonely kids; as usual, "South Park" is merciless when it smells a baby-boomer-adopted trend." Ramsey Isler of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the episode a 9/10 saying it was "brilliant from beginning to end, and one of the best episodes the series has served up in a while." Carlos Delgado of iF Magazine gave the episode an A- saying "You have 0 Friends has the right amount of humor, intelligence, and sarcasm to match any South Park episode. The question is, does it become an instant classic?" Cristina Everett of the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
called the episode "hilarious, yet heartwarming," adding that the Kip Drordy subplot was "endearing."
TV Fanatic gave the episode 3/5, saying there was "too much Facebook" in the episode and that "it was a great parody, but just a decent episode that could have had more LOL
LOL
LOL is an acronym or abbreviation of "laughing out loud", "lots of luck", or "lots of love". In medical slang, it is used as an acronym for "little old lady", a reference to the novel House of God.LOL or Lol may also refer to:...
moments."
Home release
"You Have 0 Friends", along with the thirteen other episodes from South Parks fourteenth season, were released on a three-disc DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
set and two-disc Blu-Ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
set in the United States on April 26, 2011.
External links
- "You Have 0 Friends" Full episode at South Park Studios
- "You Have 0 Friends" Episode guide at South Park Studios