@Over 9000.
Yes it can be that kind of FB thing. But friends are also a lot more, depends on how you are using this website.
First "becoming friend" with someone is like in RL asserting you are sharing a certain bond with that other user, even if we are all aware that friendship on MDL not always means the same deep friendship you can have with people IRL (but there are exceptions, some friends on here are as precious as my RL friends to me), whether you like the same kind of dramas or actors or even other things. I tend to be more interested in things I discover through friends recommendations than through random search by plot or actors...
Your friends appear on your profile page. Other people can see who are your friends and that can also lead them to send friends request (or to avoid to if they don't likd some users on your list). Probably not really used.
As for the utility of it, it mostly depend on whether you are using the feeds or not. Having friends mean you can sort the feeds in global (every public post of every user, but not dramas updates...) or friends only. On friends one you'll see all the friends posts of your friends (some people don't like to use the global feeds and are only reachable through the friends one) and all their updates about dramas (if they decided to share their updates, which is not always the case). You won't receive a notification everytime someone posted on the feeds, but all the updates will be shown in the feeds. If you don't care you have to scroll down. (I can admit it could be overwhelming sometimes)
How to unfriend someone?
Either go on their profile. On the upper right there is a button that shows "friends" with an arrow. Click on the arrow, you have an unfriend option.
Or go to your friends list (menu under your profile pic on the upper right of the window) and search for the friend you want to unfriend. There is also a button next to their name to unfriend or block them.
