"Friendster and the Deconstruction of Social Privacy"
After a couple of weeks of dodging friends and multiple annoying emails, I finally surrendered to the will of these acquaintances and activated my account at Friendster.
Apparently, I had signed up for an account and forgot about it - I wonder why? *innocent eyes* After a couple of minutes of exploring this strange yet intriguing "friendship network" I concluded it to be just another "lamer-trying-to-get-a-date" site, where unwitting inDUHviduals sign up and recruit their friends to join this so called "wonderful circle of friends" so that they can all "know each other".
On one hand it's a neat way to connect your friends from different social groups and figure out the complex web of "who-knows-who" of our tragic lives, On the other hand it seems some what like a hit list of how many people you can actually get to join this ridiculous insanity.
You can even leave testimonials about other people you know in your immediate group of friends. It all seems like an online popularity contest where you can display your trophies to me. Run "Friendster" under a spellchecker and you'll get "Fraudster" - sometimes meaning is hidden in the shallowest of things.
And so the social experiment began - I sent out a list of invites to people/friends whom I haven't spoken to in weeks/months/years. A strange note was that I discovered that some of them already had a Friendster account and I wasn't sure if I was glad or disappointed that they hadn't included me in their little "group" all this while. For sure, I "thought of them" enough to have sent it out to them. AH-HA!
I got Alex, my oh-to-gorgeous-i-wanna-shag-you-so-hard friend to join in the experience as well and his initial comment went along the lines of "We probably are the best looking people in this network." I would like to say that I didn't want to comment but I am always a sucker for flattery.
I also discovered that my bestiest best friend in the whole wide world neglected to send me photos of her. she was nice enough to put them up on Friendster for the rest of the world to see though. Bikinis and all even.
This whole Friendster episode reminds me of all the "upper-social-circle" encounters that I've been to unfortunate to experience. The conversation starts out by making you suss out who you know so that you until the other party involved recognizes one of them. once they do, you're in the crowd. fortunately or unfortunately, I was born into a circle of high achieving high rolling socialites and I've always had the right names and contacts - much to my depression as sometimes I never know if I was "accepted" for being me, or for just knowing the right people.
Personally I'd rather keep my social groups separated from each other, for my sake and their own. Some DNA types were never meant to mingle.
To experience the madhouse yourself go to www.friendster.com and check it out yourself. You have been warned.
