ARE YOU REALLY MY FRIEND?
joel stein of Time magazine has raised this question (well, not directly) with his article you are not my friend for the aforementioned magazine to emphasize that these online social networking sites have been breeding popularity contests where one puts his best foot -- rather face -- forward.
in friendster, we try to put our best photos, showing to the world how good looking we are now (in case an ex or an enemy suddenly had the urge to hunt us down on friendster). we upload photos of ourselves with beautiful beaches for backdrop, telling the world, "hey, i go to boracay for my annual vacation since i can afford it" as if that is something to brag about these days.
to be honest, i also succumb to that kind of bragging (but not the boracay thing), posting photos of the places where i've been to recently. probably to show that i am a well-traveled person, to be snooty about it. i don't know why i do it. it's totally pointless but i don't know why i do it. it's kinda malou fernandez-ish of me, i know.
and i'm an ass for doing it. should probably cut that out. in fact i don't open my account these days even though i'm online for more than 4 hours each day. there's no motivation to do that now.
i used to be picky about whom i will accept as a friend on friendster because i don't want some bastard filling up my mailbox hounding me about my personal info and dropping pick up lines and such. or some desperate girl pestering me for testimonials.
but i don't care na. it's too tedious keeping up with it. i just reject those i don't know and accept those who i think i know.
what i noticed about friendster is that a lot of people have been pretentious enough to write in their profiles that their favorite tv program is sex IN the city and write that their favorite book is for WHO the bell tolls. i mean, what the heck! have you read that book or do you just want to look intelligent? if i want to look like i have an IQ of 228, i would have put alvin toffler's the third wave in there and some other mind-bending book i wouldn't touch even my life depended on it.
so why would i want to write my favorite tv shows, books or movies? because i want to give my potential gift-giver an idea what to i want to receive on my birthday or christmas. hehe. sooo pragmatic of me. probably because of that, i was able to receive a vcd of princess mononoke from my brother and sister-in-law. or they already know me without the help of friendster.
so if you ask me if you are my friend, i'm sorry but i have to say "no, you're not" if you don't fit in my definition of a friend. pretty picky when it comes to that. just because you're in my friendster don't assume you are already a friend.
suplada ba? haha.
in friendster, we try to put our best photos, showing to the world how good looking we are now (in case an ex or an enemy suddenly had the urge to hunt us down on friendster). we upload photos of ourselves with beautiful beaches for backdrop, telling the world, "hey, i go to boracay for my annual vacation since i can afford it" as if that is something to brag about these days.
to be honest, i also succumb to that kind of bragging (but not the boracay thing), posting photos of the places where i've been to recently. probably to show that i am a well-traveled person, to be snooty about it. i don't know why i do it. it's totally pointless but i don't know why i do it. it's kinda malou fernandez-ish of me, i know.
and i'm an ass for doing it. should probably cut that out. in fact i don't open my account these days even though i'm online for more than 4 hours each day. there's no motivation to do that now.
i used to be picky about whom i will accept as a friend on friendster because i don't want some bastard filling up my mailbox hounding me about my personal info and dropping pick up lines and such. or some desperate girl pestering me for testimonials.
but i don't care na. it's too tedious keeping up with it. i just reject those i don't know and accept those who i think i know.
what i noticed about friendster is that a lot of people have been pretentious enough to write in their profiles that their favorite tv program is sex IN the city and write that their favorite book is for WHO the bell tolls. i mean, what the heck! have you read that book or do you just want to look intelligent? if i want to look like i have an IQ of 228, i would have put alvin toffler's the third wave in there and some other mind-bending book i wouldn't touch even my life depended on it.
"But really, these sites aren't about connecting and reconnecting. They're a platform for self-branding. Old people are always worrying that our blogging and personal websites and MySpace profiles are taking away our privacy, but they clearly don't understand the word privacy. We're not sharing things we don't want other people to know. We're showing you our best posed, retouched photos. We're listing the Pynchon books we want you to think we've read all the way through. We're allowing other people to write whatever they want about us on our walls, unless we don't like it, in which case we just erase it. If we had that much privacy in real life, the bathrooms at that Minnesota airport would be empty." Stein writes.touche! hehe
so why would i want to write my favorite tv shows, books or movies? because i want to give my potential gift-giver an idea what to i want to receive on my birthday or christmas. hehe. sooo pragmatic of me. probably because of that, i was able to receive a vcd of princess mononoke from my brother and sister-in-law. or they already know me without the help of friendster.
"...This is hard to say to a friend, but our relationship is starting to take up too much of my time. It's weird that I know more about you than I do about actual friends I hang out with in person--whom I propose we distinguish by calling "non-metafriends." In fact, I know more about you than I know about myself. I have no idea what my favorite movie or song or TV show is. Last I checked, they all involved Muppets..."that's the reason why i limited myself to friendster. i find social networking tedious. i just opened a multiply account since i need an online store. i accept all the friends invitations so that i would have a huge network of potential buyers so wala na akong pinipili.
so if you ask me if you are my friend, i'm sorry but i have to say "no, you're not" if you don't fit in my definition of a friend. pretty picky when it comes to that. just because you're in my friendster don't assume you are already a friend.
suplada ba? haha.
