Some time ago I received an email informing me that a good friend of mine had invited me to join something called 'Friendster'. For the uninitiated, www.friendster.com is an online community, a networking tool, for people all across the globe to come together by joining friends up with friends of friends, with friends of friends of friends.
It sounded cool, I was intrigued so I took up the invitation and joined.
<*dv_5*> But what a surprise - a dating site! Oh you can argue Friendster it really isn't a dating site, and that you've found some really cool people who are into the same music as you/do the same job as you/etc., but come on - I bet you picked the cute ones to buddy up with - am I right? You're an accountant, you're into Coldplay and in your spare time you like to kickbox (let's just for a moment pretend there are kickboxing accountants out there) - armed with those details you do a search and it throws up two people - Delores, a toothy six foot blonde from San Fran Diablo in California whose profile photo shows her in the skimpiest bikini available, and Yvonne, a Les Dawson lookalike from Wakefield. Hmmmm decisions decisions - which one SHOULD I message.. 'Hi Delores, I see you like Coldplay and Kickboxing, me too!' SURPRISE!
<*dv_1*> But that's human nature. It's also human nature to 'embellish' oneself - to fib to make yourself seem more attractive. An example of this is the 'occupation' field on Friendster - ooooooooo the porkies going on there Therefore someone who once put the records on round a mate's party while his parents were on holiday is now 'DJ', yeah, layin down the grooves, or someone else who once won a poster competition at primary school is now 'Artist'. Took some nice photos of a sunset once? Then you're 'Photographer', you have instant cool and shallow people will want to message you. No-one ever puts 'Toilet Attendant' or 'Builder', because they're not cool jobs. And if they DO happen to have an uncool job then something TOTALLY pretentious such as 'Part-time slacker' or 'Prophet' will do. Although guys, if you DO have a job like that, whip off your shirt in the profile photo and look like something from a Tommy Hilfiger ad and you're laughing.
Girls - want your coolness to go TOTALLY off the mark? Then pretend to be bisexual on Friendster. Oh go on - remember when you and Joanne got mullered on your birthday and dared each other to snog (as women seem to do) and you did it, and it was sort of OK? You are now bisexual my friend, you can put it on your profile, and even though you wouldn't ever actually do anything like that again you may get a bit of a filthy message from a short haired 18 year old Puddle of Mudd fan from New York who never ventures from her bedroom and is 'kinda confused'. You know that secretly you want that friend of a friend's friend 'Brian', the one with the photo of him with his shirt off (you know, he's a model and prophet). But hey, saying you want relationships with men AND women just sounds SO MUCH COOLER!
<*dv_3*> There are fields for 'Favourite Music' and 'Favourite Books' and you just know that people are going to choose their most obscure titles just to look obtuse. So you get 'Favourite Music: Foghat, Oingo Boingo, Chet Baker, Loquat' YEAH RIGHT! You own one CASSETTE by them that your friend told you to buy at college and you played it once and think it's SHIT. Books - stick in a couple by Camus, Kafka, Kracauer, maybe slot in The Bible and say 'porn' to look ironic (but really you actually DO enjoy cracking one off to a good jazz pamphlet every now and again).
<*dv_0*> There is a section too for 'Testimonials' whereby friends can drop by your page and lick your anus for a few minutes. These ALWAYS without fail start with 'What can I say about Brad?' or 'Jenny is a one in a million kinda gal'. No one ever says 'Steve? He's alright I suppose. Bit of a knob, but who isn't?' And they always seem to end with 'I don't see this guy/girl enough - call me' Yeah maybe there's a reason for that Carla
<*dv_4*> One last thing - if you're British forget it, there are 24 British people on Friendster compared to 392 million Americans, the same amount Canadians and the WHOLE of the Pacific Rim, and NO ONE will speak to you. Especially not the cute 19 year old cheerleader, you dirty pervert! And believe me, I've tried.
Should anyone actually want to experience Friendster at first hand - email me<*dv_2*> and I'll add you as one of my friends, on the condition that you kiss my arse in your testimonial to me! |
