...Friendster Misdemeanors?

I guess a vast majority of the people in my generation (Generation X?) know about Friendster. It’s this website where you join and keep adding friends to your network. The cool thing about this website is that you can see who your friends are connected to and then continue adding more and more people to your network.

Of course with every successful venture, there will be spin offs. Other online communities like High5 have sprung up while the concept of networking with friends was still hot. Still, Friendster is by far the most successful and the most popular. It’s a pretty neat thing to use, but in many cases I’ve found a couple of ways that this website has been misused.

One thing I noticed about Friendster, while observing my friends using it, is that it has become some sort of a girl-guy catalog. Something like the “alternative” use for high school yearbooks back in the days where we had to wear uniforms. Remember how some people used those magazines to look out for their crushes and who’s cute or pretty or hot? Yes, I’ll admit it, I had that phase too when my testosterones were hitting a new high. Now many have graduated from high school and turn to Friendster as their new source.

Another interesting thing about Friendster is how they show you how many friends a person has in his/her network. In a way it’s an indicator of how “sociable” a person is or how much a person likes to appear to be. I’m not surprised if there are people who actually add people to their list, even mere acquaintances just to have more people in their network. I call this trophy hunting because they treat the people in their list as trophies. How many friends do you have?

Friendster also leaves the option of friends in your network to leave a testimonial for you. I’ve seen some testimonials ranging from some of the nature of proposals to outright empty flattery. It really bugs me how when someone writes a testimonial for you, no matter how superficial or irrelevant, you feel somehow indebted to write one for him/her too. It’s a cycle that keeps going and going. There are people who just use templates for testimonials. How impersonal. To them I say, thanks for the thought, period.

So if I have so many issues with Friendster, why do I have an account? Firstly, I joined only because I was introduced to it by a friend and didn’t know what I was getting myself into. But the reason why I still use it is because I have found it to be a very useful tool to keep friends within emailing distance. It is also a useful tool to keep abreast with any developments that your friend may choose to share on his/her personal page. So even if you don’t subscribe to kaypo-ing or oogling at pretty girls from your friends’ lists, I’d recommend using Friendster just to keep in touch with your friends.