You know, some people think that Friendster is dead. I don’t think so. Some people still don’t even know about Friendster at all. My friend James had never heard of it. But James never even had an email until last year. So he’s a little slow on the progress reports.
Why are people saying that Friendster is dead? Because of a new feature they’ve added. You can see who’s looked at you. Which is intriguing just like caller id. In fact, that’s basically what it is. It’s caller id for Friendster.
Because just like with caller id, it was nice if you were the person who was id’ing the caller. But if you were calling, well you hated to be called out like that. You felt so naked, so exposed, so violated.
And again, this is how people feel with the new Frienster feature. Well, I’m sure the good folks at Friendster realized this so they added a feature where you can say you’re anonymous. And that way you can frienster stalk with abandon. Still, there remain some people who don’t know about the new feature or don’t care who knows they are looking at your friendster page.
It is sad though. Back in the beginning of time, there were no answering machines so if you liked a girl—you called and you either got her, or it rang and rang, or you got her mom. (this is the beginning of time, remember? so it’s high school and this girl is still living at home) And although it was embarrassing for her mom to know that you were calling her daughter(presumably to ask her out), it wasn’t too bad.
But then the answering machine came. And that’s when the evil started. Because then people started becoming screeners. You’ve seen them. Perhaps you are one. They sit at home never answering the phone till the call comes in and it clicks on. And you know the worst thing of all?
It’s when you’ve made it successfully through a screening process. Because inevitably you will have a day where you will not make it through and you will realize that the girl you are calling or your friend is sitting at home listening to your message and thinking, “nope. Not worth it.”
Which brings us to caller id. Because we had a defense mechanism built-in, we callers, we did. If you got the Machine, you had an option. It wasn’t a great option just like the rabbit’s only option to escape a predator is to run, but still—it’s an option.
Of course, our version of the rabbit run is The Hang Up. We hear the Machine click on, you hang up. No damage done. The Hang Up was even better before the Machine b/c then you could call and neurotically call and hang up without feeling guilty about it.
But still, it was nice to have even with the Machine.
ENTER EVIL TECHNOLOGY. With caller id, you could no longer ever call and hang up—b/c the your hang up was logged. Your pathetic phone call was known to the world. And Friendster has inserted this into the electronic world. No longer can you check out some person. I suppose yes, you can put your login to anonymous but that’s a bit like putting that code in to disable caller id. Where does it stop?
It doesn’t. The war continues.
Thank you for the heads up Nate, that could have been embarassing. Love, the squirrel in the sweater.
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