Superficiality of Friendster

If you're still in living in the cave and just came out of it, Friendster is a social network service where each member fills out a profile and people form a network circle of friends. It is very useful to keep in touch with the happenings among friends or even to find old or new ones, either by randomness or by matching information in the profile that interests you. Clicking on a person's profile also allows you to see how that person is connected to other people.

However, sometimes this service can be misused. There is a group of people I know that are truly against joining friendster. Why? Because they say it is a superficial form of stating the popularity of a person. Yes, because of the ability to checkout other people, you can see how "popular" one is by noticing how many friends that person has. Ok, I admit it, I was once into this addiction of collecting as many friends as possible to make a statement that I'm not your lousy and annoying acquaintance and by you becoming my friend, you know someone popular and that makes you worth becoming my friend. Admit it you people! Tell me, didn't you ever wanted to be that way and not to lose out?!

There! Now that's out of the way, I can now defend that friendster is not all what it seems. When I found out the real benefits of friendster, I was grateful. I've found a bunch of long lost friends to the days of kindergarten! Found new ones (actually, people found me) and that gave me a chance to practice my social skills at least.

I just logged onto friendster and on the buletin boards caught my eye a post:

Subject: fake friends
Message:
Isn't this just the same as what you had say in your later bulletin that people die in 6 days or have a bad relationship for 5 years if they don't post a bulletin? So you want your friends to pay attention to you only than you would consider them friends? what if they are just nosy? anyways, y am i writing this? when can i play soccer again with this mr. scholl?Have to agree with all of you who say people are getting fake on here. So I gave in and let's see who really reposts this.Why do people who are friends on people friendster's list never write back and why do some people have a million friends??This is a test to see who's paying attention.It serves to eliminate people who are desperately trying to add "friends" like it's a popularity contest in high school.This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me. Copy and repost in your own bulletin. Let's see who the true friends are.Repost this if you are a friend... and actually pay attention Don't reply... just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "fake friends" .

Honestly speaking, I don't give a damn about this and don't even bother reposting. To me its just one of those chain letters that superstitious people send or responds to. By not responding, it also does not mean that I'm not a true friend. Well, actually, there is some untrue points to that statement. Let's face it, you can't be goody-good-boy/girl with everyone. You can't please everyone and that's a fact. Not everyone on my friendster list are the "best of friends". Many are, but many I barely know too. A best friend knows if he is the best or not, a good friend knows if they are good or not, and a true friend knows when he is true. But lets not leave out those enemies or rivals too! Hey, we're enemies/rivals, but aren't we mature enough to know not to play childish games? Besides, its a good way to keep a tab on them. Like they say, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer".

Back to the subject, those group of people that think is just a superficial sociatal trend have to think again. Their approach is different in the sense that it is not fair to portray friendster in such manner. There are so many benefits that really touched me because I know how to not misuse it. If you think friendster is like what I said a superficial sociatal trend, then you are mixing with the wrong crowd. Those who really do seek popularity probably have their own inferiority complex of their own. But as you grow, you will learn how to grow out of it too.

Until then, if you have friendster, go ahead browse around looking at other people's profiles. Drop a testimony or two. Update yourself on the buletin board and be happy. That's what the creators intended it for (besides reaping royalties from the abundance of ads in there!). In the mean time, leave comments!