surrounded by idiots

I don’t like Friendster much – it’s social networking with no discernable purpose, as far as I can see, apart from serving as some kind of gigantic popularity contest. Look how many testimonials I have! See how funny/generous/handsome everyone thinks I am! Not that I’m ungrateful for the nice things people have said about me, of course – thanks ladies – every word you say is the truth.

Anyhow, Friendster have a web search engine. It’s not very good. In fact, it’s crap, but what’s mildly interesting is that Friendster keep a track of all the requests made, which they compile into handy lists showing the search terms that are popular within your network of friends. This, supposedly, will give an insight into the kind of personalities aligned with yours. Quite frankly, it’s terrifying.

‘Emo hair’ is the biggest concern amongst my friends? ‘Vampire Name Generator’? ‘What’s my phone number spell’? For fucks sake, how old are these people? Do they not have real lives? If they were searching for pornography I’d be less concerned – at least it would signify that puberty had been successfully attained – but these terms suggest that my network is filled with twelve year-olds. I know that this is not the case – in reality it’s made up of adults, including a professor of anthropology and at least two company directors – but this trend is still a concern. I think I may have to go and get myself a new, more hi-brow set of friends, with whom I can converse about trends in post-Soviet Union Russian literature and the impact of Ingmar Bergman’s early 1960s work on modern film making. For the rest of you, here’s a which emoticon are you? quiz. Go mental.