Sunday, August 10, 2003

The Friend of My Friendster Is My Enemy

The Boston Globe
August 10, 2003

THE EXAMINED LIFE;
THE FRIEND OF MY FRIENDSTER IS MY ENEMY

BYLINE: By Joshua Glenn, Globe Staff

SECTION: IDEAS; Pg. H2

WHEN A TEST VERSION of the social-networking website Friendster, which bills itself as "the new way to meet people," was launched in March, it was an immediate hit. So far, over 1.3 million souls have already made it their procrastination tool of choice. But not everybody, it seems, is crazy about it.

The point of Friendster is to make it easy to get acquainted, whether romantically or not, with the "first-degree" friends of fellow users, and with their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends. Converts claim that Friendster is a life-changing experience. "You are more of a part of a community of people who know each other than part of this sort of big, random universe," explained New York Times writer Amy Harmon on "CNN Live Saturday" recently. This was right before she admitted to having some 66,000 people in her personal network, which by all accounts is not an unusually large figure. Friendster networks tend to grow exponentially, becoming unmanageable or even oppressive. It doesn't help that some "friend whores," as they are known, obsessively sign up hundreds of innocents, not to mention pets and inanimate objects, as their first-degree friends, which means - well, you do the math.

The first Friendster parody sites, Enemyster and Fiendster, appeared this spring. But Introvertster, recently created by Greg Storey, a California-based blogger, takes anti-Friendster activism up a notch. Billing itself as "the new way to get rid of people," Introvertster (www.gregstorey.com/airbag/introvertster) promises to repel e-mails, e-invites, and instant-messages sent by everyone "from lonely friends to old chums from high school looking to wax nostalgic...."

Alas, Introvertster doesn't actually do anything: Storey is merely making the point that true conviviality is something best pursued f2f, as they say online. Still, the ersatz service claims to have attracted some eminent users. Among the faux testimonials are ones from a "Saddam Hussein" and an "Al Gore," both of whom complain of having been taunted online by someone signing himself "POTUS258"uuntil they discovered Introvertster, that is.

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 01:59 PM

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