Friendster = Facebook wannabe, or the other way round?

Facebook asked me "What is on my mind." Do you really want to know what is on my mind? At this moment, these are what I think, maybe there will be more to come.

1. Facebook is getting more and more Friendster-ish. 

(a) That everyone is adding everyone for no apparent reason. I have dozens of people adding me whom I have no idea about. Seriously! There was this guy as I asked him how we knew each other, he told me one of our common friends suggested me to him. Common friend MY FOOT la, I checked his profile, we don't even have any common friend to begin with!

(b) Do you remember the act-cute photos all over Friendster? Please, camwhore is one thing, acting cutesy is another. The former is an art, which you don't have to act cute to look artistic. While the latter, it's self-explainable - act cute, which, is a sickening art. Yes, this may be harsh, but the pathetic photos are plain annoying, especially if you've known that you're not an eye candy yet raise your eyes brows to make your eyes look bigger and pout your lips to act sexy [Admit it, only the rare few have the sex appeal, and most of the people are in the majority yet they remain in denial.].

(c) There's even a petition passed around to urge Facebook letting us know who view our profile. Goodness, that exactly what is going to make Facebook a Friendster wanna-be: Let's see who has checked me out today; oh, there are like 100 people viewed my profile today, I am so popular *ahaks*; let's compare whose profile is viewed most; [in future] APPLICATION: profile hits counter - update every MINUTE; oh, that dude checked me out, let's go check out his as well; hm, why is XX's boyfriend checking me out?; hm, why is YY checking MY boyfriend out?;

Honestly, it is making everyone such an attention seeker and flood the Newsfeed with unimaginable craps to so-called keep in touch.

2. Astronomical number of application is making everyone more self-searching than searching for friends' contacts. Yes, I do understand some quizzes do have interesting title and it is not wrong to give it a try. But do you realise that now we can no longer choose NOT to publish the result? There is one even worse. Are You A True Penangite quiz doesn't even have any questions! I just hit the button to add the application so that I can have a look at the questions, but it went straight away telling me that I am a true Penangite. What the *TUT*?! 

*calm down* OK, and I do understand that some people posted up the quizzes just for fun. Some of the answers are plain lame and some of them just thought of sharing it as a good laugh for everyone. That is very nice of them. But not everyone will find it funny, you see, especially those who are not interested to know MORE about you. They're just keeping you in the list so that in future whenever they need to contact you, they know where to find you. Other than that, some people took the quiz for self entertainment. They didn't mean to publish the result for the gazillions of quizzes they took. But now that Facebook doesn't allow people to choose NOT to publish it, that's not what they can control now, is it?

An extension to that, what hit me is the idea of individualism [if I use the word correctly]. Everything is drawing attention to ourselves - the status message: what is on YOUR mind?; xxx is the rough endoplasmic reticulum in the What Eucaryotic Organelle are YOU test; yyy is a good lover,  and so on, everything is about yourself! The plethora quizzes they took, the catching status messages, the video links they shared, the photos updated, even when you're sending virtual Secret Recipe cakes to your friends or taking a quiz about your friend, or leaving a friendly public messages on your friends' walls, the attentions are drawn to you as well! What a fantastic venue for attention-seeker, and a good platform for getting addicted to the limelight, too.

And, lesser and lesser people are interested in sending private messages and wall post now. The ones that we type out by ourselves, dedicated to those particular friends. Because interactions are more to commenting about the quizzes you took, should one is interested. One may suggest that though those quizzes might not be accurate, and the attention-drawing part is sickening, at least it keeps everyone informed of each others' activities, and create chances for interaction. It is up to us how we see it and make use of it, right? *weak smile* 

In this virtual spaces, I wonder if those interaction really means a lot now. It makes me value real life even more, the friends who are right in front of us, whom we can wrap our arms around and feel the warmth. For those who're at a far away land, I'd rather email them and keep them updated with first hand informations myself. Or, they can always visit my blog to know more. Though blog is also just another virtual spaces on the net, at least it tells everyone more than mere Cher Linn is a true Penangite. While for those who are not interested to read about me, they can choose not to visit, while being able to visit other blogs freely. Unlike in Facebook, while you're interested to know more about someone, you have to agonise your eyes reading about some other people whose quiz results have kept you busy hiding them for the past 20 minutes.