Friendster®: Fantasy Versus RealityBy: The Poet’s Edge™

What is in friendster®?

What is in it that makes people go type-crazy? What is in it that mesmerizes people to believe in all images presented or written? What is in it that converts all kinds of people to their own fantastically-perceived way?

What makes friendster® addicting for many?

Simply put, it ALTERS people in the virtual realm.

Spying around the friendster®-filled computers at our local internet cafés, I could conclude that 70% of all people surfing the net are all friendster®-related activities. The remaining 30% would be the RAGNAROK players & the chatters. The typing noise is so dominant around the air-conditioned room that it echoes like words hollered at the Grand Canyon. The cause of the oh-so loud typing racket is the testimonial rush, profile-editing, or message sending.

Testimonial rush is the inescapable duty of giving out heartwarming & flattering words to people whom are classified as a “1st degree friend”. All testimonials vary from the mood of the sender, the time it was created & sent, the degree of friendship, etc. In short words, most testimonials just literally appear at random and one must live with its content. Friendster®, in my own view, is a contest of either quantity or quality of testimonials. This is a fact that is not accepted by many, but evident by human nature.

Profile-editing is the updating of your shown persona in friendster®. You can change if you are in a relationship or not, married or single, affiliations & organizations, likes & dislikes, people whom you want to meet, etc. Most started profiles change (including images) because of new trends, new styles, new “cool” language to put in format, etc. What is really startling here is that people whom you know that are generally bad, party addicts, sex-crazed, fight magnets, women impregnators, are converted to angels who looks like they can’t even hurt a fly. Seriously speaking, this raises the level of danger of meeting people who are on the wrong side of righteousness. Worse, getting into a relationship via friendster® is such a risky move that it entails sacrificing your own personal safety & privacy. Before getting fascinated over such flowering adjectives, one must THINK.

Message sending is practically just like e-mailing, but this is within the boundaries of friendster®. Anyone can post a message in the bulletin board or send a personal message to anybody, but again this is with a limit with “degrees” of friends. There is less danger here, but there is a chance for fooling around with “friends”. Since one has his/her own account, only themselves can send & receive messages to/from friends. Only those people who know their e-mail username & password account can check if they have been loyal to the person whom they have a relationship with. It can be noted that messages can be quite easily deleted by pressing “delete message”. So any evidence for a message received from another party is erased permanently. This is an actuality that is not followed by many, but soon will grow in numbers as friendster®’s popularity increases.

Ironically, people are not really people when they are in the cyber world. They become many personalities that can confuse even the broadest of mind. It is applied also to friendster®, where people morph like chameleons, changing to the personality that they dream they will be someday. If all the people logged on to friendster® were only being their fantasy selves, then would the meaning of “FRIEND” can still apply to this popular website? Many people might disagree with most of my statements, but there is one thing that I have accepted since I started College: I have accepted reality, and I am happy with what I have & proudly call FRIENDS. I do not need fancy words or websites to keep in touch or be satisfied with my friends; and surely I will always be there for them when the need arises, friendster® or no friendster®!