Interpreting Friendster Photos

Funny: The Buttafly Guide to Interpreting Friendster Photos.

Also funny: An Ode to Friendster.

[…] more important than the prose of my acquaintances’ bios were their pictures. One of the things that you will quickly realize is that a picture really is worth a thousand words, and this is never more true than on Friendster. Many of the users need not even waste their efforts typing their bios. Their photos speak the loose string of misspelled words and expletives for them. One could guess that PoisonSexy, who chose a photo in which she’s wearing a leather bustier that emphasizes the indecipherable tattoo on her chest, lists only “PARTAYing, chillin, porn” under interests. And it’s not necessary to read the Relationship Status line to know that the 30-something-year-old man dressed as a robot is “single.” The picture of the fat girl kissing her somewhat attractive friend sends the message loud and clear, “I may be obese, but at least I’m bisexual, and that’s hot, right?” And the countless women who post photos of themselves in bikinis that are smaller than an eye patch don’t even need to write the words, “I will do pretty much anything if you’ll just pay attention to me.” … About every five minutes you’re on this site you’ll find yourself thinking, “Who the hell is friends with these freaks?” And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty of Friendster. Because the answer is always, “MY friends.”

On Joining Friendster

I usually try to be on the cusp of trends. I joined eBay in 1998 and Napster in Fall 1999. For some reason, it seemed for a time like too much work to set up Friendster, but last night I got around to doing it. (I was quite overstimulated by a great idea by Kenji and finishing The Goblet of Fire, so my energy level was high.) I’m glad I did, as I do feel occasional pangs of guilt for turning my back from my high school friends. I’m sure that Friendster will help me get back into some level of contact with them. Not that I’m actively looking to rekindle long past friendships, but I’d love to at least know who’s in the area.

This Connected Selves post examines a biological charge that human beings are mentally unable to mainain more than a certain amount of close friendships. I’ve been known to point to size discrepancy for why fraternities and sororities are so different (gender differences being obviously big, too). Frats (at W&M at least) tend to be smaller, allowing for greater social interaction between all the members. Everyone has their closest group of friends, but most are entirely comfortable with any other member in the group. I think because of this you’ll also find frat guys to have fewer friends with non-members that sorority girls. Sororities go for a bigger pool, and you can see that they’re not able to maintain close friendships with all of them. It just isn’t possible to be close friends with more than a handul of people, and lesser friends with more than a few dozen.

This post on Plastic Bag discusses the first one, bringing up that Friendster and the web may be able to begin to overcome that. Online communities allow a level of casual intimacy that people wouldn’t otherwise maintain. How often would I email Whitehead if he didn’t have a webpage? But since he does, I can check in on it every few weeks, read what he’s posted, and remember the guy. Likewise, by leaving comments on your friends’ pages, you can keep up a dialogue, however mundane, that keeps a friendship burning just enough.

Update: Here’s another post on the issue, and here’s the paper by Robin Dunbar, “Co-Evolution of Neocoretx Size, Group Size and Language in Humans”.