for those about to rock

stalk talk

a few weeks ago, i noticed a change when i logged into my account on friendster, a free service along the lines of myspace that allows you to connect with an online community of friends and acquaintances via a persona you create using text, graphics and sound. for the past couple of months, the site's been tacking on new options and features -- some derivative, some new -- in a bid to steal some of myspace's thunder. principal among these additions, and the thing that really blew my socks off when i first discovered it last month, is the ability to view a listing of the last 100 friendster members that have looked at your profile.

the appeal of this ability should be perfectly self-evident. anyways, to give you a sense of the mixed bag of personalities that can result from such an inquiry, here's who i can remember from the motley crew that was identified as having visited my friendster page for the month up to that point: a handful of people i connect to directly on the service, a kind-hearted fetish diva from new york, a couple of people i barely talked to in high school, a surprising number of gay men, assorted strangers from the town where i attended college, the best friend of a girl with whom things worked out badly some time back, and who would probably like to see me crucified, and a girl i would never have dreamed i'd have the opportunity to talk to again.

fun stuff, right? the thing is, the header of the page where you survey all these folks CLEARLY states that you can change settings in order to view other peoples' friendster profiles anonymously. so, basically, any enjoyment to be had with this feature essentially got snuffed in the womb. now, anytime i log onto the service and see that my profile views have gone up, i check the "who's viewed me" window, only to be disappointed by the same array of familar faces, familiar faces that i see predominantly in the boring old "in-person" fashion most days as it is.

no mystery. no surprises. the only upside is that friendster stalking can continue unchecked with the anonymous setting.

which, in turn, brings me stumbling into the small point i intended to make when i started this post: that there is actually no such thing as "stalking" on friendster or myspace, not unless it is said within the context of someone calling up your profile on a wireless laptop as they sit in a car parked in the shadows across the street from your house at 3 in the morning. i would further suggest that any prospective stalkers who intend to use friendster or myspace as his or her primary means of people-monitoring need to take a step back and seriously reevaluate his or her methodology. you guys are probably in the wrong racket.

the very notion that viewing someone's profile on these services could be construed as stalking is a hyperbolic convention created by people who absolutely thrill at the prospect of attention.

friend 1: "ooh, look at who's been checking me out!"

friend 2: "looks like you've got a stalker! [giggle, giggle]"

uh, no you don't.

now, as you can infer from the above (as well as from the fact that you're reading this on my web log right now), i'm obviously guilty of hounding for attention in my own little ways. i don't have any reservations about this; everybody needs a little lovin' every now and then. i just think we ought to kill a gossipy form of exaggeration that should've been put out to pasture in the 2nd grade along with the cooties and playing doctor.

posted by jomilkman @ 7:39 AM