Hello, Kiera

If you go to myspace.com and enter in my email address, you’ll inexplicably be taken to some faceless fifteen-year-old Argentine girl named “Kiera.” For purposes of clarification, let me just say that my name is not Kiera. Nor have I ever been to Argentina.

Kiera has a collection of half-nude photos uploaded to her site. In most, she wears a bikini and takes inelegant torso shots with the help of a digital camera and a mirror. She stands in her well-lit bathroom as if on a catwalk: hips thrust forward, shoulders slouching, stomach tensed, lips frozen mid-pout.

Not surprisingly, Kiera is repeatedly bombarded with friend requests and messages, which means, by proxy, so am I. AlLnIgHtLoNg wants desperately to be my friend. My dear comrades Herpicin and TheClap have sent me enough messages to fill a novella. And though I quickly rerouted all myspace emails to my spam folder, requests for friendship still come in daily, right alongside viagra solicitations and sad news about my Nigerian uncle.

There was a time when I went crazy for social networks. In college, I was proud to be the 11,000th member of Friendster. I quickly and eagerly created accounts with Facebook, Orkut, my alumni association and various soon-to-be-obsolete local sites. I struck up a long friendship with the former president of the Facebook, an attractive man with lofty ambitions and oft disastrous idealism. Hailing from the Silicon Valley, I also had the pleasure of meeting the founder of Friendster, an awkward, intense man whom I was later told might have Asperger syndrome. And it wasn’t just social networks I had to join before everyone else. I fought for one of the first invitations to open a gmail account, back in the days when gmailswap.com was listing people willing to trade Olympics lodging in Athens for an invite. I have one now, of course, as does everyone else with an internet connection. Including, I presume, Kiera.

I’m not sure when exactly social network sites lost their luster. Perhaps it was in an internet café in Southeast Asia, where I saw at least a dozen twelve-year-old boys riveted to their Friendster pages. Perhaps it was shortly after my very young brother created his own Friendster page, and uploaded, as his primary photo, a picture of a half-eaten burrito. For whatever reason, I let the social network craze continue on without me. It’s for a younger generation, I tell my now old self. Let the little brothers have their fun. Knock ‘em dead, Kiera.

Online Social Networking

What are my thoughts? Let’s break it down.

My sibling, let’s call her Y (to keep her anonymous), can’t stand the whole online dating thing because honestly, you should get your ass out there, have some fun, be open, and meet new people. In short, do it “con ganas.” That is, put a little effort up in there. My cousin in Spain, let’s call him M, another mover and a shaker, is also uncomfortable with this whole online social interaction phenomenon. He says he likes to have that physical, human contact. What’s the deal with sitting at home interacting with your computer…..you really miss out on the joys of life. That said, his job is working with computers for a Spanish city, and my sister also spends a lot of time online, updating her profile and communicating with friends on this “myspace.” Those youngsters keep talking about it.

Anyway, so I was very against any sort of online nonsense. I kept holding back. No, I will not join Facebook! I will not be on Friendster…I am not a coo coo bird. But then, my friend, let’s call him J (to keep him anonymous), created a Friendster profile for me. He created a password with my email address. I was forced into a Friendster profile! And then, you know what happened? I logged on. And I added him as a friend. And once you add one person, you add another. And then another. And then before you know it, you’ve uploaded a whole vacation photograph album, and used different photographs for the different online social network accounts that you now hold.

What’s my point? I don’t really know. I guess, one shouldn’t judge. But that’s no fun. So, ok, you’re dorky or socially awkward or very busy with your career and life, or you just moved to a new city. Fine, do what you want. But don’t expect me to take you seriously. Yup, I’m a judger. Ugh whatever. Having an opinion is so stressful.

But for argument’s sake, here it is. I judge the person less and the society more. Why don’t we live in a more communal, social society that is less about individualism and technology and more about really cool times, I ask you.

- Jess

An Opinion?

I love social networking! I am the person who always signs up to go to conferences and likes to go to business and social events to meet all types of people and talk about all sorts of things. Although my partying days seem to be over (I go out to bars once every 2 months), I love to have my friends over and bake for them. The truth is that even though I am an old fart (yes, at 25), I really do think that meeting people and networking is awesome, simply awesome. Nothing beats a person-to-person encounter, a beer or a cup of coffee with an old friend, or the excitement of meeting that group of people during that conference who happens to be obsessed with X, just like you. The world of social networking can be exhausting, but very rewarding. Plus, who doesn't love going over all of ones' cell phone contacts and asking oneself, “who is Jerry?” “Which Jenn is this?” Ah, that, my friends, is social networking at its best.

But wait a minute, I am supposed to be writing about online social networking, in my opinion, one of the driest topics out there. I don't really partake of it (once again, I am too old—I stick to pen and paper—ehem, ok, email) so I don't really have an opinion (though you will think I do). My question is (I am truly trying to form an opinion here), would you eva osk someone, “scuse me, haw many peepo ar in yur soutial n'twok?” (weird spelling intended to portray an English accent)? Ow, but of course you shall ask such a question! There ar bout forhundred seventyone peepo in my soutial n'twok, how bout yours? What an interesting exchange this would be. Well, apparently in the world of online social networking it is quite ok, even encouraged to boast about how many “friends” one has. A good friend of mine actually does have 471 “friends” on an online social network program people call “My Space.” How many of these people does she know personally? Maybe 35. How many are her true friends? Probably 10.

You know, it used to take some effort to make friends back in the day. I remember when I was a little girl my parents and I would spend our weekends in the club and I would always run around asking girls who seemed my age if they wanted to be my friend. While this does not sound difficult—after all asking someone a question is a much easier way of making friends than writing profiles and posting pictures of yourself on online sites—making friends in such a way seemed more authentic: you could always say “gotta go” after a few minutes into playtime when you realized that girl was really very annoying. Still, you could only make at most 5 friends a day like that. Online it seems that you can make 7000 friends in one day. All you have to do is be on American Idol and have some topless pictures floating around.

As you can probably imagine, I have a strange relationship with online social networks. In fact, I don't have much a of a relationship at all. That's not true. I do have an account in facebook. My profile has no information but my name and I have 3 friends. Yes, 3. The reason I have this account is because my friend X wanted to look at Y's profile (sound familiar?) and she happened to be at my place and had forgotten her password. OMG, you should have seen the look in her face when I told her I didnt have a profile: shear awe, fear, and disgust. Well now I have an account and all I ever do is poke a friend. On the other hand, I have been to the My Space site twice. I can feel the waves of change...

Nah, online social networking sites really are not my cup of tea. I like my tea with milk, sugar, and a friend (note: computer does not equal friend). I am the unchageable, unonlinesocialnetworker, unopinionized socialnetwoker.

- Nevenka

I spy an X

I think the premise of online social networking is very sweet. You can meet people online that have similar interests and broaden your social circle. You can even use it for romantic endeavors. I have a friend for example who, determined to marry a Jew, has narrowed down her selection of potential husbands to those on JDate.com.

But I am already married, and I have more friends than I can handle. Still I find myself logged into these sites at 2am in the morning while my husband sleeps. Now I’ll tell you right now that I am not doing so to network. And no – I’m not a pedophile! Rather, I do so to spy on my men. How else would I find out what my ex-boyfriend was doing now that he quit that band? And where else would I find photos of the football player that I lusted after in college? Yes – I used the word lusted.

Though I still have their phone numbers memorized, calling these two chaps is out of the question. I think I already mentioned that I am married, but let me clarify. I am married to a Muslim, an Arab at that. Now don’t be frightened. They are not as scary as they appear on television. But needless to say that while I might get excused for the occasional martini, I certainly would not get off so easy if I was caught talking to one of my men. And we’ll leave it at that for now.

So, I joined myspace begrudgingly a year ago when I realized that I would have to “poke” my ex-boyfriend on the facebook if I wanted to view his profile. And while I wanted to view his profile, I in no way wanted him to know that I wanted to view his profile…you get the idea. So here I am again at 2:15am reading through his bio. And what I find here is refreshing. On paper, (or shall I say on screen) I am much more successful than Mr. X. I have a six figure job, a downtown apartment, and a very cute picture of me and my Arab hubby on my profile. Check.

Next I move on to the running back, we will call him G (I hope this is discrete enough). I like his site because he keeps it so well maintained. He has a lot of photo albums to leaf through and several quotes that remind me of our 2 or 3 “almost dates” (I was technically engaged at the time). He doesn’t say anything about me on his site. But why should he? I technically broke his heart – or at least that’s how I like to remember it. Rather his site is full of pictures of him and his girlfriend M of however many years. They are cute. She is Italian.

And here is where you will roll your eyes. Sometimes if it is really late I will go onto her site – I know I know it’s pathetic. She’s just the girlfriend of a guy I almost dated in college two…no shit it was 3 years ago. What am I doing?! It is 2:30am and I have to work in the morning. But still, I spend a few good minutes analyzing her profile before I decide that I am prettier than her and that he would have been happier with me. Check.

I’m done for the night and I hear my husband grunt in the other room. I stop clicking for a second. The last time he caught me on myspace we had an A&A moment (Arab vs. American). But I’ve already promised that I would hold off on that for now. So I give my profile a once over, making sure that it is respectable enough so that if X or G were to ever stumble onto it they would be impressed. I don’t post any comments on my page nor write to any of my friends. That’s all beside the point. My purpose after all never was to network.

- Karen

All the hot chics are doing it

Someone posted a message on my Facebook wall the other day, so I logged on to check it out. After responding to the post, I noticed that my pic was kind of old, so I updated it with a pretty little pic Parag had taken of me on a recent hiking trip. I then stared at my pic for a few seconds, trying to surmise whether others would also think it’s pretty.

While deciding whether to swap that photo with one of me wearing makeup, I noticed a thumbnail of one of the “hot” girls from Stanford. I clicked on the pic and stared for a few seconds, then browsed around her tagged photos, then took another peak at my new pic, and finally clicked on another hot girl to start the process over.

After a few minutes, I tuned in to the internal dialogue that was accompanying this shameless voyeurism:

She’s not really that pretty.

Click.

I mean, I’m probably just as attractive, and she wears tons of makeup.

Click.

Oh, well I guess that’s a nice pic. But her features are so uneven.

Click.

She does have a hot body though. She’s so tall and thin…click…click…DO I LOOK FAT?

Then I woke up:

OMG, what am I doing? what’s wrong with me??

It was a little window into the world of today’s adolescent girl. According to a recent report issued by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 70% of American girls between the ages of 15-17 have profiles on a social networking site, compared with 57% of American boys in the same age bracket. Apparently, these girls primarily use the sites to “reaffirm existing friendships”. Riiiiight. More likely is “to reaffirm attractiveness relative to peers and boost self-esteem.”

I think to most of us from the “older” generation, the whole thing seems kind of absurd. Facebook launched at Stanford in April of my senior year, so I’m just young enough to have caught the initial whirlwind. One of the younger Theta girls invited me or something. Previously, I had always been of the impression that social networking sites were for dorks who didn’t have real friends (or desirable sexual prospects). But since one of the girls had invited me to join, maybe this was something different. So I signed up. I was shocked. All the cool kids were doing it. For hours at a time, they would troll through profiles like zombies, sizing themselves up against the rest, based on how many cool people had visited their “walls” or – even better – validated their social existence by publicly befriending them.

And then Facebook added Photos. Now you could upload pics of your latest drunken adventure and tag everyone involved. As time went by, the pictures on the site became increasingly pornographic in nature. If you browse the site today, you’ll be overwhelmed by images of bony young girls in underwear making kissy faces to a webcam.

I resisted the debauchery for a long time. But after a while, even I caved in to the peer pressure and uploaded a headshot (digicam; bright smile; full clothing). And I suppose that’s when the cycle first began. But I still only logon when prompted by someone else or doing research for my start-up. And I’m personally thankful to have escaped the Facebook Brain Drain. (although i recently changed my pic again, and this one shows a fair bit of cleavage. but i consider classy cleavage to be a symbol of feminism, so it’s really not the same thing. is it? besides, i just couldn’t resist.)

The social networking phenomenon doesn’t surprise me, nor does it disturb me as such. It’s no secret that many young women are insecure about their looks and desire above all else to be sexually worshipped by their peers. So some lucky bastards got rich exploiting that insecurity and created a new cultural phenomenon in the process. Nothing new. What really surprises me is that we’re all accepting this fact about ourselves so readily. I’m not saying we shouldn’t share pics with friends or remember their bdays more often. I just think there’s something wrong when a majority of educated women are basing their self-worth on how highly their half-naked pics are rated by their 694 best friends.

Hopefully this blog will be a step forward for educated women, giving us an opportunity to rate ourselves on something a bit more substantive. Or, to disregard the notion of ratings altogether, and just be who we are.

- Prerna

p.s. I don’t hate social networking. On the contrary, I think it’s an amazingly useful tool for staying in touch with friends (or, reaffirming existing friendships). I’ve even started one of my own in India: Yaari.com. Not surprisingly, social networking in India exhibits different usage patterns than in the US. First, only about 30% of people on social networks are female (i.e., same percentage of Internet users who are female). Second, women in India are generally much wearier of posting pics of themselves online. Third, people actually use these sites to make friends. The lack of female nudity leads to some unique behaviors, including men posing as women (often using pornographic images of white women) and then talking dirty to each other. The women, however, are less tolerant of obscenities. One girl reported a pornographic video that a user had uploaded to our site: “I would like to bring to ur notice that in ur latest video section ppl are uploading porn clips…the first video which I’ve seen is really YUCK. Please look into the matter.” For the record, we promptly removed the clip.