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.