Friend requests and other dilemmas

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Writing over at Slate.com today, Reihan Salam breaks down a family of dilemmas that many of us are facing in this increasingly, “I need a cool profile” world:

Last week, I launched the Great Facebook Purge of 2007. In one fell swoop, I whittled down a list of 274 “friends” to a more manageable … um, 258. Even weeding out this tiny amount of people was difficult and unpleasant. Almost every subtraction made me wince. While my intention had been to de-friend every hanger-on and casual acquaintance, I just couldn’t do it. All I could stomach is eliminating everyone I’ve literally never met in my life. I still have three “friends” I know only via e-mail, though given that we’re firmly in the Digital Age, I figure this is acceptable. [Link]

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p>Anna wrote a bit about taking the plunge into Facebook a few weeks back and also mentioned that Sepia Mutiny now has its own group. Like everyone else, SM started with Friendster and then briefly flirted with the idea of that idiotic, EvErYoNe HeRe SpElLs LiKe ThIs, Myspace site. Now it seems Facebook is the place to be. For South Asian Americans, who still number only a few million strong in the United States, a profile of you is that much easier to dig out by anyone looking specifically for you, and therefore more relevant I would argue.

How do you decide whether it’s OK to friend someone?

After all, it’s always better to be the rejecter rather than the rejectee. I will now contradict myself: Friending strangers is permissible. If you are going to approach a stranger, don’t do it out of the blue. Never, ever send a random friend request without undergoing some preliminaries, such as trading a few wry observations. The beauty of this “Facebook foreplay,” to use an unfortunate analogy, is that you can always refuse to respond. [Link]

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p>At this point I face a Hobbesian choice: either evolve or perish. After gathering just over 175 friends on Friendster, I woke up one recent morning to realize that I would have to start from scratch again, this time in a younger man/woman’s world. The pit that left in my stomach was unbearable. In this brave new world the men are funnier with their descriptions of themselves, and the women list themselves as Class of ’07…just beyond my considerable reach. Then there are all the customized “plugins.” I have to list all my favorite bands and tell people all the countries in the world I’ve been to, etc. It’s hard enough picking up chicks at a bar. Now I have to worry whether my world map plugin is sufficiently full (which is why I already counted Guatemala even though I’m not going for another two months 😉

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p>The problem is it doesn’t just stop at Facebook. There is also a social network for book lovers, one for business folks, and even one for your portly cat. When you come home you have to check them all to see if you are still relevant. Sartre would be able to write a masterpiece about this were he still alive. Ask yourselves this simple question: If you don’t have a profile, do you really exist? If I have a profile does it mean I’m just another one of the baying sheep? If I don’t have a profile that sufficiently distinguishes me, how will people know that I’m not a sheep?

But please, don’t let any of this useless pontificating dissuade you from befriending Sepia Mutiny, or me. Even baying sheep need friends.

64 thoughts on “Friend requests and other dilemmas”

  1. Really who has time for all of these social networks? I don’t have a Facebook account (yet) but may be dragged in kicking and screaming soon. Keeping up with each social network adds time to an already full day (for most people–especially those with kids). I’m in LinkedIn for business reasons and I only accept invites from people I know or have had a meaningful exchange with. I wonder how many of these social networks on Facebook will still be active in a year, two years, 5 years?

  3. Wow, then I must be special, because Maitri ‘friended’ me! 🙂

    I had never thought about “graduating” from Friendster before … good idea.

    I have been an Orkuter for quite some time (yeah, most of my friends are DBDs … and of course the ones in India are all in Orkut) but joined Facebook about a year ago while I was still at the university. Facebook is the biggest time-waster I have seen since badger mushroom snake. Needless to say, I love it 🙂

  4. facebook was ok till they started getting these stupid applications. i am really tired of getting bitten by vampires/challenged to superhero quizzes/being bought virtual drinks/asked to rate likeness, and i think i am going to join/start a “i hate facebook apps” group in retaliation. who’s in? you know you want to.

  6. Name: All this new Facebook Shit is Fucking Ridiculous

    thanks, anna 🙂 i cannot decide if this new group is officially the beginning of the end of irony, or just a sublime manifestation of it.

  7. I don’t know if I’m missing the joke here:

    At this point I face a Hobbesian choice: either evolve or perish.

    But a Hobbesian choice pertains to Thomas Hobbes, and most classically would be: subject yourself commonly to a single authority and definer-of-terms or perish in anarchy.

    Who you link to is Thomas Hobson, which must be what, Hobsonian?

  8. Abhi, “how will people know that I’m not a sheep?”

    Are you implying people should be aware that you are, instead, many sheep?

    Facebook is a fad, it’s only popular now because the company is in its pre-IPO infancy. Once shareholders are controlling your virtual world, expect to see either: (A) “tiered” service like everywhere else, Free, Silver, Gold, Platinum, whatever. And expect the features to all gradually migrate upward until Free becomes window shopping: “can create a profile, and view others’, but cannot communicate”. -or- (B) non-interruptible periodic advertisements that occupy fullscreen for 15 seconds.

    Take your pick

  9. 57 — Hey Nizam of Sarakki, what’s with the handle? Are you from JP Nagar in Bangalore by any chance?

  10. I just switched tabs from Facebook to see what was going on here. After spending 30 minutes on Facebook, coming back to Sepia Mutiny looks like this:

    blah blah blah blah A N N A blah blah blah Abhi blah blah blah trolls blah blah razib Ennis blah blah blah blah blah statistically-speaking blah blah brown politician good blah blah brown politician bad blah blah term “brown” is offensive blah no it’s not blah blah

    I never noticed how many WORDS Sepia Mutiny has. Man! Too static for the newfound sense of freedom and…and…webby dynamicism that Facebook has given me. Or maybe it’s just ADHD. I would try and figure it out, but that would take like, effort and stuff.

    So whatever.

    See you on the other (funner!) side of the Internet, where the trolls type in all caps, you can throw sheep at people, and drunk-dial without hangovers.

    (Oh, there is a downside: it’s a lot harder to stalk on Facebook. Boo!)

  11. The hardest thing I find about facebook is ‘Friend Segregation’. I know its been big in the US for a while, but I think it really hit tipping point here in the UK this summer. Now things are Facebook crazy!! You can’t even walk into a pub without over hearing something that involves ‘blah de blah.. on Facebook.. blah ‘. The worst thing about Facebook is how do you segregate your friends. My manager at work has been ranting about Facebook, but do I really want her to see compromising photos of me? Not that there would be any ’cause i am a good Indian boy, but one must be prudent in life.

    She asks me ‘Are you on Facebook?’, and I just say ‘Yes’, and back out of the room slowly.

    Oh, the dilemmas of social networking..