This is a great time to be a stalker. A new website is taking campus by storm. It's called "The Facebook" ( www.thefacebook.com). If you aren't on it, you are out of the loop. For those of you who don't know what this site is, you can use it to post your picture and some information about yourself on the website's network of Tufts students. Then you can peruse through the pictures and profiles of everyone else at school that has signed up. If you find someone that you know, you can add him or her as one of your friends. Once he or she accepts your invitation, he or she will become part of your directory of friends. You can look through anyone else's friend directory and see who they are friends with.
The possibilities of this site are endless. You know that hot girl in class that you always stare at? Want to know more about her? In the past, you'd have to rummage through those freshmen face books they give you at orientation just to find out her name, where she's from, and her broad interests. Now, with "The Facebook," all you have to do is list the classes you're in and you'll find not only her picture, name, and hometown but also where she lives on campus, her screen name, her phone number, her major, whether she's a liberal or a conservative, whether she's single or in a relationship, what activities she does on campus, along with her favorite bands, her favorite books, and her favorite movies.
Most importantly, you'll see who her friends are. Maybe you and she have a mutual friend, someone that can hook you up. Maybe she has some other hot friends you can start stalking.
Or if you want to move past the stalking stage, you can make a bold move. You can poke her. That's right -- as if this site wasn't great enough, you can poke people. If you poke someone, the next time they sign onto the site, it will say "So and so has poked you." Sounds pretty stupid but -- trust me -- it's a great icebreaker.
Just remember that everything you can find out about other people, they can find out about you. You need a good profile. Everything in your profile needs to be either cool or funny, but if you go too far in either direction, it will be obvious that you are trying too hard. You should check your own profile constantly to get a look at what other people will see when they click on your name. Even more vital, though, is how many friends you have.
You need to start getting friends and fast. If you just recently sign onto this site, you need to spend at least a couple of hours going through everyone at Tufts and adding everyone that you are friends with, acquaintances with, people you used to be acquaintances with freshman year but have fallen out of contact with, people in your classes that you've never spoken to, complete strangers. It doesn't matter. But you have to create the illusion of popularity. If that hot girl from your class looks at your profile and sees that you only have four friends, you're screwed.
If you haven't realized the potential enjoyment of this website yet, there must be something wrong with you. Then again, what is the point of "The Facebook"? Isn't playing around on this website just a huge waste of time? What is the knowledge of your crush's favorite books going to do for you? Are you going to introduce yourself to her and pretend to like the same things? Are you? God, you are -- aren't you? Have you no scruples? Look at yourself. What has become of you? Have you truly sunk so far into the abyss of loneliness as to deceive a poor, innocent girl for your own personal gain? You disgust me, you sick bastard.
For those normal people who aren't going to use this website to aid their deranged schemes, who innocently surf through "The Facebook" for the cheap thrill of seeing people you know and reading their profiles -- still, what is so enticing about this website? Why are we so captivated?
When you first sign onto the site and see "There are three people waiting to add you as friends" displayed on the top of the screen, you'll get a reassuring feeling. But isn't it more exciting to meet someone in person and find out his or her interests through casual conversation? Won't some of the fun of life be removed if, when we finally introduce ourselves to that hot girl in class, we already know a ton of crap about her?
Even if you're not stalking someone you want to get with, this website takes part of the fun out of socializing. I thought Instant Messenger was impersonal, but this doesn't even qualify as communication.
Then again, what do I know? On-line dating services are more popular than ever. There's a web site called "Friendster," ripped off by "The Facebook," which has become incredibly popular. Maybe we've reached a new age in America. Given the resources at our disposal, people may now be more apt to do a background check on people before interacting with them in person.
So is this site a pointless exercise in vanity and voyeurism or is it a valid way of expanding your social horizons? I'm not sure. But if you liked this column, please add me to your friends. I want it to look like I'm popular.
