Finer Points Of Netiquette: Friendster

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Ever browsed into somebody's Friendster account by accidentally guessing their full name and sending 5-10 "add friend invites" only to browse their page and say "Maaan, this guy sucks"? Me neither. I'm just saying.

And I'm saying it could be you doing the sucking. Given that chance, we have this article that aims to improve your odds at being branded the village idiot of your community by enumerating some simple rules of etiquette that could turn you from maniac to gentlemaniac.

Account Profile:

Account profiles are very useful things, specially when you're looking for proof that the world is going to the dogs. Here are some fine thoughts to consider when making your profile:

- You are encouraged to write the finer types of music you like. Saying you like "rock" is pretty tantamout to just saying "I like food" when asked by a stewardess inflight to choose between chicken or fish. Conversely, enumerating all rock bands you know from Aerosmith to Zipang Zaitslev is just as retarded. Exercise moderation or even better, shut the fuck up.

- Making a Japanese name for yourself and using that as a nickname is ignant. Face the facts, japanophile. The only thing you have in common with the japanese is the color of your hair and the rice you eat. You're not Japanese and I'm sure the Japanese aren't welcoming you to their society any more than they welcome Godzilla in Tokyo.

- Pretending to be somebody famous like a star makes you retarded. No exemptions.

- Do NOT add any unnecessary graphics to your site. Graphics suggest to the viewer that you're too boring and the only way to spice up your profile is to post unrelated cartoons and letterings. That's probably true, but adding graphics wont improve things either, it just eats up more bandwidth.

- Avoid adding music at all costs. The viewer did not create a customized playlist of (assumingly) tasteful songs in his computer just for you to hijack his headphones with your shitty songs from your favorite crappy artist in the lowest bitrates known to science. This action is tantamout to playing loud, stale RnB music in your open-air car, which should be considered capital crime punishable by death.

Photos

After filling out your profile, you have the option of uploading photos. Here's what your photos page say about you:

- Posting mainly pictures of cartoon characters means you're either too poor/technologically devoid to get actual pictures of yourself or you're too ugly to be seen even as digital information. Or both.

- Posting mainly pictures of celebrities (of same sex) means all of the above, plus your self-esteem is 'round sea level (which isn't pretty high) because it takes really really low self respect for you to be able to pull shit like this.

- Too many pics of your face in different positions, lighting, and angles make you a cam whore.

Actually, just too many pictures is enough to prove that.

Shoutouts:

Shoutouts, whether they're in real life or just virtual (such as the feature you find in friendster), are generally stupid. Shoutouts usually have the following purposes:

- General announcements that are for everybody's attention.
- An attempt at giving the reader an insight to what you're thinking, making the reader assume the shouter's thoughts are so goddamn asinine, you can fit it in a very small space.
- A message aimed a fictional somebody, or if somebody real, somebody the shouter does not have enough balls to personally confront (making the shouter a pussy).

While the first purpose is acceptable, there's the fact that nobody ever really gives a shit as to what is written in the shoutbox. Again, as common courtesy, avoid using shoutouts.

If you have to make announcements, use the Bulletin Board. Speaking of which,

Bulletin Boards:

Bulletin Board posts are generally shoutouts that are longer and much more visible. Unfortunately this is also a venue of much abuse. So as not to appear like a prehistoric caveman with internet connection the following rules should be observed:

- Post legibly. You are using a keyboard, not a keypad. Stop chewing your IQ and use it to post full words instead of txtspk. Also, YOUR is different from YOU'RE. No, really.

- Use a title that is apt for the piece, and not some attention catching irrelevant phrase like "READ THIS OR YOUR PET DOG WILL DIE". Half the people who see that wish that you're their pet dog.

- Do not forward shit that don't contribute to the general increase of overall knowledge. This includes, but is not limited to: Chain letters, urban legends, surveys, surveys with chain letters, Urban chain surveys.

- Don't spam. You're burying potentially important announcements under your forwarded rubbish. If you want to bury something, go jump in a six-foot deep hole and put some soil over you.

Testimonials:

A testimonial by definition is something that recommends (or expresses commendation) of a person or thing as worthy or desirable. This basically means that for the 95% of the friends you have to write testimonials for, you'll just have to lie until your soul is being burned already in hell long before you're dead.

Here are more sets of rules governing testimonials:

- Do not call somebody funny if he's not. This will cause other people to think of the person the way you describe them and end up embarassing the person when he fails to entertain. As a result, his self-esteem plummets and we are stuck with one more emo bastard in this planet (who cant even kill himself right).

- Do not use the testimonial as a message board. We have this tool called "Send Messages". It's pretty effective. The only reason somebody would use the board as a message box is when he wants to be seen by everybody sending the message, which makes him a hypocritical dogshit. Nobody wants to be friends with canine excrement. Avoid this at all costs.

- Do not put in flash games. Doing so speaks volumes about how you can't read or follow simple rules. We call them testimonials for a reason. Don't make them find out you're the kid who ate crayons and and drank glue back in gradeschool.

- Do not put in music as testimonial entries. Again, no music hijacking please. Jesus didn't die on the cross for your sins just so you can act like a complete ass unto others.

- Never thank somebody for a testimonial using another testimonial. You can pretty much guess why this is frowned upon. Unless of course that's just how you roll.

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Those are a few simple guidelines that can be followed while using the service that is Friendster. Of course there are more rules, but I assume that's about all your brain can retain on such a short notice.

And remember kids, Mr. Friendster says: the more friends and testimonials you have, the bigger your penis is.

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