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July 20, 2003

fakester genocide

In one of the responses to my survey today, i received a great note from someone bemoaning the "fakester genocide" on Friendster. S/he argued that it was through these fakesters that s/he found known (old and current) friends or familiar strangers. For hir, the primary use of Friendster is to connect with actual friends (and dating happens to be a fun side element).

Aside from the clear usage model for this user, i love the term "fakester genocide" in reference to the deletion of artificially generated characters. In my head, this truly conjures up an image of a child horrified of the genocide of the imaginary people, or the stuff animals.

Category: friendster

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Posted by zephoria at July 20, 2003 12:48 PM | TrackBack

Comments (4)

Liz:

Here's another good story: I recently received a friend request from a fakester called TmJ. Who's TmJ?:

"I'm really quite useful; a built-in barometer of how fucking busy and stressed out you are. A handy, painful, inconvenient reminder of the stupid way you're living your life. But I mean, really, if you're not accomplishing all your goals RIGHT NOW, you honestly have no right to make out without worrying about whether or not your mouth is gonna close. I'm just the enforcer of that principle. "

In this case, the fakester is a metaphoric representation of a personality trait shared by disparate friends connected over various social groups. I've tried casually to figure out who created TmJ; I know most of "TmJ's" friendsters - so the creator must be someone fairly well embedded in my circle of high-anxiety, high-workload friends. I'm not sure I care. It's enough to know that SOMEONE in my large group of friends wants to remind me that I get too stressed out and work too hard - like all my other friends.

Posted by Liz | July 21, 2003 10:46 AM

Posted on July 21, 2003 10:46

Ororo:

I don't appreciate having my picture taken down...

Posted by Ororo | August 7, 2003 6:02 PM

Posted on August 7, 2003 18:02

Carl Webb:

Hi Fakester,

Add me as a friend.

Posted by Carl Webb | August 14, 2003 12:28 AM

Posted on August 14, 2003 00:28

Bob:

Maybe there's some hope. Looks like someone is going to create a home for fakesters. Have you seen fakester.com. Looks like they're launching soon.

Posted by Bob | September 7, 2003 10:26 PM

Posted on September 7, 2003 22:26