Connecting the Dates with
Friendster.com
Six Degrees of Sexual
Frustration
by William O'Shea
June 4 - 10, 2003
"I've always had a tourist fantasy," says Rex, a singer in a New
York City electroclash band. He recently had the opportunity to
live out his fetish through Friendster.com, an online community for
making friends and finding dates.
"He was no one I knew, a tourist who was in town for a few days,"
the vocalist continues. "I was flattered and weirdly curious." The
traveler invited Rex (as he would like to be called) out on a date.
"Under 99 percent of these circumstances I would have stayed away,
but I happened to think he was cute. We got together for coffee. We
met again later that night for a date and hooked up. It was really
hota hot rendezvous."
Just as Napster exploded in popularity a few years ago, Friendster
is now making its own climb to Internet stardom. By May, just three
months after its beta release, the site had grown to over 300,000
users.
In practice, Friendster is far different from its file-sharing
cousin. It is completely Web-based, with no peer-to-peer
application to download, and the "sharing" is purely metaphorical.
But it is expanding for the same reason Napster didmembers have an
interest in making it more popular, because that means there's more
to trade. While similar new services like Ryze.org and LinkedIn.com
help people swap business contacts, Friendster is one of the few
places that help you swap your friends.
Friendster works on the same principle as the Six Degrees of Kevin
Bacon game, where you find connections between movie stars. People
who join post profiles of themselves including photos, interests,
favorite books, TV shows, and movies. Browse someone's
profileanyone within three degrees of separation is fair gameand
you also see thumbnail pictures of their friends. If one looks
interesting, you can click it for a full profile. With another
click you can send a message, though the site safeguards your
e-mail address to thwart unwanted come-ons.
Not strictly a dating service, Friendster has built its success on
its casual feel. There are no cupids or hearts on the site, nothing
to indicate it's anything but a tool for connecting with friends.
But although you could use it to meet a fellow Scrabble aficionado
or an ultimate Frisbee partner, the site ends up being largely
about dating. "For every one user of online dating services, there
are probably 10 people who would use Friendster because they're
more comfortable with the approach," says company founder Jonathan
Abrams. "Friendster is less creepy. It's a little more like real
life."
Harris Danow, a development assistant at Miramax, has used online
personals services but prefers Friendster. "It isn't threatening,
like dating sites. It's called Friendster, not 'Fuckster' or
'Makeoutster,' " he says. "It's like the kiddie pool of online
dating." Harris has been contacted by several women through his
online profile and went out with one. "I didn't think of it as a
place for making dates, but women started contacting me. On
Friendster people can check out your credentials, meaning that
someone can ask your friend, 'What's the deal with this person?' It
keeps you on your best behavior. You couldn't get away with meeting
someone on Friendster, sleeping with her, and never calling her
back. There's a net behind you."
Friendster is beginning to impact real-life socializing in
intriguing ways. "It's interesting that now, when I go out to
social gatherings, it seems as if just about everyone is on
Friendster," says James Meetze, a publisher from Oakland,
California. "The other night I was at an art opening when a girl
approached me and said, 'I've seen you on the Internet.' I made the
connection that she had recently sent me a message on Friendster
about liking to eat kittens. I said, 'Oh, right, you're the kitten
eater, please stay away from my kittens.' "
The site is emerging as a means to check out would-be mates. Lauryn
Siegel, an unemployed production office manager in New York, spends
much of her newfound free time browsing the service. "Friendster is
the new Googling. It lets you find out more about a person, to put
them in context."
This narrowing of social groups has created its share of awkward
online moments. Lauryn found an old flame in her circle of friends,
one she didn't want to rekindle. "I didn't think I would ever lay
eyes on this person again. Maybe it's not so surprising. We're both
from Northern California, both into music. . . . Everyone accepts
that it's a small world, but Friendster makes it a lot more
apparent."
Rex, the Friendster user with the tourist fantasy, also hints that
there was something unsavory about his experience. "It was a
successful one-night stand," he says, but the hookup came with an
element of limbo and a touch of Velcro. "He's not in New York, but
we are still in touch because of the way we met. We're Friendsters
now."
The lack of anonymity can be uncomfortable, but it fuels the site.
Once people join, they can invite friends, who can then invite
still other friends. Jonathan Ringen, an assistant editor at
Metropolis, is a new member. "I signed on to Friendster and after
some quick browsing discovered that everybody I know is on this
thing," he says. "I'm shocked that it took me this long to get an
invitation!" Jonathan had unwittingly fallen victim to a new
phenomenonthe virtual snub.
Despite Friendster's apparent popularity, CEO Abrams insists that
making money is not his priorityat least not yet. He runs the
five-person operation on a teenager's night-out budget. "We're
trying to be really frugal. We're working out of our living rooms
and apartments. I decided I wasn't really keen on raising money and
getting a fancy office and spending tons of money." After the site
graduates from its beta stage, he intends to keep membership free
but begin charging for certain services like sending messages to
Friendsters through the site.
What the network has going for it, says Friendster dater Harris, is
that it is "insanely addictive." You can spend hours clicking
around, cruising pictures and profiles. "I look at it every day,
multiple times a day, like checking my e-mail," he says. In some
circles, it seems to have replaced e-mail as a more convenient form
of communication. The publisher James notes, "For a lot of us,
[Friendster] is how we keep in touch. It's easier than e-mail"
because you don't have to remember people's addressesjust click
their pictures.
Perhaps the ultimate marker of success is that Friendster has
already spawned two parody sites: Enemyster and Fiendster.
Users are also posting phony profiles of celebrities like Johnny
Knoxville and Axl Rose. Ezekiel Lee, a/k/a Johnny Knoxville,
explains, "I had been on Friendster for a couple of months and was
getting kind of bored with it. It felt like I had hit a ceiling as
far as how many new people I was meeting." So he decided to create
a fake personality. "I have gotten more than one girl who actually
thinks that I am the real Knoxville to send me naked photos of
herself. I couldn't believe it. Here are these seemingly normal
women who are sending me, some random guy, nude photos. Pretty
ridiculous if you ask me."
- article, http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0323/oshea.php
