My Fearbook. Experimentation With Social Network Altercations

It's not really that often I sign up for contests, raffles, competitions, what have you. I have a mad streak of not ever winning anything, but every once in awhile I do it, and it's fun for a minute. So I signed up for this thingie to win money for a new kitchen if you whore yourself out the most and get the most votes and blah blah blah. I really want a new kitchen. Mine really is caveish...if that is a word, and it would be nice. Well somehow the MOST POPULAR people in the world have far superseded me thus far, and when checking how, (you can see where all their views are coming from) I saw something that was referred to as "Myyearbook.com" that a high scoring person and received tens of thousands of views from.

I figured I would sign up for said account and be swimming in views and votes in no time. Once I logged onto the site the first thing that I noticed was that it was like an aborted version of Myspace. It was like drunkenly walking through 40 casinos all that the same time. My eyes started to hurt as I struggled to come up with a user name and password. There were sparkles and colors, and battles and hot or nots and games and stickers and gifts and ways to "own" people's photos.

So I signed up and almost immediately I had a flurry of stranger friend requests. Drunk on the amount of votes I could get, I blindly started to approve everyone. I decided to stick with photos of me from when I was blonde so that God forbid should some of these people see me in real life, they would never know it was me. I will tell you why in a minute.

Apparently the history behind this site is that a young dude was flipping through his yearbook and he Eureka'd the idea to do basically a virtual yearbook type thing. Because God, we all miss high school right? I know I miss being teased, feeling awkward and having about 50,000 raging hormones surging through my flat chested body.

Well, this is like a virtual yearbook that yes, people can sign. And be your friend on etc. etc. Except in this case, t his would be like when you got your yearbook out at the end of school and ALL your friend's pervy uncles got to show up along with some 19 year olds that were never raised to talk to girls with the swanlike grace of a Romeo.

So. Sign in. Flurry of friend requests. I blindly accept them all in hopes to get more hits on my other account for the kitchen. Pattern erupts. All my new friends are mainly 50+ year old men with their shirts off in the photos next to their trucks. Now, I know I am 30, but is it so wrong that the only thing I could think was pedophile when I saw half of them? As soon as the friend requests were accepted, flurry of emails from said men! Flurry of "flirts",yes glittery sparkly saccharine comments you can post on someone's page. Oh it was getting a bit weird in here. I didn't respond to any of the emails, and I made some half assed attempts to be all "Heeeey vote for meeeee" on my wall, but after a week, I just was beyond wiggened out, and canceled the account.

I mean, I was in 3rd place with my contest. This was going to be cake! Then I got dumped down to 8th place. Then I grudgingly shuffled back over to myyearbook to create a new account again. Then the forum where "To Catch A Predator" probably catches most of its dudes happened to me at a mindblowingly higher scale this time I must be one of those commodities that you have to see twice before I am worth the time. But, like I said earlier, you can "buy" people's photos with your "lunch" money. Okay now picture a 50+ plus year old man without his shirt on getting into a bidding war with virtual lunch money over one of your photos. Suddenly Silence of the Lambs is all I can think of. Someone posted immediately on the photo "MINE" then they posted again, "MINE." then they posted one last time as they gave up their whooping $500,000 virtual dollars to win my profile picture, and the last comment boldly stated "MY PICTURE!"

I don't know how I feel about this. When someone is giving up their hard earned virtual bucks for a picture of me, I loathe to think of what they are doing to that photo. This site is dedicated to the degenerates, perverts, old men, slutty girls and emo kids that want to bitch 15 times a day that they are "done dating party girls" so that they can get a few other girls to send them sympathy boob shots.

Oh and I got a mini stalker out of this whole deal too. He is good at spelling too, and immediately won me over with the “I wont to get 2 know u better.” Again, I don't reply to any messages I get in there. But he thinks we are dating. I stated I was sick one day. He said "I'm sorry you're sick babe is there anything I can do for you?" A picture with hamburgers was met with how he likes "handbuggers" Then I got another message from him a few days later saying he would like to get to know me better once again. Aiesha, I want to get to know you better I am not, so I did not respond again. The last message I received was the catalyst to cancel this account once and for all before I end up having my name lit ablaze in my front yard. Sorry Ron, this one did not cut it:

"how was your day beautiful,how was school to day starting all of your new classes i wont to wish u good luck,i was hoping to hear from u i realy like to get to know u more thanks Ron"

Okay maybe it is all innocuous on his part, but dude, really, I haven't replied take a hint. Well it's much better than the message I received for an 18 year old kid who looks like he enjoys shooting up public places in his spare time, lovingly written in prose form by Stan:

shit..i would definatley tap you HARD

Whoah Stan. Back that tap up.

See the thing about yearbooks is that if someone I didn't like signed mine, none of them would say things like this, nor would they have the option of coming back and saying it again and again if I didn't have a funnnn summer and call them over it.

Lots of dudes calling me pet names that are reserved only for relationships like sweetie, beautiful, precious, honey....the filters are off and I am creeped on. I look at my friends list that I have built up in two weeks time of all 163 gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, and I realize that not one person on there is a female. It must be my charm, yes my charm that makes the fellow females scared to add me. The ones that I see posting pictures of them in a belly shirt that boasts a mountain of cleavage, with the caption that simply states, "I thought I lost this shirt, I am glad I found it!"

They are so glad that they had to show the rest of the internet and so that a hoard of men taking a cell phone picture of themselves in front of the bathroom mirror with their shirt off can proclaim "Glad u found it to baby!" “U look hawt in that shirt!”

I am actually very curious as to how many actual innocent kids get propositioned on this site as I gaze upon a photo of a man wearing a Budweiser shirt, baseball cap, Budweiser in one hand, gun in the other, with his caption stationg "I love beer!" and how heavily policed it is, as the privacy blockers on myyearbook seem pretty loose.

Maybe I have just become a social networking elitist, as I lean back on my office throne and cast judgment down upon the man who gave me his phone number in the first message he sent me, or the man who spelled you're "your" when he was attempting to say you are, or maybe I am just tired of being sent battle requests to battle it out with the person who wants to see who has the cutest pet, funniest pic, and nicest smile.

Most likely, I will never stop being baffled about how people actually come off on the Internet. The Internet. It is supposed to make you more attractive, more eloquently spoken, extra hilarious and a little cooler than you are in real life. When I see people that can't even pull off that feat, when the best photo that they have is one where they are holding their gun and they don't have the time to actually spell check things before posting them, let alone put together a legible sentence, what else can that tell me about that person? Because damn, I am much cooler online than I am in real life.