Who Says Money Can't Buy Friends? 345
Courtney5000 writes "It looks like some users of popular networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have stooped so low as to actually pay real money for friends. These friends aren't even real believe it or not. You can apparently choose from a selection of 'models' to leave you customized comments to look like you have friends and are popular online. This is unbelievable!"
And how many here use myspace? (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this different (Score:4, Insightful)
So you are buying a new car today yop say? Do you **really** need it?
Its not really unbelievable (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A treatment for depression? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't this done already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unbelievable? (Score:4, Insightful)
On the contrary, I'd say it was inevitable.
Re:How is this different (Score:3, Insightful)
New Slogan (Score:5, Insightful)
"Fake Your Space -- A Place For Posers"
Seriously, how is this different than gamers buying virtual goods with real-life money?
A Fictional Situation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Location a 8th Grade class in a computer room.
Dude B: Dude, you have no friends you are a complete loser!
Dude A: No way I have ton a friends let me show you.
(Dude A opens his MySpace Page)
Dude A: See all the friends I have!
Dude B: Oh I See I guess you are cool after All.
In real life there Dude B wouldn't care. In all this effort to make yourself seem cool the best you can do is make yourself as part of the crowd. So stop trying to be cool it takes to much effort just try to blend in and you are all set.
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:5, Insightful)
Real friends (Score:1, Insightful)
Real friends cannot be bought for gold
Real friends aren't something you buy
For them, job, fame and wealth equals zero.
(Translated from a danish song).
Re:Isn't this done already? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Emphasis mine)
Why, are members of a frat/sorority prohibited from making friends with non members?
Re:A Fictional Situation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not that unbelievable (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It could be from Japan and not unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:3, Insightful)
In a way, yes. But it's not about vanity. This service isn't for the regular users of myspace... this service is for fake user pages which are basically an ad for a porn site. People are more likely to visit the site advertised if there are a number of friends. In the eyes of the person building the myspace profile, this creates a bootstrap problem of getting enough people to fall for the page to add it to their friends list that enough people will think it is a genuine profile and add it to their friends list. At first it wasn't that hard as there are enough guys out there that will do anything if they see a picture of a girl in a bikini (probably stolen off a modeling agencies website,) however, even these guys are getting wise to the fact that they're just getting used and won't ever get anything out of befriending an advertisement for a website, especially if that ad doesn't already have any friends. So, the bootstrap problem can now be fixed for $0.99 a month.
Re:not that unbelievable (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A treatment for depression? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the point in that? (Score:3, Insightful)
And for any guy on here actually engaged, remember this:
If you put a quarter in a jar every time you have sex before marriage, and then take one out every time you have sex after marriage,
you will never empty the jar, no matter how long you are married.
Oh, how true it is!
Re:Isn't this done already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lesson: Don't admit you were in a frat unless you're around a bunch of other people that were in frats. These days most people, although they are too polite to say anything about it, look down on frats/sororities.
Know the social group you're in. Middle/upper management is probably a good place to advertise that. Slashdot is about the worst place. Look at us, half of us probably beat off to Revenge of the Nerds. Now get outta here before someone starts taunting you with Monty Python quotes.
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that's a good question. I don't recall ever hearing someone say that.
No....you rent them.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can choose to believe that or not. The choice is largely one of ignorance or not.
There are a huge number of people on MySpace, and pigeonholing them in the way you have is akin to a MySpacer saying "Slashdot? That's popular with pale-skinned computer geeks that have no friends, no life, and no social skills. They live in their moms basement at age 35 and consider their computer operating system a defining characteristic of their very existence"
The point I'm trying to make is that if you think that MySpace is full of superficial, ignorant people who accept stereotypes at face value, then you, sir, based on your comments, would fit right in.
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:3, Insightful)
Friends? No, acquaintances (Score:2, Insightful)
One problem is the usage of the word "friends" for what really should be "acquaintances". Someone who reads your $NAME_OF_FORUM_OR_WEBSITE_OR_BLOG page once in a while isn't necessarily a friend. There are people on my "friends" list in a certain blog-forum that aren't actually friends of mine. Some are actually my friends; some, I hope to be friends with in the future; some are friends of friends; others, I just have on my list because I want to hear what they say once in a while, but that doesn't necessarily make them friends.
A lot of the people who post "Ya dude let's go get drunkk!" on Myspace aren't really friends by any reasonable defition. I think Myspace needs a "drinking buddy" button.
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:3, Insightful)
And graduate into complaining about the shallowness of said kids here on Slashdot instead. Much more mature.
Oh well. A few more years and you, too, will be amongst us truly mature people, complaining about people who complain about angsty kids who consider their favorite band-of-the-week as a defining charasteristic of their very existence :).
I wonder if it's possible to become mature enough that I could just deal with people as they are, without worrying about maturity or immaturity, or the appearance of them ?
Re:Isn't this done already? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, last time I checked the military academies were still hazing new members. I mean, the upperclassmen still treat freshmen like dirt, and haze them mercilessly, don't they? "Beast Barracks" still exists, doesn't it? Fraternities can't hold a candle to some of the crap I've read about - oh, but that's "tradition" for the U.S. military, isn't it?
So because you unfortunately had some bad officers (and I daresay some irresponsible members who didn't pay their dues), somehow fraternities in general are bad? Are you saying you've never heard stories about lack of accountability, or money being lost or wasted, while in the Navy? What planet were you stationed on, by the way?
This line really made me chuckle. Yes, as we all know, no Naval officer ever covers his ass when he screws up. Everyone is always accountable for his mistakes. The guilty are always punished, and the innocent are always rewarded. Sure, you betcha. What brand of Kool-aid did they serve you?
Face it - fraternities and sororities are no different than any other organization made up of human beings. There is good and there is bad. Most Greeks usually try to do the right thing, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes people say one thing but do another. Sometimes people screw up and try to hide their mistakes. But if you're going to condemn Greeks for those things, you're being a hypocrite if you don't condemn the Navy (and practically every other organization since the dawn of time) for exactly the same things.
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll compare this to when I was a kid. When I was growing up in the 80's, fashion was rediculously silly. My parent's generation looked at us like we were a bunch of nuts, and we were. Now I'm part of the generation that's looking at myspace and thinking what are these kids thinking. Do they realize how stupid these pages look. Also back when I was a kid there were adults that tried to fit in with the kids when it came to fashion. They were nuts. Looking back now, they'd be like "what was I thinking". The same thing goes for the older people on myspace. They just want to pretend they are kids again. History repeats itself. This is evident in the comments on a lot of myspace pages. That's the same language people were using in the early 90's on AOL. Bring on the new AOL and embrace it's popularity.
Slashdot doesn't criticize the status quo....we criticize the stupid status quo.
Money still can't buy friends (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Isn't this done already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Me(you): "So you think I bought my friends? Tell me, do you attend church?"
Him(me): "No, I dont believe in mass indoctrination of any kind"
Me(you): "doyeee?? Lookz aat myz myspacez! i iz kool!"
Him(me): "oh yeah. You gonna finish that 26er, friend?"
Lesson: Don't put words in other peoples mouths or they will do it right back.
Re:And how many here use myspace? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't this done already? (Score:3, Insightful)
To be perfectly honest, though, working at the association changed my view on greeks. I used to have the stereotypical anit-greek mentality, but after meeting and talking to former greeks, it made me realize that they are normal people, not the socially stunted beer swilling gorillas that I used to believe frats mainly consisted of. Me, I was still a beer swilling gorilla, but had that chip on my shoulder that I wasn't socially stunted because "I made my friends without paying dues." Regardless, that all changed after working reunions and other events, because it made me realize that greeks were basically the same as me and my friends and were actually pretty cool. I never rushed (still didn't really want to), but at least I got rid of my pre-conceived notions.
Oh, and for what its worth, quite a few people don't go to church or pay a tithing, so I guess you'll need another argument. I mean, I agree that a frat is similar to other social groups that pay money either explicitly or implicitly, but not everyone goes to church.