I've completely escaped the social networking wave. Friendster, facebook and myspace are an exotic alternate universe to me.
I have a hard time convincing myself that anyone my age (mid-30s) has anything to do with them. I've heard the rumors of people like me posting profiles and collecting friends on these sites but have yet to actually visit any one of them to verify the story.
I've been heretofore happily unencumbered by knowledge of this world. (I will have to delve into said alternate universe for work, however.)
So, it was with the curiosity of an anthropologist hiding in the bushes in Samoa that I read in today's NYT, "Too Few Friends? A Web Site Lets You Buy Some (and They're Hot):
Popularity was never easily measured, until the advent of social-networking sites. Now, prospective employers and others can gain some insights into an applicant’s lifestyle and character by looking at a person’s social-networking page, including the roster of friends.
So what if a job applicant’s networking page lacks friends?
Enter FakeYourSpace.com, a business founded by Brant Walker, which offered users of MySpace.com and similar sites a way to enhance their page with photographs and comments from hired "friends" — mainly attractive models — for 99 cents a month each.
I must have been living under a rock not to have supposed that a prospective employer would sniff around someone's social networking roster of friends.
We will sidestep for a moment the unsavory fact that the "problem" appears to be the quality - specifically, the quality implied by the appearance - of one's actual friends.
And what shall we call this fistful of fakes meant to testify that I Am Not a Loser? The marketing department to come up a suitable word for what's sure to be the next new wave of confounding social constructions. Using the neologisms "frenemy" and "fraudience" as our guide:
Fakequantaince?
Frauduliend?
(Hmm, the "friend" part looks too much like "fiend," although it would work just fine spoken aloud.)
I can see how this would be tempting to do (and a natural extension to Googling), but would love to hear an HR manager explain exactly how they see this as relevant.
I suspect the answer would involve the circular logic that one can judge an applicant's maturity or level of savvy by observing how vigilantly an appolicant presents him- or herself for professional inspection in all aspects of life. Any serious applicant would know that HR personnel would discover all extant traces and adjust his or her persona accordingly. And those that don't, well... can't have them.
Are we really meant to worry that we might not get a job because our friends aren't hip enough? Should a lack of interest in internet social networking be construed as suspicious?
Yet another illustration of how the availability of information about us is constricting our freedom to have lives independent of our careers or - gasp! - mere jobs.