Ponder Place

Beth wrote:

So i don’t get the whole thrill of Myspace and Facebook….I guess I don’t personally feel the need to be more interconnected with the world, especially in such a non-personal way. Anyway, a good friend just moved away and keeps begging me to join Facebook so we can “keep in touch more easily”. So these are my questions….

#1 what is the big excitement with Facebook and Myspace anyway?

#2 am i justified in just thinking he is a lazy loser and if he can’t just pick up the phone why bother keeping in touch?

Well, you see, there are lots of reasons that social networking sites can be exciting: First of all, most of us have at least some desire to obtain some sort of measurable ‘unit’ of value. For instance; here in America we have the American dollar, and it’s widely agreed that the more you have, the better off you are. In other countries they have different units, like the Euro, the Yen, the Peso, or some countries in the past and present use things like gold, silver or cattle. One problem with this system is that each country seems to have it’s own unit of value and one of these units may not be accepted in all countries.

Why would I bring this up you ask?

Well; what if there was a universal unit of value? Scientists and accountants have been working together to create, and most importantly, introduce to the populace, a single universal currency. Many attempts have been made so far, but none have been wholly successful. Some noteworthy attempts have been: the Euro, gold and silver. The one that seems to scientists to be the only viable ‘universal unit of value’ is what they call “popularity.”

Now; contrary to most other units of value, popularity is not a currency that can be earned at most jobs. However it does usually take hard work to obtain. Let me explain a little of how it works since the system of exchange is quite different than most monetary systems. Popularity is not a physical currency yet, and as such, it is difficult to measure. The main idea is that when you earn popularity, by gaining friends, or esteem from your peers, you will become what the professionals call “popular.” The more popularity you earn, the more popular you will become.

With this in mind the scientific society has tried with relatively minimal success to create programs in which one can earn popularity. The few programs that have succeeded in the past have rarely made it out of the school systems with the same measure of success, but they are commonly referred to as “popularity contests.” For example, cheerleading and other ’sports’ while they denote a great measure of popularity in high school rarely seem to transfer to any real world applications after that. Another example is politics, high school elections are a prime example of the popularity contest, essentially, the individuals with the most perceived popularity is the one that receives the most votes, and is elected. Now in the real world there are professional sports and professional politics, but it is something of an elitist group, and quite frankly there aren’t enough positions within these groups to illustrate the measure of popularity of everyone on the planet. (Although admittedly it would appear that some individuals have none)

If you’re still reading this then I applaud your patience, and now I’ll continue to explain how the internet has finally begun to become a useful tool, in that we can now more accurately measure and document popularity on a global scale. You see with these social networking sites, there are a number of different ways that we can measure popularity. For instance, it shows the number of friends that you have, which essentially is the basis of the popularity currency system.

Additionally; these friends can leave you messages if they hold you in high enough esteem, so we can also measure the amount of popularity through the number of comments as well. Now, I’m not a certified popularity coach, so I cannot give advice on how to gain popularity, but I have experience with the currency system, and I can tell you that there are numerous ways for you to become popular with a social networking site. They give you the opportunity to post pictures to the site, and people can comment on these. You can also write blogs, on which people can also comment. On quite a few of these sites you can post videos that you’ve made in hopes that it will make you more popular. Even the layout of your site and the background that you choose can determine how popular you will become. For more advice on becoming popular please consult your local popularity expert.

Now that we understand popularity and how it works with social networking I can explain why your friend is definitely NOT a loser, and why he may not have enough time to call all of his friends with updates on a regular basis.

You see it sounds to me like your friend has a firm grasp of what it is to be popular. He knows how to work the system and has quite a few friends. So… since there isn’t enough time in the day… he can’t call every one of his friends all of the time, or he wouldn’t have time to do anything else. So, instead of choosing a few friends that he will call, and excluding the rest, he decides to include everyone by updating his social networking site, to which they can go and read about anything that is going on in his life. This way, he can communicate to all of his friends what is going on, and it takes less time, so he can continue to improve his websites to increase his popularity. Yes, it sounds to me that you have a solid friend who is well on his way to becoming a “populaire,” and you should definitely continue to keep in touch with him, so perhaps one day if he becomes a “populaire,” the benefits of being his friend will be essentially boundless to you.

I hope that this has answered your question, and in closing I would just like to add one thing. Www.capazoo.com is one social networking site that actually attempts to transcend the differences of these currencies and turn popularity into a dollar value. Currently I believe they are only converting to American dollars, or Canadian dollars, I’m not really sure, but I’m sure you could trade it into whatever currency you please.

Title image used with permission (permission pending) and courtesy of Cassandra, check out the original here.