Facehunted on Facebook

By now I’m sure you’ve all heard of the phenomenon that is facebook, if not, then wiki it then digg it then get all del.ic.ous with it, then do whatever else cause I’ve run out of web2.0 shenanigans to throw around... I remember my first social network invite a couple of years ago.. hi5, friendster, myspace, etc etc etc. I never joined these networks in fear of them stealing my identity and selling it on the internet in exchange for the visa of a little 7 year old Indonesian boy named kuluk who’ll now be a 27 year old occasional blogger..

And then facebook came along, which I also avoided at first but eventually caved when some friends convinced me to get on.. During the facebook honeymoon, it was nice getting reconnected with old friends, making new friends and keeping some of your friendships at a social networking distance. As we all started to sink into this addiction of checking to see who’s added who, what’s being said and what photo albums people have put up; the compulsive nature of people began rear its ugly head. Marriages were being tested as to who has a bigger friend list, people started wasting hours upon hours replying to unnecessary wall messages, some took to creating groups left right and center, and others were installing applications just for the hell of installing applications (I am at fault for installing the Chuck Norris one). The worst came in the form of facebook trawling, where people would connect to you and start stalking your wall, your photo albums, your hobbies and whatever other applications you installed on your profile. Heavy users were already experiencing social network fatigue getting tired of updating, tagging, uploading, and statusizing their life.. but the stalkers, the trawlers and the wanderers, they’re all still there – and still checking you out..

Taken from a conversation with a nonfacebookee friend this week that went a little like this:

(Exasperated on the phone) What is this facebook shit? why the hell does it exist? How can I take my picture off facebook?

What do you mean? What’s happened? You don’t even have facebook..

Exactly. Check this out, I come to work today and find out that my coworker saw a picture of me on facebook with my nuts hanging out. She just comes out and says my nuts are in a picture..

You’re kidding me.. nuts hanging out? Full view? (Contemplating email forwards with the red circle pointing out my buddie’s nuts and the mastercard priceless tagline “your nuts exposed on the beach picked out by your coworker, priceless”)

Yeah, I guess someone took pictures from some beach party and there’s a picture of me in my shorts with my nuts exposed..

This is exactly why I don’t wear board shorts, there’s rarely any mesh to keep everything in place..

You’re not helping right now, I need to get these pictures off this fucking facebook..

And your coworker, seriously,,,, searching pictures for your nuts.. Is this a bad thing that could be construed as a good thing? Or is it an embarrassing very embarrassing bad thing where you’re wondering if everyone in the office has now seen your nuts..

You’re missing the point, but thanks for making me wonder if the office manager’s seen my ‘ticles or not. I’m not on this damn site, my picture gets taken and all of a sudden I’m on it, my nuts are on it.. and I haven’t even seen this picture, it’s coming from a coworker who’s already seen my nuts.. my permission wasn’t granted, how the hell am I supposed to react?

A couple of phone calls and we’ll have everything sorted out.. don’t worry too much.. at least you’re not on facebook and weren’t tagged in the picture.. then whenever they’d click on your name the picture of your nuts would be in the database of your photos..

This is a really big mess this facebook.. people can get into a lot of trouble you know..

What do you mean?

Well what if a picture gets taken of me and I’m with a girl and it’s totally innocent, but the picture reveals a completely different story.. I could get into a lot of trouble with my girlfriend. All because someone put me on an album..

Well if you have nothing to hide, than you have nothing to hide.. but what were you doing having someone taking almost revealing pictures of you with a girl. I do see your point though..


And with that, we had the case of exposed nuts sorted out.. some people were relieved, some were upset and others didn’t even raise an eyebrow. But this got me to thinking, how much time do random strangers sit and search through your pictures? The eerie thought of people trawling through your photo albums learning of your misfits, your adventures and your life.. But then the counter thought to that, is that people put up their photo albums to get seen by their friends, meaning that they indirectly don’t mind you searching through their pictures.. So where do I stand on this? I’m not too sure…