On Our Minds
Social Media is for Stalkers
June 16th, 2009
Written by: Juliana Gonzalez
What’s on MY mind today? I just took a five minute break from creative briefs and photoshop files to sneak a peak at the profile of a new Facebook friend, and I find myself thinking back to the days when social networking began. I remember the horror stories and warnings about sharing personal information. Let’s be honest — THANK GOD those days are over.
I have three words for you naysayers — Cragslist Missed Connections. If you haven’t visited this section of Craigslist, I suggest you do so. It’s highly entertaining. These folks really need to learn how to use Google and sites like Facebook and Twitter. There is currently a man in Peoria swooning over “Vanessa that works at Walgreens in Sun City.” Use your resources, P-town!
Example: My friend, who shall remain nameless, was consulting for a company that happened to have a gorgeous employee named Ryan. She was dying to ask him out, but just didn’t have the opportunity while at work. We only knew his employer and his first name. (If I have just two semi-important details about a person, I’m willing to bet I can find them online 90% of the time.) Step one: Call Ryan’s place of employment, ask for “Ryan, I’m sorry, what’s his last name? I can’t remember and I’d rather be respectful and refer to him as Mr…” Done and done.
Step two: Creep (v.) Search Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, anything you can think of. Google images will now pull up most of a person’s Facebook profile pics, just in case you want to check that you’re stalking the right person. If you’re really lucky, the profile is unblocked. If they have a Twitter account, you’ll know exactly what they are doing. Be creative—you never know what kind of information you can dig up about Friday happy hours or Sunday afternoon soccer games from reading wall posts and @replies. And then the golden step three: Find out where said person likes to go and show up. The opportunity for conversation is much more prevalent outside the workplace, and times that by 1,032 when alcohol is involved.
See how easy that was? When my friends and I do creepy things like this, it really makes me question the content of some of my social networking sites…it’s a recipe for disaster. I have a lot of personal information laid out there for the world to see. But by now you’ve probably realized I’m not exactly shy, and when I remember the guys I’ve dated because we “happened to cross paths,” I think, why not share some info? If someone wants to kidnap you that badly, they’ll just follow you home from Fry’s anyway. At least this way only convicts have to resort to hiding in your backseat, and creepy single girls such as myself can remain hidden safely behind our laptops, until we ‘accidentally’ run into you at the dog park on Sunday morning.
this reminds me of a conversation we once had…
me: you look really really familiar.
juju: ya, you too. how do we know each other?
me: are you on facebook? we should see which friends we have in common.
juju: yep, already tried that.