| Many people who belong to online communities will tell you that they have great relationships with their virtual friends. They’ll spend hours updating journal entries, trading photos of pets and, generally, profile stalking. For the most part they’ll never meet their online companions, but feel as if they know them through their animated smiley emoticon.
The site friendster.com has received a lot of press lately. I’m not quite sure why, as overall it seems rather dull – unless, of course, you’re a serial killer looking for prey in your area. The site offers a community focused on meeting people for friendship or dating. The Friendster tour highlights the creepo factor by sending personal messages like, "Hi Cindy, I’m a friend of Melissa’s and I like your profile... maybe we can play tennis sometime... Jonathan."
A similar site, tribe.net, offers a little more promise with the option of joining tribes catering to your interest group – Web designers can network with other designers, tattoophiles can exchange ideas and recommend artists, and tickle fetishists can trade secrets. Tribes can get freaky here, too, but at least you can choose to ignore the pogonoligists (facial hair enthusiasts).
Another decent online community with a slight twist is suicidegirls.com. For a fee, members join a community that contains naked goth girls, punk chicks and tattooed skater babes. The girls have their own pages and members can post to the girls or just meet other folk who dig girls who deviate from the mass-marketed ideal. Unfortunately, the site has recently revamped its design for the worse, making navigation less than ideal.
Or you could volunteer in your own community and meet people who aren’t named orcslayer99. |
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