Our first response when thefacebook.com invaded campus
By Megan Jones
Former Scarlet Staff
This article was originally printed in The Scarlet on November 8, 2004.
Since Sunday it has been compared to both crack cocaine and the devil. Students swear against it and obsess over it. Like it or not thefacebook.com fever has taken over Clark University.
At its simplest level, thefacebook.com is a free service that offers college students a new way to network with other college students. You are able to create a profile of your interests, and connect with people that have similar ones.
The service offers a group section where you are able to create groups or join ones that contain people that you might be interested in getting to know. Additionally, thefacebook.com allows you to research its network for people you went to high school with in order to re-connect with people you may have lost touch with over the years.
But thefacebook.com is much, much more than that.
In less than a week it has turned this campus into 2,000 seventh graders vying to reach the ultimate level of popularity. When you find someone on the network you know, you can ask them to be your “friend,” if they say yes, your list of friends begins to grow.
Each and every person on the network can see how many friends you have, and that is where the competition gets ugly. Although many first starts listing people they are actually friends with, soon you reach out to that girl in your psychology class, the guy down the hall, that person you thought you saw at the party last weekend, and a hall mate from freshman year. Soon enough you have more “friends” than you ever thought you could need.
At this point, you have the option on checking up on these people’s profiles. If they have more friends than you, you get determined; you get ready to fight dirty. You starts looking up people you went to high school with and add them to your list. Waking up in the morning, you first go to see if you have added any new friends over night, and while doing homework, you have to check it periodically to see if your network has grown.
When you get tired of adding friends, it is now time to join groups. Within this week, Clark has created over 100 new groups. Some groups are legitimate forums for existing real life clubs like Lacrosse, Clark Cars, or Radical Cheerleaders, some join people from the same floor, suite, or even room. Others elicit a space where people can discuss favorite TV shows and music groups.
Then there are the fake sororities and fraternities that have sprung up right and left. With a click of a mouse you can be a proud member of Alpha Alpha which is composed of three member, the Delta Slues who state that “you know if you are in,” or Sigma Epsilon Xi who totes themselves as “The coolest frat on campus” among others.
In such a short period of time, we here at Clark have opened Pandora’s box. When once the average Clarkie was content with simply utilizing AIM to check away messages and profiles of people we never speak to, thefacebook.com has taken it to a higher level. Thefacebook.com has united the once apathetic community in a manner that no previous attempt has. Welcome to Clark thefacebook.com, one look is never enough.
