Found this online today, I mean is this serious?!
After the hype about joining social networking sites last year, it’s time for anti-social networking sites to gain popularity
Facebook and all those social networking sites out there are not really your kind of thing? You’d rather be left alone? Tired of fake online friends? Riding high on the fame of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, novel websites are poking fun at online friendships that connect you to the people you are fond of, by turning their attention to the ones you don’t.
Hatebook is the first anti-social networking site, where you can connect with the people you abhor. Get the latest gossip from your enemies and friends, post photos and videos on your hate profile and tag your friends. Hatebook looks and functions a lot like Facebook, except in a more devilish way. The colour is a more aggressive red, user profiles include a section called “Why I’m Better Than You!”
Over the past two years, sites such Snubster, Enemybook and Hatebook are alluring Internet users who get a kick out of the tongue-in-cheek humour of mocking their friends and others who are just plain cynical.
For instance, Enemybook is a fantastic Facebook mini application that allows you to finally tell your enemies as well as your friends what you really think about them. Just like when adding friends, this application allows you to detail exactly how you know the person and came to be their enemy. Now seeing a list of someone’s enemies tells me a lot more about them than their friends. Anti-social networking sounds bizarre, but is a great way to relieve stress and divert your anger into a better channel.
A new anti-social networking site called Snubster, however, is finding that shared hate can be an equally useful bonding tool. Software engineer Bryant Choung intended to satirise social networking websites when he launched his site, Snubster. “The whole concept of online social networking was really starting to irk me,” said Choung. Snubster members, by contrast, focus on what irritates them.
Snubster is only one of the most recent in a series of sites created to spoof social networking. Others similar sites include Isolatr, a parody site that claims to be “helping you find where other people are not”, and Introverster, which bills itself as “an online community that prevents stupid people and friends from harassing you online”.
When Facebook opened up its network to outside applications earlier last year, some users decided it was an opportunity to spoof the online phenomenon. Kevin Matulef, the creator of Enemybook, said the idea for his Facebook application started as a joke last summer when friends were asking if someone was a real friend or a Facebook friend.
The reality is that, several people today are exhausted and bored rigid of websites such as Orkut and Facebook. These anti social networking websites might well be the balancing factor for all of us who are hyper stressed with the pressures that modern life has to offer.
