Let’s Be Friends

danah boyd has pub­lished a new paper at First Monday, an online academic journal. In it, she examines the concept of Friendship on social networks, as opposed to friend­ship in the offline world. Briefly, Friends (capital ‘F’) are about ‘identity per­form­ance’ — they reflect who you are online and offline — and may arrive on someone’s list for a host of reasons:

1. Actual friends
2. Acquaintances, family members, colleagues
3. It would be socially inap­pro­priate to say no because you know them
4. Having lots of Friends makes you look popular
5. It’s a way of indic­ating that you are a fan (of that person, band, product, etc.)
6. Your list of Friends reveals who you are
7. Their Profile is cool so being Friends makes you look cool
8. Collecting Friends lets you see more people (Friendster)
9. It’s the only way to see a private Profile (MySpace)
10. Being Friends lets you see someone’s bul­letins and their Friends-​​only blog posts (MySpace)
11. You want them to see your bul­letins, private Profile, private blog (MySpace)
12. You can use your Friends list to find someone later
13. It’s easier to say yes than no

While the idea of nine thousand friends seems absurd to non-​​participants, because Friends are not neces­sarily friends, but the system provides no other form of rela­tion­ship, they may be per­forming other roles in the con­struc­tion of the MySpacer’s online identity.

Share this post:

Possibly related:

• YASNS?*
• Vox Populi?
• MySpace: The Beast of Santa Monica