22 July 2009
Facebook Avatars and the Art of Conversation
Posted by robgraham under: Media Musings; Uncategorized .
I’ve been recently working on a project for a client which required me to create a fake Facebook account for the purposes of demoing a process. Since the subject of the demo was a woman named Susan who is setting up a fan page, I found a suitable clipart shot of a competent looking woman, wrote up a very brief and very bogus biography, and started a new Facebook account on her behalf.
The purpose of the account was primarily to serve as an entry point to Facebook and show how to create fan pages. What I didn’t count on was that within a few hours of “Susan’s birth” she would have potential suitors already lining up for her attention.
Because I thought it would look more realistic for this new Facebook user to actually have some friends I accepted all comers.
It seems a bit odd to me — and perhaps it’s because I’m a guy, but the number of guys (and only guys) who have sent Susan Facebook friend requests in the past few weeks is just a little bit creepy.
I guess my question would be just who are these guys and why did they want to be Susan’s friend anyway? My second question would be, ‘is this the kind of thing that real women have to put up with all the time?’ (followed by a shudder).
Unfortunately, Susan’s ‘appeal’ to totally strange man also resulted in one of them trying to engage her in conversation. Try as hard as I might, I was unable to get this particular potential suitor to understand that Susan was not real as he started text messaging her repeatedly while I was doing screen captures:
George: hi Susan, nice to meet you
Me: Susan isn’t a real person. She is a test file
George: what does that mean?
Me: that she isn’t a human. She is a computer simulation. For a video project covering Facebook.
George: never. Do determine wot. So if your not real shud I delete u?
Me: please do. You’re messing up my screen captures.
George: Funny
Me: Not very
George: How can a computer respond like that?
Me: Please stop messaging
George: You delete me
Me: I’m not a computer. I’m human. Susan is a bogus account I set up so I can record a Facebook simulation. Got it?
George: no. I don’t understand at all. R U female?
Me: no
George: so if ur male y pik a girls name?
At this point I decided that my conversation with George was not to get any more enlightening and deleted his friendship.
Now, chances are that George is just some lonely dude looking to reach out. On the other hand, acquiring a few social skills will probably make the process easier for him in the future. Either way I’m have a new found sympathy for the kind of creepy advances that some women have to put up with. All I can say in response is an empathetic “Eeeeeeeewwwwww!”