Searching For Kevin Bacon
As the already treacherous social networking landscape gets even trickier with the launch of social networking site to end all social networking sites Yahoo 360, contributing SFist Paolo offers these tips to help you socially network like there's no tomorrow.
Image is everything. It's not a matter of looking like the most intelligent, cultured, and radical person who ever walked the face of the Earth, it's just a matter of looking like you are and you're already in. That's our theory. It's only more heightened on the internet, especially on social networking sites such as the new Yahoo 360, where users fill out questionnaires, stick pictures of themselves up, and type up a witty biography of themselves to get people to notice them in the hopes of finding a soul mate. Or Kevin Bacon.
Now what about the rest of us without professionally airbrushed headshots? We need to look interesting. Simple. What people fail to realize is that in crafting the perfect social networking profile, there is a subtle meta-game at work. In a world of spilt-second decisions and racial profiling, the best we can do is to look better than the person reading our profile. Our formula for crafting the best social networking profile after the jump.
- Be Succinct. Nobody has the attention span anymore to wade though your 300+ list of all the bands you've ever listened to. That's why it's called “Favorites”. Maximum you should have no more than 15 entries for whatever topic they want a list from. You can speak more with less, especially if...
- You succesfully use irony. You wouldn't want your list to be completely made of obscure indie bands that only so many people have ever heard of. You'll come off as some scenster art-school snob who likes taking pictures of dead pigeons in bed, naked. On the other hand, having nothing but Jay-Z, Linkin Park, Yellowcard, and Simple Plan will just make you come off as easily amused. Simple rules for putting favorite bands/movies/books would be to have at least half the entries to be obscure (to make you look cultured), one quarter to be quasi-mainstream (so not to look totally self-removed from the rest of society), and the last 25 percent whatever you feel like. We like to call this the irony portion -- now that you've established yourself as someone who's indie, but not untouchable, feel free to put a couple of mainstream bands or something from the 80's. Or Color me Badd. Or something. This makes you look like you have a sense of humor. And Irony is the Currency of the Internet.
- Ask anyone who picks up high school girls at the local Taco Bell, and they'll tell you the secret to their success (besides driving their mom's station wagon), would be mystery. The same goes for the social networking profile. Avoid overarching adjectives about yourself (I'm SPECIAL, UNIQUE, CREATIVE, HYPER, RANDOM, KICK-ASS). Leave a slight aftertaste of your personality. This is where you would want to channel a little bit of the scenester art-school fuck up. The challenge then becomes to look special, but don't declare you're special.
- Reading is Fundamental. Magazines are not books.
With this guide, you'll be able to craft something that will impress dumb people, and will at least give you some credit with uber-scensters. So go out there! Fake being awesome, make yourself look better than someone else, cause in the end, isn't that what matters?
SFist Paolo, contributing.