Sunday, August 1, 2010

Location Based Stalking: Foursquare is Creepy

Facebook stalking is so common now a days, that I actually think its offensive if someone takes you out without doing some online research. Its kind of like going into a job interview and asking the employer to tell you about the company.
But the social media world can also go too far when it takes the information that is at our finger tips and lets us use it to put people under our thumbs. A good friend was at the beach in LBI two weekends ago and was uploading photos and commenting about the fun he was having. Fastforward 3 hours later and he gets a text from a girl he has been casually seeing asking him what he was doing. He responded that he was down at LBI and she commented back "OMG me too!"Coincidence? He thinks not. FourSquare, the mobile GPS that lets you check in to locations is also propelling this trend. A good girlfriend recently checked into a bar and was shocked when an ex walked in shortly thereafter. He said he was in the neighborhood, saw she was there and wanted to say hi. That night she earned the socially awkward badge.

I hate to be a romanTECH pessimists but according to the New York Observer's report on research released this week from Forester 80%of Foursquare users are educated white males -- wait isn't that the same profile as a serial killer? Ok I am praying that people continue to use this technology for good and not e-vil. The last thing we need is a CSI episode based on a girl that checked in one too many times before checking out for good. What do we think?

6 comments:

  1. Well, did this LBI dude at least get some?

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  2. Hell yes he did. From what I gathered his jeresy shore night can be summed up by GTLaid!

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  3. It couldn’t be more fitting that you’ve included a poster of the movie “Fear” in this post Jewels. I must be your brother from another mother! Every girl in my age range (late 20’s to early 30’s) is in love with that movie (that and the Leo DiCaprio/ Claire Danes version of “Romeo & Juliet). I’ve asked time and again what’s so great about it and I’ve never received anything even remotely resembling a credible response. It’s usually like watching that Ms Teen USA contestant from South Carolina try to answer AC Slater’s question about geography. You can’t tell me that as a girl there's anything romantic about Reese Witherspoon getting violated on a roller coaster by Markie Mark while the Funky Bunch watches and the Sunday’s version of “Wild Horses” (a song that’s actually about heroin addiction) blares in background (Mark was more of a romantic in “Boogie Nights” if you ask me). I am convinced it’s because every girl, and most guys, secretly find stalkers flattering. I am friends with a girl who considers cyber-stalking the modern day love letter. Maybe we’re reticent to admit it because of the connotations that it denotes, but the idea of consuming someone else’s thoughts to such an extreme degree are, in a very twisted way, self-affirming. I personally hate getting drunken text messages. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell you if you ask. But the thought of a girl out with a group of friends drinking in a city with no shortage of available guys, who takes the time to send me messages wanting to know where I am or what I am doing at 2:30 on a Saturday night is an ego boost. Now I am not suggesting that your friends had the intent of attracting some wacko guy or girl who randomly shows up without a formal invite like they’re a member of the Rat Pack, but you also can’t convince me that it wasn’t completely unexpected. Especially not in your girlfriend’s case. Four Square is the culmination of our desire to be stalked.

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  4. Ha Ha Ha....Annonymous, you've got some good material there! You mean you don't get all choked up watching Claire Lames and a Leonardo stare at each other across a fish tank while Sade hums..."Kisssing You...Ah"???

    I like you're POV and do agree that some degree of stalking is flattering as long as it doesn't end with your family pet decapitated on your kitchen floor.

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  5. Hey Jewels - Blaire here from Always Sunny. (I've just completely re-vamped my "profile" and created a new URL to post my blog material so that's why it says "hot mess" and not "blaire". New URL is http://blondehotmess.blogspot.com hope you'll follow!)

    But back to the matter at hand. 1st off, as a 4square user myself - I totally understand the stalker-vibes one can get from using the tool but I, personally have yet to use it to stalk down a guy I'm interested in. A lot of my friends who are on the tool don't "check in" everywhere they go because they are too busy having fun wherever they are. That being said, I do have 2 or 3 people who are masters at the application and I can pretty much always find them if I really wanted to know. It definitely is a tool that CAN be used for stalking, but in my experience, nothing that scary/crazy has come from my use of it.

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  6. Thanks for the share Hot Mess -- I like your tech makeover too. we match ;) And glad to see you don't have stalkerazzi just yet, but keep us posted.

    I'll also change your name in my link list!

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