Dating on Friendster

danah boyd School of Information Management & Systems University of California, Berkeley 102 South Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-4600 [email protected]

ABSTRACT am grappling with when trying to understand issues around Social networking is the latest craze to hit the online online dating. personals domain. Based on the success of Friendster (and For the sake of brevity, I will not thickly describe arguably Ryze), many traditional online personal websites Friendster, its users or the vast array of behaviors that have are either adding social networking to existing services or formed. Those who are unfamiliar with Friendster are creating a secondary application devoted to social networks. referred to boyd, 2003 [1] for greater detail. From eMode/Tickle and AOL’s Love.com to Match.com’s recent announcement of upcoming social networking Reflexively, it is important to note that I have been an active participant-observer amidst both Friendster users and services, it seems as though everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. In stepping back, this new phenomenon within the social networking software creators. I have organized the online personals domain should be analyzed based on six focus groups of various relevant social groups and have its theoretical and structural validity and purported interviewed or surveyed over 200 users on various aspects successes. Doing so provides an additional framework for of their Friendster experience. I have tracked the Friendster considering the role of technology in dating. meme through the media and through the viral discussions on mailing lists, blogs and IRC channels. I have spoken Keywords with users who have auctioned off their social network on Friendster, online dating, social networks eBay, programmers who have scripted the data for visualization purposes, and protesters who have challenged INTRODUCTION the company behind Friendster because of its autocratic The articulation and public presentation of social network decisions. I have spoken with teachers who fear the data is not a novel idea. Even among popular tools, presence of their students, drug dealers who find the site Friendster’s functionality practically mirrors SixDegrees, a invaluable to their trade, and communities who have service available in 1997 to connect people. Like Six erected memorials to deceased friends through the site. I Degrees, Friendster is a connected social network where have consulted with or advised many of the companies people articulate their friends and surf the network by competing in the domain and I have spoken frequently to looking at friends’ friends. Unlike Six Degrees, Friendster the press so that they may understand the phenomena is currently focused entirely on dating. This is a conscious better. It is important to note that while reports indicate decision to address what is considered to be the primary that 1/2 of the site’s users are from abroad, predominantly failing of SixDegrees: it had no purpose. Asia, the vast majority of my interviewees have been Friendster has reached subculture popularity and has been located in the United States and Canada. Furthermore, the intensely hyped by the media. Yet, many users do not even majority of my interviews took place before October 2003, realize that it is a dating site. Furthermore, it also seems to although the site continues to grow and attract new relevant suffer from the purpose problem; after a few months of social groups. playing with the site, many users stop coming back. That said, Friendster’s popularity, media attention, and venture THEORETICAL AND STRUCTURAL VALIDITY capitalist interest has motivated a vast array of competitors The premise of Friendster is based on the adage that to enter the space and invest in social networks. The friends of friends make better dates. This foundational commonplace mimicry is explicitly depicted in the name philosophy is based on the creator’s observation of dating that Hot or Not chose for its social networking site: Yafro in Silicon Valley and his irritation that online dating sites (Yet Another Friendster Rip-Off). did not meet the needs of people like him, people who were “not ‘keen on messaging random weirdos’” [2]. To In this brief workshop position paper, I will highlight address this, Friendster requires people to publicly selected issues from my ethnographic research on articulate their social network. Yet, this design decision Friendster, an online dating site that uses social places a heavy burden on users who must determine what networking as its primary feature. I will emphasize the defines a “Friend.” As “Friend” is the only label one can reasons why I believe that the theoretical and structural attach to any other users on the system, the magnitude and validity and purported success of Friendster must be more context of the relations are lost. Thus, users must deeply considered. While I am focusing on Friendster, the determine their own cut-off limit for inclusion, often issues that I address are relevant to all online dating sites. I defaulting to a relatively low tie weight so as to not then focus on specific research questions and concerns that I publicly offend someone by not including that person in possible given simply those coarse descriptors. Thus, while their network. The result is that one’s Friendster network sites offer commonality matching, this may be a design might include everyone from close friends to relatives to decision that truly limits the kinds of relationships that can acquaintances to outright strangers. form. The loose structure of one’s social network complicates the While Friendster has been exceptionally popular, its adage on which the site is grounded. As one of my subjects theoretical validity must be challenged. In doing so, one reported, “Why would I want to date my cousin’s must also consider the assumptions made by other dating hairdresser’s drug dealer’s best friend?” His question spoke sites and consider how the structural differences straight to the primary issue generated by these networks: fundamentally alter the social mores and behavior that we without context, what’s the relevance, trust or value? take for granted in dating offline end up shifting as well. In unpacking the initial adage, what Friendster is assuming PURPORTED SUCCESSES is threefold: While Friendster purports to be a dating site, the 1) People share things in common with their friends and predominant usage suggests otherwise. By mid-July, many through transitivity, their friend’s friends. Friendster subscribers were completely unaware that they were joining a dating site. They believed that it was a place

2) Networked connections provide trust, reliability and to connect to friends. Most users initially surfed the site to reputation. find other friends, particularly those with whom they were 3) Increased commonality and confirmed reputation are out of touch. In doing so, they found many forms of valuable metrics for dating potential. entertainment, such as fake characters and truly creative While each of these statements may be reasonable on the Profiles. This encouraged users to pursue a Treasure Hunt surface, there is an embedded assumption in them: context. approach to surfing the network while simultaneously People do not share all things in common with their making their Profiles more creative for others. Thus, friends, but there is usually a set of overlapping interests, Friendster became a game. tastes and personality qualities. What complicates this is Yet, amidst this gaming, one could find both intentional that people may only share a facet of their identity in and unintentional dating behaviors forming. Often those common with each friend and the facets shared between two who were looking for dates found the interface aggravating distinct friends might be non-overlapping. Thus, just because the traditional search qualifiers were not available. because two people share a friend in common does not Conversely, those who had gone to the site to explore and mean that they themselves share anything in common, play with friends suddenly found themselves talking to although the probability is higher than in the general people who caught their eye and dating via Friendster. population. Furthermore, trust and reputation depend on Although a wide variety of dating patterns can be found on the context in which the relationship evolves. While people Friendster, three types of behavior dominate the intentional may be able to recommend their colleagues for a job based uses: hookups, direct pestering, and familiar strangers. on observed talents, they may not have the necessary interaction level to recommend them as dates because that Hookups is not the context of their relationship. As with any online dating site, people surf the site for Friendster is not the only online dating site to assume that hookups as well as potential partners. While the suggested commonality matters. Many sites assume that people are theory is that friends-of-friends are the most compatible most likely to meet compatible others by classifying partners, hookups often occur regardless of the network. Or themselves, their interests and their desired partners. rather, many looking for hookups prefer to be three or four Profiles are rich with data such as religion, height and body degrees apart so as to not complicate personal matters. In type; these are often how people can search for others addition to in-town hookups, Friendster users tell me that within the system. While Friendster does not offer these they also use the site to find hookups in cities to which traditional mechanisms for determining commonality, they are traveling. This behavior is undoubtedly what media consumption tastes are presented, particularly instigated the mock site STD-ster. movies, TV, books and music. This design decision was Direct Pestering chosen because it did not scare off users looking for Sometimes, people unintentionally fail to introduce their Friends or Activity Partners, yet it provided an axis for single friends to one another. By having a public comparison and search. While some version of the articulation of one’s network, it is really easy to look at commonality approach is taken by most dating sites, I am Friends’ Friends and pester the intermediary about potential not convinced that this is theoretically valid. Certainly, compatibility. While third and fourth degree connections people with similar tastes are often drawn towards one are often meaningless to people, there is a decent amount of another, but quite frequently a perfect match is made that trust in second-degree connections, simply because they can surprises both partners, as neither would have chosen the be easily confirmed via a shared connection. classifications labels used by the other one. In other words, while a woman may envision her ideal partner to be Familiar Strangers between 5’4” and 5’10” and Jewish, she may fall madly in When Stanley Milgram coined the term “Familiar love with a 5’2” Shinto and find more attraction and Strangers,” he was referring to the strangers that one sees common ground that she ever would have imagined regularly, but with whom one never connects [3]. Given additional contexts, an individual is quite likely to - How does behavior change as people become more approach a familiar stranger. For many, Friendster provides comfortable on online dating sites? What social norms that additional context. In browsing the site, users find evolve and how do they translate between various people that they often see out. From the Profile, one can sites? guess another’s dating status and sexuality as well as - What is the relationship between the architectural interests and connections. Often, this is enough additional structure of an online dating site and the kinds of information to prompt a user into messaging someone on relationships that form through the site? How can we Friendster or approaching that person offline. measure this? Another form of dating that is quite fascinating emerges - What is the relationship between online dating sites between “Fakesters” – Profiles of people who are not really and the types of relationships that are generated? real (i.e. Homer Simpson, Giant Squid, Salt). In my Marketers purport that the relationships formed on interviews, I met one inspiring couple that met while dating sites are more meaningful because they are performing as obscure fake personas referring to non-human based on substance. Are they? characters. While their initial interaction was in character and that character said little about their true identity, they The social networking phenomenon generated a new quickly discovered that both were single gay men living in technological approach to digital dating. In turn, this San Francisco and their courting shifted from character technological change has brought about changes in performance to real life. expectation, behavior and performance by the users. In the case of Friendster, these changes were quite unexpected and Although Friendster imagined that users would court in a motivated the site to attempt to further configure the user. fashion similar to Match.com (a very popular traditional When analyzing online dating sites, it is important to Profile-driven dating site), this has not panned out. consider them as one would consider any other sociable Friendster users are certainly dating, but it is not their site. As such, one important factor in analysis is the predominant use. When they do date, the mechanism is not relationship between creator’s expectations and the user’s simplified to boy sees cute girl and contacts her. Friendster behavior. The tension between creator and user is users are bridging the physical and digital connections, particularly important for online dating sites since the engaging through the game play and using the social creators are attempting to organize a specific type of network to diminish offline social recourse. behavior. BROADER CONSIDERATIONS While Friendster has created a new and popular While analyzing Friendster along various axes has been my phenomenon, this does not mean that it is a successful intellectual endeavor of late, I see this workshop as an ideal dating site. Users tend to get bored after only a few months opportunity to more broadly consider the social issues of use and they find the site impossible to negotiate for around digital dating. In particular, I am interested in dating. While successes certainly exist and people have understanding how people understand and negotiate their found relationships in new ways, this is by no means the presentation of self in order to connect with others in a norm. Worse, not realizing that Friendster is a dating site, meaningful fashion. Recently, the following questions have many users feel trapped by undesired advances by others. emerged while I have been considering online dating and Conversely, some of the best success stories have come analyzing Friendster data: from people not intending to date on Friendster. - What is a measure of “success” when analyzing sites Online dating sites are fundamentally attempting to address that are meant to connect people? social needs. Yet, we do not fully understand how these - Online dating sites are structured in ways that social needs can be met. As such, what are the implications emphasize compatibility based on interests and social of building sites based on uncertain models of social networks. How can we measure the validity of these behavior? Given this uncertainty, how can we better claims? And in what ways are the online versions of understand the underlying behavior based on how people interests/social networks different than the offline alter the creations built on top of them? How can we design ones? sites that are capable of handling abuse and repurposing? What is the role of the designer in the ongoing

- In what ways do people repurpose various sites to date, management of online dating sites? What are the while repurposing dating sites to engage in other implications of the creator’s intentions and expectations? behavior? How can this be analyzed? Given the uncertainty in what works best for dating, these

- Psychologists have been trying to understand dating sites are effectively engaged in the psychological research for ages. How does digital behavior alter and/or on dating by systematically altering the variables that affect magnify offline behavior? behavior. The Online Personals workshop offers a great - What is the impact of explicit classification in opportunity to bring together people who are thinking presentation on dating habits? about the challenges embedded in online dating sites. My - How do people perceive their “audience” when hope is that it will be the perfect forum to consider what constructing a Profile and how does this affect their can be learned from these sites and how these sites can be presentation? designed to help us learn while helping people connect. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 2. Hua, Vanessa. 2003, June 27. “Bound Together: Thanks to Peter Lyman for support, all Fakesters and Popular startup dot-com connects users to thousands of Realsters for their stories, and Tribe.net, KRD, and friends of friends of friends” San Francisco Chronicle. Washington Post for funding the focus groups. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/06/27/BU181364.DTL REFERENCES 1. boyd, danah. 2003. “Reflections on Friendster, Trust 3. Milgram, S. The Familiar Stranger: An Aspect of and Intimacy.” Workshop paper for the Intimate Urban Anonymity. The Individual in a Social World. Computing Workshop at Ubicomp 2003 in Seattle, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1977. WA. http://www.danah.org/papers/Ubicomp2003WorkshopA pp2.pdf