TOP TEN REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE A FRIENDSTER ACCOUNT!

“Alam mo, tito, ikaw na lang sa mga kakilala ko ang walang friendster,” my precocious ten year old niece told me many months ago while she was in front of her PC redesigning and redecorating her Friendster account whilst at the same time chatting with her friends. “Igagawa na kita, gusto mo?”

She told me I could find old friends and acquaintances through Friendster. But then, she later informed me, I could also do that without a Friendster account. So one day, while in front of my computer, I accessed the homepage of Friendster (which incidentally is the most visited website in the Philippines today and the 12th busiest website in the world; 60 million members and counting) and started typing names of old friends and acquaintances.

I did find a few old friends but most of them were private profiles (meaning you should be on their list of their Frienster friends to be able to view their profile. I even saw an account of an old friend which primary photo was the photo she gave me. I don’t know, I felt offended and dismayed when I saw it because when she handed me that photo, I was made to believe that it would be exclusively my property. Paano ko pa ngayon maibebenta sa eBay ‘yong litrato na ‘yon, e, nakita na ng buong mundo? Oh, well.

My niece suggested that I create an account (it didn’t have to be an elaborate one, my niece said) so I could send them messages. A good idea but ever the procrastinator that I am, I have yet to create an account until now. But is having a Friendster account now a necessity in your life? I sought the advice of one of my gifted friends who has five Friendster accounts (three of them are Fakesters, meaning they have fake boastful profiles) and he sent me the following list through email:

TOP TEN REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE A FRIENDSTER ACCOUNT:

10. Maria Ozawa has a Friendster account. Imagine, Maria adding you as a friend and getting a message from her and updating you on her career. You can send her a message and tell her how you love her latest film and that you’re wondering why she’s yet to be nominated in Oscars when everyone knows she’s a far better actress than Lindsay Lohan.

9. You can show off and tell the world how great you are and how fat your bank accounts are and that you’re driving a Ferrari.

8. You can lie about your personality and appearance and easily get away with it. You can tell everyone that you’re a goodlooking twenty five year old alpha male when in fact you’re a sixty two year old DOM afflicted with emphysema.

7. It can be a good stress-reliever. You can pour your angsts here. Put a picture of an angry Hitler as your primary photo and tell the world how you wish he was your father and that your most ardent dream is to create another holocaust.

6. You can have all kinds of friends in an instant. Psychos, loonies, whores, genuises, kind-hearted, con artists, etc.

5. You can find a girlfriend/boyfriend here. My friend already did. It’s just a little sad that she’s anorexic and has a severe hearing defect. “Pero malambing siya, she’s very sweet,” my friend told me. “Kaya lang, kailangan, may hawak lagi akong megaphone ‘pag kausap ko siya.”

4. You can show the world how crazy you are and the potential of you landing a gig in a mental institution or becoming a serial killer is huge.

3. If you’re jobless, ‘di ka mabuburyong because Friendster can keep you busy. Add friends everyday, upload photos every now and then, add gadgets, change the songs in your playlist. When somebody asks you why you’re jobless, you can tell them that you’re so busy with Friendster that you don’t have time to look for a work.

2. Bill Gates has around twenty Friendster accounts. Okay, all these are probably fake. But what if one of these accounts is really his? You can send him a message and ask for a loan, he’s a philantropist, they say. Or you can tell him about your business proposal or you can castigate him and tell him that you find it sick that he has these oodles and oodles of money when all over the world, lots of people are dying of hunger.

And the number one reason why you should create an account in Friendster, according to my friend, is:

1. God and Jesus Christ have numerous Friendster accounts. Sending them a message through their friendster account is much better than praying, my friend said. “I think they check their friendster regularly,” said my friend. “Whenever I would check their profiles, I would always see that their last log-in was within twenty-four hours.”

I immediately sent a reply to my friend and told him that he’s crazy and that his soul has a great chance of rotting in hell if he’d not delete all his fake Friendster accounts and if he’d not stop telling everybody that he had been receiving messages from God through his Friendster. “For Christ’s sake, you’re not a visionary! You can’t perform a miracle and heal your girlfriend’s hearing defect. Bring him to an EENT doctor. And ask her to eat more. Kids think she’s a kite, ” I told him.

"Ba't ayaw mo 'kong i-add?"