MetaFilter posts tagged with friends

Data Science of the Facebook World

reenum — Mon, 06 May 2013 09:03:58 -0800

Stephen Wolfram used the data provided by Facebook users to do some demographic analysis.

The Ben Franklin Effect; both not, and totally Rule 34 applicable.

quin — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 09:18:15 -0800

The entertaining youtube channel Vsauce takes an interesting look at The Science of the Friend Zone. [via]

Now all they need is a replica of "The Wire"

vidur — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:39:43 -0800

"Almost a decade since the end of the hit American TV series Friends, the show — and, in particular, the fictitious Central Perk cafe, where much of the action took place — is enjoying an afterlife in China's capital, Beijing. Here, the show that chronicled the exploits of New York City pals Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe and Joey is almost seen as a lifestyle guide."

Could I BE having any less sex?

crossoverman — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:13:44 -0800

The One Where Someone Calculated How Many People The Friends Slept With and a graph. (via)

Inspiring story of how an online forum brought out the best in people

Blake — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 06:48:17 -0800

This youtube video explains VENGEANCE - The Story of Curmudgeon's Revenge: Members of a forum for Jeep JK Wrangler owners came together for one of their own in a quite extraordinary way. When it became clear that one of their original members was losing his battle with cancer several members flew from all around the country to his house, bought his jeep, drove it across the country, and then spent almost a year converting it from a Jeep into something they call VENGEANCE, "A Badass 2-Door Jeep JK Wrangler Worthy of its Name". Now they're auctioning it to raise money so his daughter can go to college.

"Which is another way of saying that Facebook is George Costanza's worst nightmare: It enforces, second by second, the collision of worlds."

flex — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:54:43 -0800

Are Your Facebook Friends Stressing You Out? (Yes.) - "The finding, which is similar to one determined last year, is nice as a headline: It's both unexpected (friends! stressing you out! ha!) and ironic (the currency of the social web, taking value rather than adding it!). What's interesting, though, is the why of the matter: the idea that, the report theorizes, the wider your Facebook network, the more likely it is that something you say or do on the site will end up offending one of that network's members... Unsurprisingly, per the study's survey of more than 300 Facebook users, 'adding employers or parents resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety.'"

Facebook's power, and its curse, is this holistic treatment of personhood. All the careful tailoring we do to ourselves (and to our selves) -- to be, say, professional in one context and whimsical in the other -- dissolves in the simmering singularity of the Facebook timeline. The circumstantially mediated relationships typical of IRL interactions -- you see your boss at work, your friend after work, your mother-in-law at Thanksgiving -- are mediated instead by one overarching, and overpowering, circumstance: Facebook. Suddenly, Work You is the same as Family You is the same as Friend You (is the same as Gym You is the same as Cooking Class You is the same as Trip to Thailand You is the same as Road Trip You is the same as Words With Friends You is the same as Happy Hour You). The You itself -- which is to say, you yourself -- gets flattened, condensed, homogenized. Contextual personhood gives way to comprehensive personhood. You become, for better or for worse, universal. Which: stressful! Because, as liberating as it is to erase the divides that separate formerly fractured identities -- as nice in theory and in practice as it is to live an all-purpose, one-size-fits-all existence -- the mingling comes with costs.

*Michael Zimmer - Facebook's Zuckerberg: "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity" *Steve Cheney - How Facebook is killing your authenticity *Kieran Healy - Actually, having one identity for yourself is a Breaching Experiment previously on MeFi *The Five Stages of Facebook Grief: "Facebook's popularity is based on the reality that human beings are social creatures. Staying connected with people we know is innate to us. But maintaining separate social groups that we don't want to clash is also innate." *Redefining the you that is you: You Are Not Your Name and Photo: A Call to Re-Imagine Identity.

the intersection of social media and sharing political opinions

flex — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:10:18 -0800

I Want To Talk About Politics On Facebook vs. Get Out Of My Facebook, Politics: two arguments for and against using social media to share political opinions (presented on Thought Catalog) From the first piece ("for"):

This is why the whole grand exasperation with the discussion of politics on Facebook absolutely baffles me. People telling others to shut up about their political views on Facebook are legislating how others use the service, yeah. Abstain from the dialogue or hide it if you’re not interested, but handing out dictums through image macros or impassioned essays is weird, dude. It’s especially weird given that we’re all self-governed in our use of this platform — it is all voluntary. And yet I’m supposed to allow access to myself, my whims, the pictures of me hugging my friends and pets, my often-personal interactions with my real-world friends, my boyfriend, whatever, to people who are so offended by my values that they don’t even want me to talk about them in my own domain? Really, dude? You’re “friends” with someone such that you desire this voyeuristic access to their life, or assume they should desire to see yours — yet you disagree so deeply with them expressing their feelings on issues of national and international concern that you want them to shut up? If their views on core human issues stand in such offensive polarity to yours, why are you going to be “friends”? It’s considered impolite to discuss controversial issues in a casual public setting without invitation. You wouldn’t attend a professional event or a birthday party and begin a debate, it’s true. But social media is designed as an individualist platform where people are allowed to represent themselves for an audience of presumed allies, and you don’t get to tell them how to do it...

From the second piece ("against"):

“Facebook is the perfect platform for constructive political discourse,” said no one ever. Like, EVER. Even Taylor Swift agrees. But really, the only political thinking Facebook was made for is the kind you do when wondering whether or not to de-friend someone. The only thing I really want to know from your Facebook is who you’re dating, where you went to school, and whether or not you got fat. I’m not interested in your paraphrased version of some article you read in The Atlantic last week… because Facebook is just not the place for it. ...“Liking” a political figure or someone’s comment is not the same as voting or forming an opinion about something like healthcare in real life. Facebook was made for broadcasting and disseminating likes and generalities… not discussing them at length. Everything from the small size of the status box to the caption under your photos is meant for brevity. Facebook is meant for generalities, not specifics. And unfortunately, politics is nothing but messy specifics. Facebook just isn’t the place to spout long-winded arguments and opinions. Logistically, it’s almost a misuse of the site, and aesthetically, it just looks bad to the eyeballs. In this same respect, Facebook reduces peoples’ opinions to dichotomies. Left or Right. Liberal or Conservative. Care or Don’t Care. With such limited space, it’s difficult NOT to sound politically extreme on Facebook. And to me, this is dangerous. Because, in real life, is anyone really 100% Left or Right? I think people and ideas are too dynamic. Not that we should all become moderates, or that I want to make a statement about party politics, but in terms of Facebook, this extremism makes it difficult to respect others’ opinions (especially those on the opposite end of the spectrum). Rather than emphasizing commonalities, I think Facebook highlights our differences with very little room for real conversation and explanation. And this makes it hard to have the kind of discussions necessary for positive change and improvement.

Look At How Many Fake Followers The Most Popular People On Twitter Have

adrianspiegel — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 05:36:44 -0800

We decided to have a little fun with the app and see how many fake followers vocal celebrities on Twitter have. "Earlier this week we discovered Status Group's new app that allows users to find out how many fake Twitter followers you and your friends have. We decided to have a little fun with the app and see how many fake followers vocal celebrities on Twitter have."

The One Where phoebe can't tell if it is even day or night because of all the crows that follow her everywhere

nímwunnan — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:52:32 -0800

Friends Reimagined #theonewhere is a hashtag that is increasing in popularity and strangeness, used by twitizens to reminisce about Friends episodes which may or may not have actually happened.

Dale keeps bugging me to be his Facebook friend

twoleftfeet — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:49:07 -0800

How to Win Friends and Influence People, published in 1936, (now in PDF!) is one of the top 10 best selling self-help books of all time. But some of the advice - Smile! Remember the person's name! - doesn't translate to modern social-networking times. The new version has been updated for the digital age, but may have lost some of its homespun virtue. The original 1936 edition was also updated in 1981; it was condensed and vaguely racist language (like this) was removed.

Profiles Redrawn

zarq — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 07:40:37 -0800

"Three days after the September 11 attacks, reporters at The New York Times, armed with stacks of homemade missing-persons fliers, began interviewing friends and relatives of the missing and writing brief portraits of their lives to create “Portraits of Grief.” Not meant to be obituaries in any traditional sense, they were informal and impressionistic, often centered on a single story or idiosyncratic detail." As we near the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the Times has revisited some of the people they interviewed back then, for Profiles Redrawn. Single page version of the article.

Friending Iceland

carsonb — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:17:54 -0800

Halló humans on the Inter-net. My name is Iceland. I am an island, full of mountains and glaciers and hot water and sheep and many nice Icelandic people, who like to make music, and who are sometimes cold. (Maybe you have seen me on your tele-visions, or your Inter-net.) I have heard that many humans use the Inter-net to make friends, and to talk about themselves. I decided to do this, too.
Iceland wants to be your friend. If that's not enough to win you over—an entire country who wants to be friends—hold on, Iceland has some more things to show you in favor of itself: Every Single Word In Icelandic Icelandic Bands That Aren't Sigur Ros A Blog About Iceland All this is An independent a social media project, orginally created at the initiative of the Icelandic Tourist Board... using nice people and fancy machines.

A semi-alphabetical listing of Black actors with speaking roles on Friends

nanojath — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:56:35 -0800

Initiating Calculations... Developing rhyme scheme... (nsfw audio)

A Year of Days

auralcoral — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:01:22 -0800

Two friends, 365 days, one picture a day: A Year of Days.

Our show's a hit, it's sh1t - you watch it anyway

mippy — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:13:07 -0800

The Adam and Joe show ran on Channel 4 during the 90s. There are many marvellous memories from the late-night lo-fi bedroom fest, but most fondly rememberered are their re-enactments of popular films and shows using toys. Kids. This Life. Toytanic. Shine. Se7en. American Beautoy. Saving Private Lion. Furends. The Toy Patient. ToyTrainspotting.

Faux Friendship: "…[a] numberless multitude of people, of whom no one was close, no one was distant."

the littlest brussels sprout — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:23:02 -0800

Faux Friendship traces the evolution of friendship from classical times to the modern Internet age. By William Deresiewicz, literary critic and former associate professor of English at Yale. (Warning: long.)

Do I know you?

Korou — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:11:48 -0800

What you don't know about your friends: The problem, [Francis Flynn, a psychology professor at Stanford] says, is that interacting with people and sharing experiences with them doesn’t necessarily translate into knowing lots of things about them. The main hurdle is the way we talk to those we’re close to: our conversations are usually meant not so much to gather information as to establish rapport and to bond - in short, to make friends.

The Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum

Joe Beese — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:00:49 -0800

The mission of The Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum is to preserve the history of the cultural contributions of Burt Reynolds. (previously) We are at 100 North US Highway 1, on the Northwest corner of US1 and Indiantown Road across from Chili's. (previously)

Everyone else has more friends than me, AHHOoooooo

ThePinkSuperhero — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:24:18 -0800

Everyone else is on Facebook, why aren't you? Not knowing the rules is not an excuse.

Sorry, We’re Booked, White House Tells Obamas

Quidam — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:35:13 -0800

NYT: "The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on Jan. 5." The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.” The Blair House, situated across the street from the White House, is the official state guest house for the President of the United States. Take a tour of the Blair House. Wikipedia. And where are the Obama girls going to school, anyway? To the Sidwell Friends School, apparently, which has also educated the children of Theodore Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, as well as the grandchildren of Joe Biden, albeit for as much as $29,442 a year.

I Am Not Tom's Friend

MiltonRandKalman — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:04:26 -0800

Will You Be My Friend [Flash]

I'm not here...

boo_radley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:29:44 -0800

I'm not here to make friends. slyt
via [NEGATENDO]

Moko Saves the Day!

kliuless — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:26:41 -0800

Dolphin rescues beached whales another reminder that animals really are smarter than you think :P [via]

Succeed Socially

TimTypeZed — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:04:36 -0800

Another weekend sitting alone in your apartment? Thinking of sending that two thousand word cry for help to anonymous Ask Metafilter? Maybe you should take a look at the advice at Succeed Socially first. The site is a series of articles from a guy in his late twenties who was socially awkward when younger, tried various ways to overcome his difficulties, and eventually found his own way of becoming more comfortable around others. Much of it is good practical discussion, free of both whininess and magic solutions. Some selections: How to be More Fun / How to be Less Boring If you're more restrained yourself that's fine, but it's not the end of the world if not everyone else is. Try to take yourself less seriously too. Don't think you're above letting yourself go and acting 'immature' or whatever. Above all, don't think being smart and mature, and being a fun person are mutually exclusive. Being able to joke around and have a good time doesn't cancel out or diminish your intelligence. When You Want To Do Better With People... But Not Really Another reason some people are down on socializing is because they're not comfortable with it. They may have some bitter feelings towards the idea of relating to people because of past experiences. It's easier for them to tell themselves that people and socializing aren't worth their time. That way it's not their fault, some flaw in the outside world is to blame. Inside The Mind Of Guys Who Are Shy And Inexperienced With Women The idea that if I wanted a girlfriend I'd have to actively work on getting one, or that I'd have to learn to cope with my nervousness wasn't on the map. Nope, I just had to meet the perfect girl under the perfect circumstances. The kind of circumstances where I would essentially be guided along by rails the whole way with no room to screw up. Social Skills And Self-Help Advice That Hasn't Worked For Me This stuff didn't work for me because I found it either too vague or too 'easier said than done'. You can interpret "Be Yourself" in two dozen different ways, some of them more helpful than others. And you can't just hit a switch in a your brain and be confident, it takes time.

Won't You Be My Virtual Neighbor?

amyms — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:06:44 -0800

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. Examining the social rules and norms, as well as the pitfalls, of electronic "friending" (yes, it's a verb now - or is it a gerund?). Via.