Caleb Booker

Prokofy Neva. What a character.

He and I argue about politics, social media structures, whether or not people should have a “no” vote, corporatism, and everything else in between. Prok’s word-fu has a way of getting under your skin if you don’t see past the feints and block the jabs, and more than one reader has gone down in flames. (So to speak.) There are good ideas in all of that, but you have to be quick and tough sometimes to get to them.

Prokofy’s latest: if social media of every kind accomodates a friends list of some kind, it should also accomodate an enemies list. Not just any enemies list, mind you - a three-tiered enemies list:

• 1st Tier Enemies - They write mean things about you, stalk you around the Internet, and stalk you at home. They research you in order to find new ways to say mean things, and spread lies about you too.
• 2nd Tier Enemies - There are personal issues between the two of you. They say mean things about you on their blog, and comment on yours, but they don’t expend extra effort beyond that to hurt you.
• 3rd Tier Enemies - These people are bad-mouthing you in private but publicly are nice to you.

Now, most professional social media people will be aghast at this idea. It’s so negative to talk about enemies, after all, and we want a happy fun place! This cements the barriers betwen the users and supports clique mentality!

Except… well, there’s another way to look at it too. By publicly listing individuals who actively seek to do harm to others, you effectively create a police blotter on anti-social behavior. Aditionally you can show WHY that person wrote that unusually cruel thing in the comments over there and advise everybody to take it with a grain of salt.

Can you picture yourself using something like this? Imagine having an “Enemies” widget on your Facebook profile or YouTube page. Imagine having a spat with someone and saying “welcome to the second tier biotch!”. Imagine being overlooked by an event organizer and sending them the quick IM: “excuse me? No invite = third tier.”

Personally, I think the widget would say more about the person who owns the list.

While some might really like the idea, I disagree with Prokofy that it could ever become very popular. There are a few things that will hold most users back:

1. Potential clients or employers would immediately shy away from anybody with that kind of widget on their profile, especially if it was well populated with names.
2. Griefers would rejoice and be encouraged by this kind of thing, running around the net looking for anybody willing to help them grow their reputation and doing the nastiest stuff they could think of against them.
3. Eventually, inevitably, you’ll have to face the realization that somebody you put up there in tier 2 or 3 really never meant to hurt you and that it was all a big misunderstanding. This will happen eventually, I guarantee it.

Having said that, I think it would be kind of hillarious to see this. Put it everywhere: YouTube, Facebook, Second Life, There, Kaneva, MySpace, hell even Twitter. It’s a drama-magnet.

I’ve tried writing a friends enemies list, but every time I think of it… I have to be honest, I can’t take the concept seriously. Sorry Prok… but this is what keeps coming out:

• Enemies Tier #1 - Satan (aka “Lucifer”, “The Morning Star”). That guy’s always on my freakin’ case. Blah blah blah I suck so bad yadda yadda, goes on and on about how much I stink to anybody who will listen.
• Enemies Tier #2 - Madonna. Ex-girlfriends, what are ya gonna do…
• Enemies Tier #3 - The Pillsbury Doughboy. What, you think I didn’t know what that little giggle was all about little man? Don’t act all innocent in that little hat with that little smile. I know you’ve been trash-talking me to the Rice Crispy boys… Crackle ratted you out man!

Posted on August 9th, 2007 under conflict, new media, passion, writing. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.