Reflections on Friendster, Trust and Intimacy
danah boyd
School of Information Management & Systems
University of California, Berkeley
102 South Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-4600+1 510 642 1464
dmb@sims.berkeley.edu
ABSTRACT

By asking users to articulate and negotiate intimate
information about themselves and their relationships,
Friendster.com positions itself as a site for identity-driven
intimate computing. Yet, trust issues are uncovered as
users repurpose the site for playful intimacy and creativity.
To flesh out the tension between purpose and desire, ireflect on Friendster’s architecture, population and usage.
Keywords

Friendster, intimacy, social networks, trust
INTRODUCTION

Intimate. Adj.: marked by a warm friendship developing
through long association (Merriam-Webster)
While intimate computing may connect people withmachines, the concept also has implications for how
technology connects people together and with themselves.
From email to SMS, Usenet to blogging, MUDs toFriendster, technology evolves to accommodate sociableinteraction and personal presentation of self. Yet, themedium through which people interact digitally is so
structurally different than the physical world that its
architecture fundamentally alters social behavior.
Technology does not simply connect people; it defines how
people connect. Consequently, people continuously
repurpose technology to allow for the kinds of intimacythat they desire.
In challenging the architecture, people’s behavior highlights
how, fundamentally, intimate computing hinges on issues
around trust.
1) People must trust the technology architect’s dedication
towards protecting their identity.
2 ) People must trust the architecture to convey theappropriate context and validity of information, while
simultaneously allowing for a variety of mechanisms
for social exchange, identity presentation andrelationships management.
3) People must trust others in the system to operate by
the same set of social norms and refrain from abusing

the architecture. They also want to be able to gage
reputation and contextualize information presented.
In order to consider issues of trust in intimate computing, idiscuss various aspects of the architecture, population andusages of a relatively new site called Friendster.
Fundamentally, Friendster was designed to allow people toarticulate their social networks so as to connect withpotential dates. Although social networking sites haveexisted before, recent commercial interest has resulted in
the emergence of a variety of new sites dedicated to helping
people connect to their social networks for dating, jobs,
recommendations and listings1.
While there are may ways in which people connect to andapply their social network, i highlight Friendster becauseof its popularity, press coverage and diverse usage. Not
only does Friendster’s service bridge the physical anddigital world, it has generated new vocabulary fordiscussing relationships amongst certain crowds.
Friendster is also valuable because of the increasing
tension between its architect and population, as users try topresent themselves within the system while the architecttries to define and regulate acceptable modes of intimacy.
MY PERSPECTIVE AND GOALS

In order to understand people’s perspective on andexperience with Friendster, i have surveyed or interviewed
over 200 people as well as engaged 60 people in 6 focus
groups on the topic. Given the popularity of this meme,i’ve been able to gather hundreds of comments on people’s
blogs and have actively overheard conversations about
F r i e n d s t e r in public spaces. I have spoken with
programmers who have scraped data from the site tovisualize it, as well as to those who have sold access totheir network via eBay. I have joined mailing lists ofFriendster fans and foes, as well as participated myself.
Through all of these activities, my social goals were: 1) tounderstand how people negotiate context when presenting
themselves; 2) to understand the network structure of how ameme spreads and connects people; 3) to understand theissues involved in articulating one’s social network ascompared to a behavior-driven network.

1

Old: SixDegrees.com; New: Ryze.com, LinkedIn.com,
EveryonesConnected.com, eMode.com, Tribe.net

WHAT IS FRIENDSTER?

Friendster is a website that allows people to explicitly
articulate their social network, present themselves through adating-focus Profile (interests and demographics), post
public Testimonials about one another, and browse a
network of people in search of potential dates or partners.
Friendster is built on the assumption that friends-of-friends
are more likely to be good dates than strangers. The site
was built to compete with Match.com and other online
dating sites, with social networks as an added twist. While
Stanley Milgram argues that everyone is connected within
6 degrees [4], Friendster only allows you to see orcommunicate with those who are within 4 degrees.
Unlike most dating sites, Friendster encourages users tojoin even if they are not looking for dates, under theassumption that they
probably know a wide
variety of friends who
are looking and, thus,
would serve as ameaningful connector
and recommender.
Friendster launched into
public beta in the fall of
2002. By mid-August
2003, the site had 1.5
millionregisteredaccounts and was still
growing exponentially.
Both mainstream andalternative press hadcovered the site, yetword of mouth was thedominant entry point formost people. It is
important to note thatusers had a selfish
motivation in spreading
the meme, as their
network grew by doing
so. F r i e n d s t e r ’ s
popularity is primarily
cluster-driven. Thus, if a
handful of people in a
subgroup know about it,
everyone else does as
well.
Yet, even with a word of
mouth network, users are quite diverse and their different
intentions and expectations bring a variety of challenges tothe site.
FRIENDSTER AS A MEDIUM OF PRESENTATION

Friendster asks users to articulate and utilize their mostintimate relationships, while simultaneously destroying thenuanced meaning of those connections. Additionally,
Friendster assumes that users will authentically define theiridentity via their Profile so as to ensure more meaningfulconnections. While a tool for people to present their most
personal selves and connect through their intimate

relationships, Friendster fails to understand that publicly
articulating one’s social network and identity does notprovide the same level of trust and meaning as the
behavior-driven offline equivalent.
Articulating a Social Network

In Friendster, one is asked to manually articulate one’s
network in a binary fashion: Friend or not. There is no
indication of what it means for someone to be someone
else’s Friend, nor any way to indicate the role or value ofthe relationship. While some people are willing to indicate
anyone as Friends, and others stick to a conservative
definition, most users tend to connect with anyone whothey know and don’t have a strong negative feelingtowards. Yet, this often means that people are indicated as
Friends even though the user doesn’t particularly know ortrust the person. In somecases, it is necessary to
publicly
be-Friendsomeone simply forpolitical reasons. In othercases, people want toconnect broadly so thatthey may see a larger
percentage of the
network, since users canonly browse 4 degrees
from themselves.
Because people havedifferent mechanisms forevaluating who is a
Friend, it is difficult togage the meaning or typeof relationship between
connections within thesystem. This inherently
devalues the assumed
trust implied by the term
Friends. In turn, groupsof people started using
the term Friendster inregular conversation todescribe one’s Friends.
For example, “She’s not
my friend, but she’s my
Friendster.”
Such an articulation also
disempowers the personpresenting their network.
As the hub of one’s social network, power exists in the
structural holes that one maintains [3]. By controlling what
information flows between different connections, one isable to maintain a significant role in transactions that
occur, and thereby control information flow. This is thevalue of a headhunter or a businesswoman’s Rolodex. Evenat the simplest levels, people often don’t want certain
groups of friends to be able to reach out and connect withothers, or for work colleagues to connect with personal
friends. By asking users to articulate and collapse theirnetwork in a public way, Friendster is also asking them togive up their status as a social connector, or bridge.
Presentation of Self

One’s Friendster profile consists of five primary elements:
1) demographic information; 2) interest and self-description
prose; 3) picture(s); 4) Friend listings; 5) Testimonials. By
providing both the individual’s perspective of self as wellas that of their Friends, Friendster Profiles are much richer
than those on other sites.
Yet, while a significant improvement, the Profile is still acoarse representation of the individual, which provides alimited and often skewed perspective [2]. It represents theindividual’s mood at the time of creation or update. The
Friend information is rarely updated and people only
remove Friends when there is an explosive end to therelationship, as opposed to the more common growing
apart. Testimonials are only a tribute of the moment andreflect the same type of language one might see in a highschool yearbook. Combined, Friendster Profiles and the
network fail to evolve with the individual, yet thatevolution is what makes one’s network so meaningful.
Additionally, context is missing from what one ispresenting. On one hand, an individual is constructing a
Profile for a potential date. Yet, simultaneously, one must
consider all of the friends, colleagues and other relations
who might appear on the site. It can be argued that thismeans an individual will present a more truthful picture,but having to present oneself consistently acrossconnections from various facets of one’s life is often lessabout truth than about social appropriateness [1]. Notably,most users fear the presence of two people on Friendster:boss and mother.
Given these complications, it is both challenging toconstruct as well as to derive true meaning from others’
Profiles. Without a sense of purpose, Profiles are quite
varied and creative.
FAKESTERS: BEYOND ACCURACY

From very early on, people began exploiting Friendster’sarchitecture to create fake characters, “Fakesters.” Threeforms of Fakesters account for the majority of use:
1 ) Cultural characters that represent shared reference
points with which people might connect (e.g. God,salt, Homer Simpson, George W Bush, and LSD);
2 ) Community characters that represent external
collections of people to help congregate known groups(e.g. Brown University, Burning Man, Black Lesbians
and San Francisco);
3) Passing characters meant to be perceived as real (e.g.
duplicates of people on the system, representations offriends who refuse to participate).
When creating a Fakester, users go out of their way to be as
creative as possible in articulating their Profile. Peoplechoose to be-Friend these characters when they connect
with what is represented, value the creativity of the creator,or seek to expand their network.

Passing Fakesters are intended to represent non-participants
or provide useful services. For example, a group of guys
created a fake female character to give them good
Testimonials and to introduce them to interesting women.
More problematically, some Fakesters are also created outof spite in order to confuse the network by having multiple
representations of a single person, fraudulently operating asthat person when interacting with others. Their venom isusually directed at Friendster’s creator, who believes that
Fakesters provide no value to the system. While he hassystematically deleted fake Profiles (“Fakester Genocide”),
Fakesters have started a “Fakester Revolution.” Their antics
include cloning fake characters and developing “Fraudsters”
intended to pass amidst the real people, often fraudulently
representing the creator and his friends.
The Value of Fakesters

The argument against Fakesters is that they collapse the
network, devaluing the meaning of connections between
people on the system. This, of course, assumes that the
network’s value is in trusted links and that a Friend of a
Fakester is going to be less trustworthy or compatible than
the real, but virtually unknown, acquaintance of a friend.
This also assumes that the primary use is in searching
through the gallery for potential connections.
Most users do not browse via the central searchable index
of Profiles; they navigate through Friends’ Friends. Thus,
they ignore Fakesters if they aren’t interested. Yet, by andlarge, most people love the fake characters. They become
little hidden treasures in the network and people go seeking
out the most creative ones. Fakesters that represent groups
allow people to more quickly find one’s friends andacquaintances.
Those who create Fakesters value the opportunity forcreative expression. Many also have “real” Profiles, butprefer exploring and relating to others via their masks.
Fakesters and Trust

While people love Fakesters, they also reflect thefundamental weakness of trust on Friendster. Is anythingactually real? Even Community Fakesters don’t
authenticate that the individual actually belongs and isaccepted by the represented community. One user told methat Fakesters were actually great because they reminded
him that nothing presented on Friendster is actually real.
FRIENDSTER AS A SITE OF CONNECTION

People use Friendster to connect to others for a variety ofreasons. Consistently, most users begin surfing Friendster
by looking for people that they already know, either
currently or in previous situations.
In doing so, it is assumed that there is value inreconnecting with long lost friends. For some, this is nottrue. One interviewee removed her account on Friendsterwhen her high school boyfriend contacted her – she “didn't
want [the] past dredged up.” People often link to thesefound old Friends, even though they may now have little
in common and cannot vouch for one another when friends
want to connect.

Beyond individual connections, groups of people haveorganized FlashMobs, developed private “elite” clubs andstarted weekly pub gatherings through Friendster.
Fakesters have connected in rebellion. In one somber
situation, a man with a Friendster account passed away inhis sleep. His unconnected friends were able to pass on
information to one another via the site.
Dating Via Friendster

The ways in which people connect for dating highlight thevalue people place in the network, and how they
circumnavigate trust issues in order to develop intimacy.
Hookups

As with any online dating site, people surf the site forhookups as well as potential partners. While the suggested
theory is that friends-of-friends are the most compatible
partners, hookups often occur regardless of the network. Or
rather, many looking for hookups prefer to be 3 or 4
degrees apart so as to not complicate personal matters. In
addition to in-town hookups, Friendster users tell me thatthey also use the site to find hookups in cities to which
they are traveling. This behavior is undoubtedly what
instigated the mock site STD-ster.
Who’s your Friend?

Sometimes, people unintentionally fail to introduce theirsingle friends to one another. By having a public
articulation of one’s network, it is really easy to look at
Friends’ Friends and bug the intermediary about potential
compatibility. While 3 and 4 degrees are often meaninglessto people, there is a decent amount of trust in seconddegree connections, simply because they can be easily
confirmed via a shared connection.
Familiar Strangers

When Stanley Milgram coined the term “Familiar
Strangers,” he was referring to the strangers that one sees
regularly, but never connects with [5]. Given additional
contexts, an individual is quite likely to approach afamiliar stranger. For many, Friendster provides that
additional context. In browsing the site, users find people
that they often see out. From the Profile, one can guess
another’s dating status and sexuality as well as interestsand connections. Often, this is enough additional
information to prompt a user into messaging someone on
Friendster or approaching them offline.
Commercializing Connections

Two users, believing in the value of their network, decided
to try to auction connections on eBay. In their ads, they
promised both Friendster and real-life connections to
hipsters, artists, musicians, record labels, etc. One was far
more serious, while the other was simply eager to make apoint:
Selling access to your friends network […]concretizes the commodification inherent toFriendster. […] The only real shortcoming is thatthe 'self' you're packaging on Friendster is a strictly
delimited individual - but when I'm selling my
network on ebay, the value is determined by myextended self, defined by its relationships andsurfaces rather than content - in other words, the trueme, in its full, fragmented, postmodern glory, all themore true the instant a dollar value is placed on it!
FRIENDSTER AS A SITE OF INTIMACY

As a site for intimacy, Friendster has complicated thenotion of trust. On one hand, it reveals one’s most intimate
relations, mixed with acquaintances, familiar strangers andpast associates. Additionally, the site tries to capture one’s
most intimate notions of self, but fails to allow theindividual to negotiate how that is publicized. Yet, bylimiting access to those within 4 degrees, Friendster
implies that a user’s visibility is only available to trusted
connections.
Friendster fails to realize that the trust implied in one’ssocial network cannot be easily imported into a spacemodeled on performed identity and publicly articulatedsocial networks. Yet, the site is ill-equipped to handle how
people might connect via this new architecture.
Fakesters have created a playful space to explore identity
and relations beyond authentication. Of course, this further
highlights weaknesses of trusting articulated selves.
Although intended to alleviate the blatant devaluing of
connections, Friendster’s “Fakester genocide” is seen as
squashing creativity and trying to control the ways inwhich people regulate privacy, relationships, and self, so as
to protect themselves in a public space.
As we think about intimate (ubiquitous) computing, wemust reflect on how architectural changes fundamentally
alter the ways in which people connect socially. While
simply trying to help people connect in a more efficientand meaningful manner, Friendster has inadvertently
uncovered a hornet’s nest around articulated public identity,
reshaped how groups of people verbally identify
relationships, and solidified the importance of creative playin social interaction. Yet, amidst the confusion, intimacy
flourishes, although often in unexpected forms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Peter Lyman and Scott Lederer for support, all
Fakesters and Realsters for their stories, and Tribe.net,
KRD, and Washington Post for funding the focus groups.
REFERENCES

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3. Burt, R.S. Structural Holes: The Social Structure ofCompetition. Harvard University Press, 1995.
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Today, 6 (1967), 1:62-67.
5. Milgram, S. The Familiar Stranger: An Aspect ofUrban Anonymity. The Individual in a Social World.
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