Are you popular?

I am a user of facebook. It pains me to say it, but yes, I have a profile and friends and silly pictures as well. I think the idea behind it is pretty cool. They have a lot of applications and things you can add to you profile like where you have been and your favorite movies. You can also add all your likes, join groups with similar interests and take part in polls.

I just added a new application to my profile mostly because I was bored and thought, what the hell? Well as I play around with it more I am just blown away by it and not in the good way. It's called Top Friends. It claims to let you select friends that you check the most and put them in a separate area so it's easier to message them, check their profile, etc. And it does this, but when you go to the application there is so much more.

Not only can you track your top friends, invite them to use top friends, and put a ranking to the actual top friend spot, you can also see your popularity. They give you a popularity rating based on how many people have you as one of their top friends. They give you the next level to try for, right now I Have a Nice Personality, however I could get bumped to, People Like Me, from there who knows! It actually says, " To improve your popularity, invite more friends to make their own Top Friends list!"

Now figuring that most of the people that use facebook are the younger crowd who are always trying to find their place and make friends, etc, I cannot fathom how this helps at all. I have to be cool in virtual land too? In fact I even felt a little slighted by the idea of an application telling me I only have a nice personality because I don't have top friend ranks with every person I know. Then I was like, what a minute, your a machine and I don't need you to keep tally for me to know who really likes me.

They also include a drink feature here. I don't know, maybe if you send them virtual drinks, they will like you better? But they start you with water, tea, light beer, and a strawberry punch. If you send 5 drinks, you can get the ability to send a rum and coke. I almost just want to bombard people with drinks just to see what will happen. I just thought to myself, "what kind of crack is this?"

They do have a neat feature of applying a mood which is basically a labeled icon, but it's cute, so props there. However I have learned that I can now keep a public record of who I like best if they are on facebook and have already allowed me to be friends with them. This apparently is how you become "popular". I hope to make my other friends try harder to edge their way to the top friends ranks. I can bribe my way to the top of my other friends lists with strawberry punches and tea. All to achieve some pointless ranking in virtual land. Yay!