Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends • Hacker News Board

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#71

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:06 AM UTC

kahawe wrote: post #70

DanBC2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate story is of the Anandtech forums, where someone invented a woman, sockpuppeted her on the forums, romanced her on the forums, got married, had a child (or she already had one?) and then killed them both off in a road traffic accident. ( http://web.archive.org/web/20010624115154/http://forums.anan... ) ( http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=275172 ) ( http://oro.open.ac.uk/647/ ) Fakery on the Int…

Playing devil's advocate here: Ultimately, isn't this like a form of story-telling? A lot of books claim they are based on a true story, faking the story online makes it feel even more real and as long as it isn't abused to extort money or post naked pictures... as long as it was just people's interested they invested in the story.. is that such a bad thing?

Story-telling is story-telling, you know you're reading fiction. This kind of thing is lying, and lies are bad, because they poison the 'great web of causality' and can do lots of damage in completely unpredicatble ways.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#72

Post by flyinRyan » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:08 AM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #50

hooande wrote: post #26

Social hacking at its finest. The benefits of a fake girlfriend go far beyond attracting a real girlfriend. Everyone looks differently at someone who is dating a hot chick. This could be just as valuable in terms of general networking or self promoting. It makes me wonder what similar ideas are out there. For the majority of people, social capital is the most valuable kind of capital there is. Facebook itself is kind…

>Everyone looks differently at someone who is dating a hot chick. How do you think they will look at you when the truth comes out? I expect the negatives will outweigh any transient positives by a considerable margin.

That assumes you ever get caught. Though I know of at least one public case where someone tried this and got busted, ruining his reputation, but the problem was he was doing all the content himself and doing it very badly. Presumably this place will write the content for you so you don't accidentally project yourself onto your fake girlfriend.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#73

Post by bambax » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:11 AM UTC

wamatt wrote: post #68

hooande wrote: post #26

Social hacking at its finest. The benefits of a fake girlfriend go far beyond attracting a real girlfriend. Everyone looks differently at someone who is dating a hot chick. This could be just as valuable in terms of general networking or self promoting. It makes me wonder what similar ideas are out there. For the majority of people, social capital is the most valuable kind of capital there is. Facebook itself is kind…

It's kind of depressing, that promoting phoniness and deception, is elevated to the top of HN as a cool 'hack'. Seriously? What ever happened to.. I don't know.. honor and integrity ? While not all are guilty, it does appear somewhat hypocritical that a presumably similar group, would grumble about the ills of Wall St. execs, and yet simultaneously employ analogous reasoning, just splashed with a little erudite colog…

When exactly was honor or integrity the norm? There have always been heroes, of course, but the reason there are heroes, and the reason we celebrate them, is because they're rare.

Besides, social interactions need some amount of deception; makeup is deception (and fake breasts, and hair dye, etc.)

Why pretending to have a girlfriend when you don't should be considered worse than makeup?

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#74

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

kahawe wrote: post #65

hooande wrote: post #26

Social hacking at its finest. The benefits of a fake girlfriend go far beyond attracting a real girlfriend. Everyone looks differently at someone who is dating a hot chick. This could be just as valuable in terms of general networking or self promoting. It makes me wonder what similar ideas are out there. For the majority of people, social capital is the most valuable kind of capital there is. Facebook itself is kind…

...up until the point when everyone keeps asking you when you will FINALLY bring that "hot chick" to the next party or meet-up.

[deleted]

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#75

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

wamatt wrote: post #68

hooande wrote: post #26

Social hacking at its finest. The benefits of a fake girlfriend go far beyond attracting a real girlfriend. Everyone looks differently at someone who is dating a hot chick. This could be just as valuable in terms of general networking or self promoting. It makes me wonder what similar ideas are out there. For the majority of people, social capital is the most valuable kind of capital there is. Facebook itself is kind…

It's kind of depressing, that promoting phoniness and deception, is elevated to the top of HN as a cool 'hack'. Seriously? What ever happened to.. I don't know.. honor and integrity ? While not all are guilty, it does appear somewhat hypocritical that a presumably similar group, would grumble about the ills of Wall St. execs, and yet simultaneously employ analogous reasoning, just splashed with a little erudite colog…

>is elevated to the top of HN as a cool 'hack' //

There's no "cool" rating. It's interesting, it's a social hack, ergo it gets ranked well.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#76

Post by flyinRyan » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #15

Couldn't this be done trivially enough by creating your own fake girlfriend account and commenting on your own page? Is that just too depressing?

Can you consistantly post what a real gf would post and consistantly post on both accounts without ever messing up? Lying on this level is hard to do. There was a very public case in the last year or two where someone did that and got busted doing it because he was projecting too much through her posts and made a few mistakes with stolen photos and so on. This site would make that vastly easier since you wouldn't need to worry about any of that.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#77

Post by bambax » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:17 AM UTC

h2s wrote: post #40

This is really weird. Everybody on HN appears to be praising this for the clever entrepreneurial idea. I'm kind of amazed that I'm apparently about to be the first person on here to call this out as a hugely misogynistic endeavour. Women should not be treated as a SaaS product.

This is not selling women, it's selling relationships. Fake relationships.

If it's wrong, it's on the same level as selling fake reviews for apps or hotels.

I don't think it will backfire for people using it, but it could backfire for Facebook.

Because fundamentally, this is spam.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#78

Post by Draiken » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:22 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #69

smokeyj wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can exploiting human nature be a positive thing? If looking healthy to attract the opposite sex can encourages people to work out, is that exploiting our "simple" sexual nature? To me, pretending to have a girlfriend seems as deceitful as dying your hair. Now, I've never done either so I can't say for certain. Furthermore, if your perception of someone changes because they're in a relationship, then maybe you should…

There's a concept called "lie". Dying your hair is cosmetics. Saying you're in relationship when you're not is a lie.

It's still just a lie. A cosmetic lie, but a lie. Are fake breasts less fake than a fake girlfriend? They're all just lies used by these people to get whatever they want from it.

Of course this is horrible, but it's funny how people don't think fake breasts, makeup or photoshop on personal pictures are also horrible. In those cases they are just tools, right?

Hypocrisy is the name of this age.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#79

Post by flyinRyan » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:23 AM UTC

goggles99 wrote: post #44

Am I missing something? Why pay $40 for this??? Cant you just do it yourself for free in about 5 minutes? You could probably set up a fake account with pics found online and have it all set up in less time than it would take to use this service.

There is another post on the front page of a guy who tried this and got busted. You're vastly oversimplifying how hard maintaining a lie of this level is.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#80

Post by neumann_alfred » Fri, Jan 18, 2013, 10:28 AM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #52

Kiro wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong. I'm dating a a really good-looking girl (11 out of 10) but this fact hasn't changed how people view me. I'm below average in the social hierarchy and treated that way so I would notice if anything changed.

Maybe you're not doing it right. A sloppy dresser will still look sloppy driving an exotic supercar. But a sharply dressed man will look so much more fly in that same car.

That still only impresses the kind of people who would be impressed by a sports car; the solution obviously is to hang out with more shallow people. Make 'em dumb fucking sexists for bonus points.