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Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

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Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#91

Post by marvin »

kahawe wrote: post #66
antihero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF is this social hierarchy? I hear about it a lot but really it just sounds like hanging out with douchebags.

I think this is an expression that sums up how you view yourself in comparison to other people and how you think other people view and "rank" you. I can honestly not imagine that anyone has never had thoughts like this, so for better or worse, there IS something like this out there and if you need more proof then just think of all the brands and labels offering you mostly image and their name and a perceived step-up…

After a couple of years of trying to become more outgoing and understanding social mechanisms, I rate pretty high on this "ladder". But as a byproduct, I can't stand to hang out with people who actually seem to care about people's social standing.

People who care a lot about fake gimmicks like these (clothes, friends, status, power) are usually shallow, self-centered and insecure; the exact opposite of the people a self-confident and secure person would want to hang out with. It's the same thing when dating; there are a lot of semi-dishonest tricks guys can use to appear more attractive to a lot of girls. But the girls that fall for these tricks are rarely very interesting on a more personal level.

It's a mechanism that's cool to be aware of, but not something that any secure person would actually endorse. Unless you _need_ to interact with people like these in a professional setting or something.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#92

Post by GFischer »

kahawe wrote: post #66
antihero wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF is this social hierarchy? I hear about it a lot but really it just sounds like hanging out with douchebags.

I think this is an expression that sums up how you view yourself in comparison to other people and how you think other people view and "rank" you. I can honestly not imagine that anyone has never had thoughts like this, so for better or worse, there IS something like this out there and if you need more proof then just think of all the brands and labels offering you mostly image and their name and a perceived step-up…

While it IS a human-made fiction, the "social hierarchy" is not imaginary (as you said, there is "something out there").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stratification

It also depends on the society or country (ask Indians about it).

Defying/misclasifiying yourself in social hierarchies can end up very badly for the one doing it, but they can be succesfully hacked (like you mention, brands prey on that).

Edit: not only humans, other animals have social hierarchies as well.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#93

Post by mylittlepony »

transitionality wrote: post #87
mylittlepony wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the protection of your personal image. Let me give you an example: Let's say you are walking down the street, and I take a picture of the street (perfectly legal). But then I crop and zoom the picture to show only your figure, and publish it. That's not legal. I don't know whether it belongs to copyright law (I could imagine something like 'you own the copyrights of any pictures taken of your imag…

It's perfectly legal. Anything that's in public is part of the public record.

That's not true.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#94

Post by marvin »

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 service is not reflecting misogny. It's reflecting _both genders'_ values, expectations and prejudices. It is not an example of men's oppression of women, it's an example of screwed up gender roles. So in a sense it's even worse.

Okay, so this is somehow "objectifying" women. I might buy that argument. But what does it say about a society where men who are obviously more successful with women do better, both with other women and with their peers?

I think that discrediting this as misogny is missing half of the story. Society, both men and women, are 100% complicit in the mechanisms that make this service a good idea. Pinning it on only the men is dishonest.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#95

Post by wamatt »

elorant wrote: post #89
wamatt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pardon me, but 90% of people tell lies in their CVs (which also happen to be in the social networking space). Every single person I know who has a profile at LinkedIn has falsified somehow their job history, their set of skills or their credentials. So why do we take for granted that someone can lie about his job skills but not about his personal life? If people are so retarded to appreciate you more when they see yo…

>If people are so retarded to appreciate you more when they see you with a beautiful woman (instead of I don't know, judge you by your character perhaps?)

The irony of that statement just kills me.

As for CV's, happily I've never needed one, and am certainly not an HR manager, but I'd be most surprised to find "90% of people" merrily go around inventing full-on fictitious companies they've worked for.

For example:

While I accept your point that some may color their CV's... falling short, by embellishing one's previous role at a prior company, is simply not in the same ballpark as inventing a completely fake person that you're dating.

And for the record, the existence of gray in the world, does not give one a free pass, to simply proceed straight to black.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#96

Post by marvin »

krickle wrote: post #43
ahelwer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. And when these discussions on the internet happen in a vacuum of social studies or experiments it inevitably devolves into people dumping their half-baked post hoc rationalizations on each other backed by some crap anecdotes. It also inevitably turns sexist, especially given the issue at hand.

Ah, I misunderstood you. You're right that our own opinions aren't really relevant without a study.

Yes, and evo-psych is usually unfalsifiable. So these studies probably won't show up any time soon.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#97

Post by kahawe »

marvin wrote: post #91
kahawe wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an expression that sums up how you view yourself in comparison to other people and how you think other people view and "rank" you. I can honestly not imagine that anyone has never had thoughts like this, so for better or worse, there IS something like this out there and if you need more proof then just think of all the brands and labels offering you mostly image and their name and a perceived step-up…

After a couple of years of trying to become more outgoing and understanding social mechanisms, I rate pretty high on this "ladder". But as a byproduct, I can't stand to hang out with people who actually seem to care about people's social standing. People who care a lot about fake gimmicks like these (clothes, friends, status, power) are usually shallow, self-centered and insecure; the exact opposite of the people a s…

> After a couple of years of trying to become more outgoing and understanding social mechanisms

Could you elaborate on that or provide links, books, anything that worked for you? I agree with your view and I don't see this ever changing for me, yet I would still like to make these experiences for myself to be honest.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#98

Post by lhnz »

neumann_alfred wrote: post #88
neumann_alfred wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who with a shred of intelligence, and the same apprecation of females as human beings and persons as they have for males, would think otherwise? Why should a "hot chick" or a "big earner" increase your "social status" with anyone but complete schmucks? I'm honestly curious.

Correct but why make a principled stand on this? Those who wish to claw onto status will like you for this, and those that don't will like you for your underlying personality. The former are quite flawed but they're still people.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#99

Post by philwelch »

elorant wrote: post #89
wamatt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pardon me, but 90% of people tell lies in their CVs (which also happen to be in the social networking space). Every single person I know who has a profile at LinkedIn has falsified somehow their job history, their set of skills or their credentials. So why do we take for granted that someone can lie about his job skills but not about his personal life? If people are so retarded to appreciate you more when they see yo…

> Every single person I know who has a profile at LinkedIn has falsified somehow their job history, their set of skills or their credentials.

That says more about the company you keep than anything else.

Re: Website Sells Fake Facebook Girlfriends

#100

Post by return0 »

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…

You don't really need to blame someone, but if your life capital depends on hacks like that, then it's a sad life.

Tangentially, Michael Sandel's "What money can't buy" is a good book about the morals of markets:

  You could even bolster your online popularity by hiring 
  some good-lookgin "friends" for your facebook page - for
  99 cents per friend per month
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