Many of us these days have an online profile.You know,those little things you put up on Friendster,Facebook or the likes,telling the world how superbly unique you are by doing exactly what a billion other people are doing.It’s the new trend,and like many new trends these days which keep popping up,like celebrity marriages, reality tv, celebrity marriages on reality tv, the Internet, SMS, teenage suicide, democracy, pyramid schemes and free porn, this one is definitely here to stay.

Everyone’s doing online profiles.A quick check on Friendster will reveal the profiles of high level politicians,even Dr. Mahathir!Of course,one must wonder whether he is getting on with age,as no one in their right mind would approve of such profanity laden testimonials on their profiles,and certainly not from fellow politicians,his family and his wife!Of course,one might doubt the authenticity of these profiles,as any Joe Average on the street can concoct such a profile,but who has time to spend mindlessly typing nonsense and putting it up on an Internet website just for laughs?

            But the one thing worth discussing here is the subtle and sneaky ways people have started to use profiles.Have you ever seen a profile where the user,usually a female and a good-looking one at that,deliberately puts up a photo of herself alongside her trusty female sidekick,who happens to be unfortunate enough to be uglier than the user.And the Good Looking One captions her photo as : ‘ Me and my cute/pretty/gorgeous friend!’

            My first thought upon encountering such a profile was , ‘Wow she is HOT!”.After the initial awe had died down,and I had cleaned myself up,I then began to make a more surreal and objective adjustment. “Wow she is UGLY”.And it’s not like I have anything personal towards the Ugly Duckling,as I myself possess the physical attractiveness and sexual magnetism of a collection of haemorrhoids,but the relative comparison of the two just makes matters worse for the poor gal.I mean,the hot one looks THAT much hotter when placed next to the her ugly companion,who looks THAT much worse.It’s like comparing body fat percentage between me and a pen.

            That is just self promotion at its sneakiest.Even Pepsi and Coca Cola wouldn’t do that.The best either company would do is just say “Here is our drink,it is the best in the world”. In all fairness,I suppose one can’t really say , “I am the best looking gal in my group of friends”,as that will produce a catfight even World War 2 veterans would fear to interfere,but still,how dare she?How dare she be so superficial and heartless?Here is a gal who obviously knows she’s good looking and she shamelessly introduces to the whole world her ‘cute’ friend who is as cute as my ingrown toenail!

            And the caption in itself is the most devilish and cruel of all.By referring to her ugly friend as ‘gorgeous’ ,and herself who is good looking as just ‘Me’,that is just rubbing salt,pepper,paprika, and industrial strength hydrochloric acid into an already festering wound.Just for the record,such a thing won’t happen to boys,as an act like that will be described as “Totally Gay’ and that message will be conveyed to the perpetrator of so heinous an act through the medium of fists to his face and knees to his testicular region.And who’s to say industrial strength hydrochloric acid won’t be involved at all?

            What about those people who are so full of themselves they actually put up photos of themselves which are so obviously Photoshopped to the point of absolute shamelessness.For many years now,young egomaniacs have tapped into the potential of photo-editing software to digitally enhance their picture.Adobe Photoshop for example,allows you to include special effects which may involve creating artificial lens glare,blurring or sharpening of objects,superimposing ,calibration of  the hue and tone and most important of all,removal of pimples.

Then there’s the poses they strike in those photos.Jesus tap-dancing Christ.I mean,the odd goofy pose once in a while is okay.Like when you put two ‘horns’ behind your friends’ heads.Or when a guy makes a face which conveys the complex emotion of constipating and herniating at the same time.Or when a girl shows her bra.It’s all okay.But not when you give a sideways glance to the camera and give a half smile as if you are good looking,with a face that is supposed to say , “Hey baby,look at me,I’m hot.Buy my line of perfume”,but instead shows your bad teeth and acne.Or what about those really really self absorbed individuals who take a picture of just their face,but THEY ARE NOT LOOKING AT THE CAMERA.Instead,they are staring wistfully into space,showing thoughtful and endearing emotions.I find that funny because,at the time the picture is taken,they are not thinking of thoughts like , “How do I end world hunger?” or “ I feel so…..philosophical today”.Instead what they are thinking of is , “ Okay,if I tilt my head this way and smile,I can hide my puffy cheeks and my 3 large moles”.

For all those below-average looking people out there,you know how when you take a bunch of pictures of yourself at all sorts of angles and usually most of the pictures make you look like rubbish,as in actual pieces of garbage people throw out?But there is always That One Photo,that particular one that by some stroke of luck and incredibly good lighting ( total darkness usually works for me) actually makes you look socially acceptable and you immediately think to yourself , “ I soooo have to upload this online NOW”.Would you believe me if I said that there are actually people who take 5018273017 times as many photos a normal person would just to compile a plausible amount of photos that make them look prettier than normal?If you don’t,then you are exactly that kind of person.

Which is a danger really.I once had a female friend named Joanne Low Yan Lee who for her sake of privacy we shall refer to as Miss X who had been going on and on for months about this friend of her friend’s who is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous,with smooth skin,anime-like hair and that dangerous,bad boy look about him.Of course,she had only saw him online on his Friendster profile and the only thing she knew about him was through his testimonials,many from girls who described him as “leng chai”,”sexy man”,”bootlicious”,etc etc,all bordering on the pornographic.

When they finally met at a gathering at Starbucks,Miss X nearly puked her coffee into her remaining coffee.The cruel irony was that this particular dude,whom I shall refer to as Mr. X instead of Justin Teoh Boon Chuan, had the complexion and skin texture of a rotten pineapple.His bad boy demeanour came from several years of evading the law while selling highly illegal yet very much sought after pirated porn VCDs.All his female ‘friends’ referred to him as ‘the sexy one’ out of sarcasm and out of the fact that every single one of them had rejected his advances.After her coughs and sputters,suddenly Miss X began laughing.I felt a bit disturbed,as clearly this was a bit rude.Mr. X was after all,a stranger she had just met.I reprimanded her for her superficiality.She then apologized and clarified, “It’s just so bloody funny ‘cause he’s actually better looking than you!”.On a totally unrelated subject,Miss X is from house number 12, SS 4C, Kelana Jaya and has a nose the size of Nigeria.

            I realize I may have been too cynical in my tone.I apologize.In all fairness,online profiles do have their perks.Like when I browse through carefully composed profiles,furnished with sharp editing and complete mastery of HTML,CSS and what not,all coming together to deliver a well-decorated and beautiful profile with flowers,confetti,animated testimonials,amusing GIFs,embedded video,background music,brilliant and interesting photos all categorized in hundreds of different albums,number of contacts/friends usually exceeding 300,testimonials,comments and notes from friends reaching the thousands and last but not least,lengthy and detailed essays about themselves and their unique personality and individuality.And as I browse through pages upon pages of bright colours threatening to blind my eyes and burn a hole in my computer screen,I can’t help but think : -

            Losers.

            If you have enough time to put up such a brilliant profile,then you have time to socialize and have a life.Go out.Talk to an actual living,breathing PERSON.Gossip.Bathe.Fantasize about the opposite sex.Do something you can be proud of.Many years from now,will you tell your grandkids,”Hey,when I was your age,I had an awesome online profile”? Or when you are lying on your deathbed,you ain’t gonna say , “Damn,I wish I jazzed up my HTML on my Friendster account”.If you got that last joke,you NEED TO GET OUT OF YOUR HOUSE.

            We are often called the Kiasu Generation and for good reason.We like to do it all,and then more.We tend to overachieve,which is a good thing,for it guarantees a good chance of success.Like when you study two chapters ahead of the teacher’s pace,or when you sit for 50 SPM exams instead of the normal amount of 10 or 11.However,some people have taken this concept the wrong way and applied it to online profiling.These are the people who have More Than One online profile.I am not talking about say,having a Friendster account and a Facebook account at the same time.I am talking about having 250 separate Friendster accounts.How many friends can one have?I once saw a girl with 2 Friendster profiles and her combined number of friends from both profiles nearly reached a thousand.Now correct me if I am wrong,but if you have close to a thousand friends, (that’s 100 times 10 for all you Arts students), you are either a celebrity,or have a very severe psychological deficit.Limit your number of friends to about a hundred or so.Pass the rest along to me.

            The other day I went to London to visit my friend,Selina Sharmalar Solomon of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College,UK (not her real name,course or college).The politically correct term to describe her is “Facebook Whore”,and I feel that it has taken over her life.The moment I met her for the first time in a long while,she immediately exclaimed, “OH MY GAWSH,I have not seen you for so long…on Facebook”.I replied that Facebook didn’t appeal to me,and she replied with the most dangerous sentence in all of Womankind - ”Oh”- in a tone that suggested that I had defecated on her bed.To fill in the awkward silence that followed,I decided to ask her about the virtues of Facebook : -

            “See see,it’s so cool,you can write on your friends’ wall!And you can also check ‘wall to wall’ and see what others have replied to each other’s wall!Cool right?Faster go write something on my wall!”And if you look at your friends’ photos,you can move your mouse over their faces and their NAMES WILL APPEAR!Cool right?And if you CLICK on their face,you can immediately see their profile!Cool right?And look look,you can give gifts to your friends! *moves mouse pointer over a Teddy Bear icon the size of a thumbnail*.If you click here,your friend will receive the gift!Cool right?And if you want someone’s attention,you can poke that person!Cool right?See,this fella has poked me.So I will poke him back.I tell you,I have been poked by him and his friends for like,50 times last week.I better go mention that on his wall.Cool right?Hey,it’s already 5am in the morning,and you’re sitting with me learning all about Facebook!Let’s post a note about that,and let me change my status to :’Teaching an ignorant friend about Facebook’.Cool right?

            Another interesting experience I had was when I met this girl at a random motivational seminar.During the seminar we were separated into groups for our workshops,and we got to talking.Nothing out of the ordinary,just normal conversation.After the seminar,I went home for dinner and after which I went online,fulfilling my daily fix of Net surfing.When I got to my Friendster account,lo and behold,there was already a friend request from that girl.Which was kinda odd and quick too.I would have thought she was a stalker if I were good looking.I approved the friend request,because that is part of the unspoken Friendster rules.You ALWAYS approve a friend request,even if that ‘friend’ is someone you really hate or is a known rapist.At around midnight,I got an email telling me that there was already a testimonial for me from that girl!At this point,all clues led to her being an actual stalker.Upon reading that e-mail,I swear,I got in front of the mirror and examined myself.”Hmm,maybe I have lost a bit of weight”.I then got to the testimonial for me,which was rather disappointing as it contained vague words like ‘friendly’, ‘nice’ and phrases like ‘had fun together’ and ‘pleasure to meet you’.That testimonial could have been written for anybody.And then I got to the last sentence of the testimonial which was : “Make sure you write a testimonial for me too okay?”

            To this day,I remember NOTHING about that girl other than her testimonial,who obviously is a testimonial collector.I then browsed her profile and read the testimonials she had written for other people,and there was the truth for those who bothered to look : -Her testimonials for almost half of her ‘friends’ were the one and the the same,verbatim right down to the last request for a testimonial for her.I felt kinda sad because well…apparently I DIDN’T lose weight.

             So my friends,the next time you go online,ask yourself,are you spending too much time on the Internet asserting your unique individuality?Are you gazing too often at photos on your friends’ friends’ friends’ friends’ online profile?Have you been wasting your time reading people’s blogs?If you are,then you need a break from cyberspace.Life is not lived in a world of computers connected by fibre optics,although that can be an enriching and entertainining part of it.Travel.Take up a new hobby,or religion.Sleep around.And once you have lived your life again far from the clutches of the Net,tell me about your experiences by emailing me,posting a comment on my blog,sending me a message on Friendster,writing on my wall on Facebook,giving me a shout on MSN Messenger,Yahoo Messenger and ICQ.

Or if you’re old school,IRC.