Stealth Social Networking and Being Owned

I sometimes find myself with accounts on services that I would never join on purpose. Especially now that I am pretty active on Facebook.  Facebook is insidious like that. I resisted it for a long time but finally signed up due to some work related thing and it has been an on again, off again time suck ever since. Which wouldn’t be so bad, but it keeps wanting to introduce me to its friends, the other social networking sites.

Generally speaking, I don’t click on anything on Facebook unless I know what it is. Because even the most benign things have a tendency to spam all your friends. Like the other day, I saw this bumper sticker app. Which, eh, not really my thing. But it did have the picture to the right.  Which appealed to me for a minute. So I picked that bumper sticker. Next thing I know my friend Barbarba Perez is posting to my wall:  “Sticker love” Arlene? Realllllly? Lmao…

Which is the point I found out that the sticker app had told God and Everyone that I was in need of some “sticker love”.  Spammed ‘em all, it did. I really don’t need sticker love. I laughed about it but I was just the teensiest bit mortified.  Barb had a sense of humor about it, but she’s a comedian. A sense of humor is in her job description. The only other person to comment told me that they would give me real love instead. Which would be kind of weird but she’s an older, grandmotherly type so it is sort of sweet instead.

So I try not to click on Facebook apps but sometimes I’m curious and figure I can always block them later. Which is what I suspect happened in the case of MyYearbook. I’m not sure why I might have clicked on that. I need another sound byte social networking site like I need a hole in the head. Plus it seems to be some sort of flirting/matchmaking site more than anything else. Ewwww.

I suspect Facebook and a late night had a hand in it because my profile picture from Facebook is the picture on MyYearbook and I know I only uploaded that puppy once anywhere.  I’ve been getting email notifications from it for a bit that I’ve been ignoring until I got around to figuring out how to extricate myself from the place. Mostly they tell me that someone clicked “Yes” on me. And then the email invites me to see if I’d made a match. Thanks but no thanks.

A little over a week ago I got a different email notification. It told me I’d been “owned”.  That made me curious so I clicked to see what that was all about. I know, you’d think I would learn. I don’t. I am a work in progress.

Apparently this site allows you to bid on a persons profile picture and then you get to virtually own them. Don’t ask me what the point of that is, I don’t know. My 20 year old son tells me that kids used to play some variation of that game when he was in grade school with monopoly money but he doesn’t know what the point of it is either.

So, some squirrely looking guy bid 74 dollars for me and then some guy who really needs a shirt and a gym membership bid 78 dollars. And then someone who claims they are named Ima Madeup bid 3000 dollars on me. Ima is a supposedly 48 year old male from New Hampshire. His profile is private and his picture is some bridge somewhere. I really doubt any of that information is true. Except for possibly the male part.

Next bidder, enter Jerry from Canada.

Jerry seems normal enough. Relative to how normal someone can be who bids on the picture of a woman he does not know. Has never so much as said hello to in chat. He bid $3,449.  Which prompted Ima to bid $3,966. A week and 13 bids later Ima and Jerry have upped my virtual slave value to $43,416. Jerry is my current owner. I am waiting with bated breath to see how Ima responds.

This has become a source of entertainment for me and the rest of the house. I wander into the living room and announce “The bidding war continues!” and they all laugh and ask me what the going rate for me is now.

I still don’t really see the point of all this but I think I will hold off on DXing MyYearbook until either Jerry or Ima gives up. Or when I figure out who Ima is and if I in fact know them. The whole obviously made up name and private profile makes me suspicious. But then, I’m suspicious by nature. After all,  Jerry is completely public about who he is and he doesn’t know me and yet he continues to bid.

Of all the things I could imagine the internet doing for me, I must confess, I never envisioned someday being virtually owned by virtual strangers. It is a bit of a trip.