I just Googled the words and discovered there is no such thing as a “friendsitute” and no such occupation as “friendstitution.”
However, I think the world’s youngest profession should be called those as the New York Times has a story today about the service, Fake Your Space, that will rent you ‘friends’ for your MySpace profile page for 99¢ per friend, per month. Dave Winer calls it a “fantastic business model.”
Key item in article: “MySpace and other social-networking sites appear to have no rules prohibiting Mr. Walker’s idea.” Why would they? When the goal is to generate more page views and get more accounts registered, why do something that would limit the site to actual people? How many people on MySpace are actually who they say they are?
Sometimes when I come up these words, I will register the domain. However, other than coming up with the term, this is one I’d like not to be associated with in on-going way.
Technorati Tags: friendstitution
February 26th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Truly bizarre… anyhow, if you applied this concept to the real world I bet you could make friends fast. Just buy someone coffee once a week.
February 26th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
This sounds like the modern-day equivalent of the nerdy guy paying the popular chick to go out with him.
February 26th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
[...] -The world’s youngest profession: Friendstitution [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Or maybe an NFL player’s posse….
February 27th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Terms people have emailed me (apparently they were too shy to post a comment): “friend pimp” “friend ho” “friend slut” (will friend anyone for free)
February 27th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Well, everyone has always winked at the phrase “We’re just friends.” So maybe this isn’t so new under the fluorescent sun.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
[...] I blogged about friendstitution, the practice of “renting” MySpace friends lists. permalink | categories: blogging, web culture | Time posted: 12:04 pm on Wednesday, August 29th,2007 [...]