OPINION> Commentary
Count me out of these Facebook invitations
By Jeremy Langmead (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-08 07:52

Do you remember when your mum used to warn you about talking to strangers? Well, nobody seems to care any more who they talk to and some of them are paying the price, particularly those who like to organize their social life online.

Last Wednesday, a water fight in Kensington Gardens, central London, advertised on Facebook, ended with a female student being punched to the ground after she threw some colored water over another unamused reveller. The entire event, involving about 250 youths, some brandishing knives, then descended into chaos with three small children nearby being thrown off their horses and breaking bones and nine people arrested. What fun that was.

And we all remember the teenager from Devon in southwest England, the details of whose party at her family home were put on to Facebook. Her parents were away and hundreds of strangers turned up, trashed the house and caused thousands of dollars' worth of damage. A similar incident happened to a 16-year-old at her parents' villa in Spain.

Perhaps some of you were caught in the mayhem that ensued when a party organized online invaded the London underground in May to mark the last night of legal drinking [of alcohol] on London's subway. The event got out of control with four train drivers assaulted, a police vehicle attacked, 17 arrests and six stations closed. Happy days.

While there is no doubt it's fun to meet new people at parties, the idea of an "invitation only" event seems to have gone out of fashion.

The problem is that we all want to share everything with everyone, whether it's a party, the fact we've broken up with a partner or the fascinating news that we're planning to see Mamma Mia! that night. If you're a teenager or in your early twenties, you no longer celebrate your birthday with friends and family, you share the occasion with millions on Facebook.

If you think that Britney Spears is being treated unfairly by the media, you video yourself having a tearful tantrum and stick it on YouTube (and get a TV show as a result, as happened in the States recently). And if you've smacked a Formula One boss's bottom, you immediately tell the tabloids.

Despite recent official figures for the UK that showed soaring levels of violence committed by under-18s, and more than 50 people being stabbed to death in London so far this year, a large number of Facebook users still remain convinced that the world is full of shiny, happy people who they would just love to meet. They don't seem aware that some of those flickering profiles belong to cynical, street-savvy criminals waiting for a chance to punch, rob or rape them.

The rise of the random meet isn't restricted to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. There are many women and men in their thirties and forties who are happily arranging dates with strangers they've met online, according to one report, 7.8 million of them last year.

A friend of mine, who has had a bit of a dry spell, recently discovered the joys of toyboywarehouse.com. Each night, she sits in front of her computer receiving messages and pictures of promisingly erect penises sent by horny twenty-somethings probably wanting little more than a quick, no-strings shag.

So far, she has hooked up with two of them. One was a relative success (although he had a shoe fetish), the other less so; he didn't actually want sex, just a friend. But thankfully, neither was a psycho and she was sensible enough to meet them in a busy bar first.

Some gay friends of mine use the website "gaydar" to meet strangers for sex or more. A few of them are now in happy relationships with the men they have met online; others have had a less comfortable time. One had to flee from a flat he went to when he discovered the bedroom was full of knives. Funnily enough, the knife collection wasn't mentioned on the guy's profile.

When I questioned one friend on the safety of turning up at a complete stranger's flat at midnight for a hastily arranged shag - there have, sadly, been a number of cases where these hook-ups have ended in brutal murders - he said it was fine if you went to their place. Why? "Nobody wants a corpse on their doorstep." That's a comforting thought.

Ironically, many feared that the birth of the Internet would lead to the death of the social life. A depressing future was envisaged where a generation of socially incompetent morons would be unable to interact with each other because they were too accustomed to sitting in darkened rooms in front of computer screens talking to cyber friends they would never actually meet.

In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The Web is breeding a generation that is too trusting of others, too willing to share its experiences and too eager to party with anyone who will come along.

The author is the editor of the London-based Esquire magazine

The Guardian

(China Daily 08/08/2008 page11)