That's what FRIENDSTER'S for!

A few hipsters-about-town whose staggering numbers of friends and testimonials — a kind of online yearbook signing — could totally win them a spot on the prom court (if prom was held at an ironically cool dive bar in Wicker Park).

By AUDREY MICHELLE MAST

Like a relationship with Mr. Wrong, my obsession with Friendster — a web-based network for meeting friends — began as innocent online flirtation, a mere time-filler between lunch and class, to full-blown infatuation, to annoyance, to a kind of detachment marked by genuine interest in its social anthropology. (Who is this person? What is this thing?)

I’m not the only one with Friendster fever. Since its initial beta launch in 2002 by entrepreneur Jonathan Abrams, Friendster has become a phenomenon 1.2 million users strong. The premise of the site is this: build an online profile — your photograph, as well as a list of your favorite books, films, and music, and other interests — and invite your friends to create theirs. And they tell their friends, and so on. Your profile includes a list of friends, clickable to you and anyone on your “Personal Network” — all your friends’ friends within three degrees of separation. Your friends can write “testimonials” about you that also appear on your profile. Currently, with 34 friends I have access to the moody mugs and turn-ons of over 350,000 people.

If you need to get your groove on, Friendster can function as a dating site. Like Match.com, it allows you to search for new “friends” by their geographical proximity to you, as well as their sexual orientation. But unlike strictly-dating sites, Friendster safeguards against any potential creepiness through its vehemently unromantic format with a high priority on privacy. Users specify what they are looking for — “friends,” “activity partners,” “dating (men or women or both),” “serious relationship (men, women, or both),” or “just here to help.”

If you’re interested in someone — whether to date or simply shoot the shit about your shared passion for miniature poodles, Goth comics, or bocce ball — you may send them a message (which he or she views via Friendster and not their email.) Your friends may also suggest a match between you and a mutual friend, subject to your approval. A date you “meet” via Friendster seems less threatening with the accountability of testimonials. Unlike profiles on dating sites, Friendster profiles are bolstered by socially traceable evidence that they’re not a hermit or an axe murderer.

Although the possibilities for online romance are ripe and its non-threatening style certainly smacks less of desperation than the creepy drivel on other sites, Friendster’s primary purpose among the twenty-something creative set seems to be a sort of mutual-admiration society, in which members faux-socialize with each other, often among existing (offline) friends. Since you may only add a member as a friend with their approval (they get an email asking, “Is ___ Really Your Friend?”), Friendster has become a sort of online popularity contest. The testimonials range from good-natured ribbing (“I went to dinner at Bob’s house and he threw up on the floor”) to gushing mutual masturbation. (“Sally’s the cutest!” “No, Susie’s way cuter!”) My personal network, sorted by Chicago-only profiles, reveals a few hipsters-about-town whose staggering numbers of friends and testimonials — a kind of online yearbook signing — could totally win them a spot on the prom court (if prom was held at an ironically cool dive bar in Wicker Park).

And though it’s slightly more difficult to lie about oneself on Friendster — what with actual acquaintances backing you up — there’s always an undeniable crafting of persona that happens online. You scan in your best photograph — that enigmatic black-and-white one your photography-student roommate took a year ago, the corny photo booth pose, or your cutest childhood snapshot. You carefully consider what bands and authors you like enough to include in your profile, whether you’re going to admit (or gleefully advertise) your addiction to Days of Our Lives, or whether you’re going to smartly refuse to acknowledge you even watch TV. You decide whether you’re going to be sincere or sardonic, cute or cooler-than-thou — and whether to acknowledge the fact that you relish the opportunity to do so.

Of course, the class clown gets drunk and crashes prom. Not content to fill in the blanks about oneself and rifle through thousands of profiles, Friendster geeks, armed with the power of infinite free-email addresses, create fake profiles to bolster their roster of friends — thus their access to more pages — and provide some nerdy entertainment in the process. Most phony profiles are well-known fictional characters: TV characters from the casts of Saved By the Bell, Twin Peaks, and Sex and the City. Others depict cartoon characters and puppets (GrimaceTM, Miss Piggy, Inspector Gadget, etc.) and infamous celebrities. (A profile for Carson Kressley, one of the stars of Bravo’s new reality makeover series, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, appeared in my gallery the morning after it aired). Profiles such as these, which Friendster’s Chief Operating Officer Kent Lindstrom says are “a minority, but obviously a visible one,” are ones whose days are numbered. “As soon as we are able to do so effectively, it is our legal responsibility to remove copyrighted, profane, or racist content from the site.”

The truly bizarre, and most thoroughly entertaining, profiles are of inanimate objects — products, abstract concepts, and various other phenomena. I can become friends with Monkeypox (photo: a prairie dog), VicodinTM (a fashionable drug and a Friend of Grimace), BurberryTM (yes, the iconic British plaid), Trapper KeeperTM, and Meat. “As far as inanimate objects, well, they’re really not consistent with using the Internet to meet friends of friends, which is our core mission,” says Lindstrom.

The current landscape of Friendster may soon change in other ways. Though the site is currently in beta status, its enormous success has proven its viability as a paid subscription service. In contradiction to reactionary Internet gossip about that possibility, Lindstrom delivers the somewhat-relieving news that Friendster will always offer free memberships with limited features (inviting friends, communicating with them, and viewing galleries), and that a paid version, which will cost $7-$8 per month, will allow users do things like message people who are not their friends.

Lindstrom says the company doesn’t expect to lose any users, but paying for premium services will almost certainly slow its growth, including the scores of faux-files. The implications are twofold: Friendster will eventually pare down to an oversized clique of those who take it (semi-) seriously, and it will spawn scores of imitators. Already, Internet bulletin boards have been abuzz about alternatives like everyonesconnected.com, which has members from over 50 countries and has actually been in service longer than Friendster. Whether or not Friendster will emerge victorious after its official launch is perhaps less important than what it has already become. Snarkiness aside, it’s a place where people can actually communicate and meet others online in a World Wide Web full of sleazy chat rooms and overstuffed inboxes.

C’mon. Find me and message me on Friendster while you still can do it for free —audrey_michelle@bust.com.