Social Net Worth
2007-05-04 08:32
Bryan Porter
Friday, 15:47 The Office
The first few bars of Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, which I downloaded earlier as a .wav file, ring through my laptop's speakers, alerting me to the fact that my RSS reader has registered an update on one of my friend's blogs.
I click on the pop-up that appears in the bottom right hand corner of my screen, my browser kicks in, and takes me to a note on Facebook.com: Nick's having a party on Saturday night. Damn. We were MXiting half an hour ago, and he didn't mention a thing. I click on MSN - he's still online, but no invite from Nick there either.
Friday, 16:21 The Office
I go to my Facebook page. Ah, there it is, an invite. Wait, I've got another one. Claire's invited me to a bash at her place on Saturday night too. Snow Patrol kicks off again. I'm getting some funny looks from people in the office, better turn down the volume. I click on the RSS reader pop-up, and find myself on Anton's blog.
Shit, that's clever. Anton's been invited to both parties too. He's posted a vote on his blog: Which party do you think will be more fun on Saturday night - 1. Nick's? 2. Claire's?
Friday, 5:26pm The Office
Excellent. My weekend's about to start. Before shutting down, I click on MSN and nudge Anton.
Bryan: What's the verdict buddy?
Anton: Nick: 33%, Claire: 66%
Bryan: I guess I'll see you at Claire's tomorrow night then?
Anton: Yip! See you there.
Saturday 02:34 My bedroom
This is ridiculous. It's just past two in the morning and I'm getting dressed. It started about four hours ago. I couldn't sleep, so lying in bed, I logged onto MXit. I met "Lover" in one of the chat rooms, and now she's asked me to MMS her a photo. No way am I sending her a shot of me in my boxers.
Saturday 23:23 Claire's place
The party at Claire's place is rocking. It started out quite awkwardly, I mean, none of these people have actually met in the flesh before. I've known Claire for about two years now. We met on MySpace, but we both moved to Facebook about six months ago.
Claire started a group called Cape Town sucks, where she bitched about how difficult it was to make friends in the city. It didn't take long for the group to hit 30 members, and Claire decided that the time had finally come for us to all meet up.
As I said, it was a little awkward earlier, but nothing a couple of Jaegerbombs and Tequila slammers couldn't fix.
Sunday 11:20 My bedroom
Ugh. Head. Hurts. As my eyes slowly blink open I feel the crushing terror of lost memory. What happened last night? My tongue feels like it needs a shave.
Sunday 12:10 My bathroom
I'm standing under the shower. The hot water's run out, but the cold spray is driving some life back into my body. Over on the counter Marlon Brando makes me an offer I can't refuse. It's my cell - I've got a message.
I towel off and see that it's a "please call me" from Anton. Code for "Meet me on Mxit". The guy is such a cheapskate.
Sunday 12:34 My bedroom
The dread is absolute. As my PC boots up, I cast my eye over the MXit conversation with Anton:
Levit8: Dude, u ok?
Skilkid25: Ja, Y?
Levit8: LMAO - U wer wastd last nite
Skilkid25: I no, tks 4 dropng me bac
Levit8: NP. Chk ur facebk tho
Sunday 12:38 My bedroom
Crap. I'm everywhere. I'm going viral.
I knew something was wrong the minute I logged into Facebook. I had hundreds of messages. Weird, because I've only got like 42 people in my network. I check my wall messages and there it is - a message from Anton. No text - just a YouTube link.
The player pops up and sits in the centre of my screen, after a few seconds, there I am, standing on Claire's dining room table, a bottle of tequila in one hand, and the SingStar mike from her PS3 in the other.
I'm wearing nothing but my skants, but worst of all... I'm singing. I didn't even know I knew the words to any Carpenters songs.
Monday 08:32 The Office
Facebook profile: Deleted.
MySpace profile: Deleted.
Blog: Deleted.
MSN Messenger: Uninstalled.
MXit: Uninstalled.
I think I'm going to lay low for a while.
Bryan Porter is not the guy in this story. He just knows people like that. Bryan is 24.com's lifestyle editor.
Send your comments to Bryan.
Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24.