It was in 2003 when I registered in Friendster for the very first time. I was in 1st year high school when I did it. My classmates were the ones who told me to register because, according to them, it is cool to have a Friendster account. You’re “in” if you have at least one. You would have many friends. Many people would get to know you. How you create your posts and status shows what your personality is. I got interested so I just did what they told me.
I was with my best friend John Mart when I created my account. That time I was still naïve in using computer. So I asked for his help in creating my own Friendster account, he helped me and asked for my personal details. I gave my username; “lhong_katorse” I told him. “anong password mo?” he asked. “lagay mo pogiako”. So he put “pogiako” in the password bar.
Walah! I have my own account in Friendster! Im in!
They were right. It was fun to have one. Just in 3 days, I already got, more or less, 200 friends. Friends, who could, at any time, look at my profile and see what’s new in me. I would check my profile every 2 days and look if someone is adding me or someone has posted a testimonial or what they call “testi” for short.
In Friendster you could also upload your photos. You can hide any folder if you don’t want others to see it, especially if you are hiding something. Photos that, you know would embarrass you a lot. My excitement pushed me to upload more photos. I made 5 photo albums including a private one. Inside this private folder are my stolen and ugliest shots. Pictures of my crush were also saved in this folder. So I made sure that nobody would see it, except me. Every time I open my account, I would always check that folder if anyone has opened and seen it. Kinda paranoid, isn’t it?
It was November of that same year when I got embarrassed. I got home early after my class. I went to the computer shop and opened my account. I got lots of notifications. Mostly from my photo album. I was wondering...