I am practically friends with Patrick Dempsey?!

There is the idea that everyone in the world is connected. The theory of Six Degrees of Separation shows that any person in the worlds is (on average) six steps away from any person in the world. Through a chain of acquaintances, you can have a connection to any person on the planet. I could know someone, who is related to someone, that works with someone, that they went to school with, who knows someone, that went to a party with someone, whom was eating in the same restaurant as Vince Vaughn. There is this network which links you to Vince Vaughn. People like to believe in this connectivity because it make one think that they run in the same social circles as your favorite celebrities.

I like to think that i could possibly one day meet some famous guy through someone i know. My aunt who is in the theater business has many actors as friends. So I'm thinking that one day my aunt will introduce me to to a Broadway star.

The Six Degrees of Separation theory has influenced our culture greatly. The advances in the Internet especially in Social Networking Sites have made for many different connections. Some of the relationships on these social networking sites are in fact true friendships. However on some sites, users are friends with stars but these connections are weak because what are the chances that you are ACTUALLY friends with a famous person.

RIP Kanye....NOT!

Ever since Kanye West's stunt at the MTV's Video Music Awards, he has been getting bad publicity. More drama has exploded dealing with Kanye West. Rumors have been circling that Kanye was killed in a car accident. This started on this hoax FOX News website, which then began to reach the twitter world. Feeds on twitter saying "#RIPKANYEWEST".

Amber Rose, Kanye's girlfriend has be denying all these rumors via her Twitter page. She calls this buzz about "not funny" because it is so hurtful to his friends and family, who love him so much.

There are thoughts that Kanye started this rumor, to create more attention for himself. One can read into this as simple Kanye West's pathetic attempt at creating an uproar, so that people can say things like: "I hope he's not dead" and then begin to write positive things about him. So sad. When a supposed rumor of this kind starts on the Internet it is very easy for a public relations firm to snuff it out in an instant by taking to specific media outlets (much like Twitter) to snuff out the lie. Even if he didn't start this, he and his people could have easily put out the flame before it became a fire.

Parental Control

I started a facebook senior year of high school because school was ending and all my friends were going off to schools in different directions. Facebook would allow me to keep in contact with my classmates and creep on how their life is.

My mom was not liking the idea of facebook. She had told me not to get one because their are a lot of crazys out there. She would tell me and my sisters that could possibly get our information and come track us down. But my mom is nuts! like really? Someone would go to all that trouble to find me, because my facebook was not that interesting at that time.

So I never told my mom that i had created a facebook. I would hide the fact that go on to facebook when in the house. So i took some precautions so she would not find out about it such as erasing my Internet Explorer history. Also, it was good to have the house computer hidden in the study room because one would always find my mother cooking something in the kitchen.

I went off to college, making new friends there, which I soon added to my facebook friend list. Then more adults started to go on facebook and create their own profiles. The first one the friend me was my aunt. I was really hesitant to accept her friend request. I thought it be weird because my college life is different from my home life and i was unsure if i wanted to merge the two. After a week with my aunt's request chilling in "friend linbo", i added my aunt on facebook but with a catch. I put her on an unlimited profile.

Then about six months ago my mom got a facebook. I was shocked and i would never have expected it. But she did not try to friend me. I think she understood that i did not want to include my mom on my facebook. But for some reason over the summer, hanging out with my mom, i found out she knew pretty much all about what i have been doing in high school and that the things i had put up on facebook did not offend or make her upset with me. So for the start of this school semester i had accepted my mom as a friend and now i am in a special facebook group just for the girls in my family (sisters, mom and aunt) to keep in contact with each other.

The Search-ability of SNS

The search-ability of these social networking sites is amazing. The fact that you can locate anyone through sites like myspace or facebook is so cool. I actually have an instance where the search-ability through facebook helped me find someone whom i've been looking for. So this may seem a bit creepy and i admit it but it really shows how easy it is to trace someone:

so this happened last year, there was cute boy who was in my finance class but i did not know his name. He seemed like a bro or hung out with that kind of crowd. I told my friends about him, pointed him out when i saw him at lunch but my friends didn't know who he was either. My friends and i went through a very complex path to get his name. First i went on the Catholic University (my college) athletic website. I went through all the bro-ish sports to find him or a friend of his. I recognized one of these dudes he might be friends with. So next i got the name of his friend and searched him on facebook. Luckily,that guy did not have a private profile. SO i searched through ALL of his friends until i recognized the cute guy from his profile picture. So i went through all of that on the internet to get this guys name. I told you it was kinda creepy but through the internet i was able to locate information about this guy.