FormSpring.me
I’ve sat and watched Formspring come from nothing, and become mildly popular in 2010. It’s a a Question and Answers site, that allows someone to create a page that allows totally random people to post questions anonymously. Now instantly I could see that this was going to be nothing but trouble.
There is constantly issues with sites like Facbeook, YouTube, Myspace, where people are bullying, trolling, or just being tools (for one of a better term), however to be a mennace on these sites, you had to create fake profiles and email accounts, and it is time consuming. Formspring allows its functionality with no prior screening.
So, in essence, it’s a pretty pointless site. However, people start using services like this, and get people asking questions. The first kinds of questions you’ll see straight away, are have you had sex, or are you gay, pointless, immature questions that are only there to antagonise or upset the author.
What’s more frustrating is to see people use this service, then finally wake up and realise, hang on, this totally stupid and then start to bag the application as if it caused the bullying or harassment that went on. Even though the authors knew specifically what Formspring was doing, and not doing.
I like the following quotes on gawker.com
Formsping.Me should come with a warning label you have to check off before you use it: BEWARE. WILL CAUSE LINGUISTIC, INTELLECTUAL, AND EMOTIONAL DIARRHEA.
This is a dangerous, mischievous platform of oversharing that is, at best, indulgent, and at worse, the most self-serving experience one can create for themselves on the internet from every which angle you approach it. For the people asking the questions, it’s an anonymous comment box that they can inundate their interviewees with candid interrogation after interrogation.
For the people answering the questions, it fulfills so many awesomely narcissistic desires: you’re on a stage, you’re interested in by people asking the questions, or if asked about any number of various topics, the desire to feel like some kind of authority on something. At the very least, someone wants to hear something from you, and you get to sit there and think of an answer. And if there’s anything better than being desired, its having someone take some kind of interest in you.
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