Are you going to Kate’s?

Missed out on Corey Delaney’s big bash? Redeem your social status by attending – or should I say, gatecrashing Kate Miller’s birthday party.

Privacy settings for the Facebook event were ‘accidentally’ left public instead of private, enabling guests to bring friends to Kate’s small Adelaide apartment.

At the time of writing this entry, there were 75, 014 attendees.

The brainchild of online prankster David Thorne, Kate’s birthday party is a political stunt against Facebook’s privacy settings.

He linked his twitter followers with the event and told them to “hit attend… and give the host an aneurysm.”

“While the entire birthday party event was a hoax, it illustrates the risks posed by failing to double-check privacy settings on Facebook,” he says.

Like one big inside joke between Facebook users, there are over 500 Facebook pages such as ‘A380 to get to Kate's Party,’ ‘I can't decide what to wear to Kate's party,’ ‘But Mum EVERYONE Is Going To Kate's Party,’ ‘Getting naked and holding glow sticks at Kate's party’ and ‘Which Turban should I wear to Kate's party?’

The Kate’s Party National Tour is inviting people party for real in their state’s capital city. They are also selling ‘I went to Kate’s party’ t-shirts for those who don’t know what to wear.

Here’s to David Thorne - viral genius.

Love, Noeline
xox

There in person, not in spirit.

Last week I went to a concert. The girl in front of me spent the best part of the show with her head down to her digital camera, zooming in and out of numerous luvos taken before she left home.

It reminded me of the time a bunch of friends and I went out, and instead of hanging out with the rest of us, a couple spent most of the time logging into Facebook every five minutes, looking at pictures of people they barely even knew. The funny thing is they actually updated their status about how much ‘fun’ they were having. Righto...

Which makes me wonder, when people change their status to express how they’re having the time of their lives at this or that festival, this or that party, this or that dinner – are they really just ignoring their friends to update their acquaintances?

Like when people have a photo album dedicated to the attendance of a particular concert, and all there is are 187 luvos taken before the actual thing.

And what about people with albums titled this or that birthday party and all they have to show for it are 981 photos that all look the same – photos of themselves and a few others in front of a drive way when the real party was going on inside.

Or when people pay hundreds of dollars in tickets and new outfits to go to this or that music festival – and all that’s dished up is 28789473487 pictures spread across numerous albums – pictures taken away from the stage, away from the music they supposedly love.

“The perfect example is people who take millions of travel photos and you wonder whether they saw anything or just took pictures” – Marie Claire magazine

There’s a mentality that pictures and status updates somehow quantify experiences into something greater than the sum of its parts; and that this is further substantiated by the number of comments it can attract.

Without something tangible to publish in the online world, how many people know I went out to dinner with my old work mates, that afterwards we had ice cream and girly chats over a harbour view? How many people know I went out with my new work mates, that we had a barbeque and went bush walking afterwards? You wont know about it through Facebook, but I sure had fun.

There’s a certain point where technology stops recording precious moments and replaces them instead. A lot of people are guilty of it. The rest are enjoying them selves way too much to prove it to the rest of the world through self-documentation.

Love, Noeline
xox

Photo by Aileen Apostol