SATIRE: You Can't Buy Love, but You Can Buy ‘Like’
I don’t know about you, but when I post something on Facebook, I sometimes get only one or two ‘likes’—and they’re usually from the same people: my mom and my wife.
Okay, that’s not completely true. My wife likes me in real life, but doesn’t really ‘like’ me on Facebook. Or is it the other way around? I’m not sure. All I know is that I can’t always count on a ‘like’ from her. As for my mom, she isn’t on Facebook a lot, and when she is, it’s usually to look at pictures that her friends have posted, and perhaps read a message from me: “Mom, I just posted something on my wall. Please ‘like’ it.” She immediately responds: “I loved it!”
Me: “No, Mom, I don’t want you to love it. I want you to ‘like’ it.”
Mom: “But I do not just like it. I love it.”
Me: “Mom, please just hit the ‘like’ button.”
Mom: “Is there a ‘love’ button?”
Me: “No, Mom, there is no ‘love’ button.”
Mom: “What is wrong with the world today that we’re not allowed to show our love, only our like?”
It’s certainly a different world than the world she grew up in. There was no Facebook and Twitter in those days, of course. There was no way to count how many people liked you—and if you happened to have a lot of followers, you put “Guru” or “Swami” in front of your name.
Nowadays, if you want to be ‘somebody’ on the Internet, you’d better have thousands of ‘likes’ and even more followers. And if you’re a bona fide celebrity— or consider yourself one—you’d better have a million followers or more. So what should you do if you don’t have enough ‘likes’ or followers? Should you quit trying to be popular and just settle for obscurity? No, not if you have a few bucks to spare and don’t mind having lots of friends and followers in Bangladesh.
As the Associated Press reported recently, Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is an “international hub of click farms.” A click farm is a place where people are employed to do nothing but click. Using numerous accounts and network servers, they will ‘like’ you, follow you, friend you. Their job is to make companies and individuals look popular. And it doesn’t cost that much, as I found out when I made a call to Bangladesh.
“ClicksRus. May I help you?”
“Yes, can you tell me what services you provide?”
“All services. You want followers? We can follow you. You want ‘likes’? We can ‘like’ you. You want YouTube views? We can view you. We are a one-stop Internet popularity company.”
“How much are your ‘likes’ going for?”
“Five hundred ‘likes’ for $1. All fully guaranteed. Money back if you don’t like our ‘likes.’”
“What about Twitter followers?”
“For only $10, we can give you 1,000 Twitter followers. And for $1,000, we can give you one million followers. You can be a celebrity.”
“Just $1,000 to be a celebrity? Wow, I love it. Wait till I tell my wife that I have one million followers! What about Facebook friends?”
“For $100, we can give you 1,000 friends. That’s only 10 cents per friend.”
“What kind of friends will they be?”
“We can supply any kind of friend. White friend, black friend, brown friend. Straight friend, gay friend, bi-sexual friend.”
“I don’t care about the color of my friends or their sexual orientation. I just want them to ‘like’ everything I post. Can you do that?”
“Oh yes, we can do that. You will be the most popular person on Facebook.”
“Even more popular than Justin Bieber? He has 62 million ‘likes,’ you know.”
“Of course, I know. We ‘like’ him a lot in Bangladesh.”
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