In the first decade of this century, before everyone around you had a Facebook presence, there was a popular web based social networking service called Orkut - I am sure most of you will remember. One of the lesser known features in Orkut was called the ‘Crush List’, a discrete feature that would let you invisibly mark your secret crushes without any fear of that person, or anyone else in your friend’s list, coming to know about it. You could add any number of people to your crush list at the same time, and also remove anyone you changed your mind about. The best part was, if and only if a person on your crush list added you to his/her own crush list, Orkut would immediately send a cute little poem as a private message to both of you, revealing that both of you had a crush on each other.
In other words, Orkut would play matchmaker for those people who didn’t dare to openly reveal their crushes. At the same time, the fact that there was no limit to the number of people who could be added to your list, it also gave you a chance to gamble a little bit and see if anyone you knew had a crush on you - assuming they knew about this feature and had added you to his/her list. In spite of being fairly obvious on the profile pages, this feature didn’t receive as much publicity as it deserved - probably by design. In a sense, that was always an attractive feature of the crush list. The promise of privacy was probably what made it attractive to many users; and before anyone actually bothered to expose its weaknesses, the platform itself wound up, or at least dropped from most people’s radars.
A few years later, Orkut’s popularity gave way to Facebook. The reasons for most people choosing one over the other is quite clear. A better user interface was one of the most common reasons, and peer pressure was another which couldn’t be ignored. For some reason, Facebook did not adopt the crush list concept, at least not directly. This was probably because its focus was more on people being able to broadcast their life activities and grab attention, as opposed to secretly harbouring crushes. After all, it has its roots in a university environment where people would want to get connected and know people better for whatever intentions. Secrecy was never at the core of the network - and even now, maintaining privacy is a continuous struggle, as most users would agree.
Then came ‘Bang With Friends’, in January 2013. The concept is essentially an extension of Orkut’s crush list, except that the intention of it is not just to reveal a harmless crush. It offers to take things a step or two forward, and conveys people’s mutual interest in having a physical relationship - often exclusively physical, private and with no emotional connection. The service enjoys immense popularity and that too supposedly among married men and women who were ‘seeking other options’. And recently, reports have suggested that everything that was earlier taken for granted to be secret are available for other users to read and judge!
That might be a painful blow for users of the service. How many people would forgive their spouses for attempting to add to their list of partners, whether they were actually successful at it or not? But the service itself has no grounds to complain. It took an old idea, brushed it up and added a few attractive bits to it. But when the privacy aspect failed, there is no lifeline left.
(aravind.r@newindianexpress.com)