( ANNA TURNER I The Miami Student)
Great news for all you creepers out there: stalking just got a whole lot easier! Thanks to social networking sites like Twitter, Foursquare and Gowalla, you can track down your stalkees with "stalk ease." (Get it? Stalkees with stalk ease?)
Twitter lets you know what the person is thinking, doing, feeling, thinking about what they're doing, feeling about what they're thinking, doing about what they're feeling and thinking … Twitter is not only a great tool for stalkers, it can also be used as a vessel for Beliebers (Justin Bieber fans) to let the world know how pathetic they are. Furthermore, Twitter lets unintelligent people pretend to be intellectuals by tweeting about the meaning of life, the problems with society or why the flock people read Twilight.
But it doesn't stop there. Twitter is overflowing with tweets about relation-who-cares-ships, "It's crazy you can be so in love, you feel like you couldn't possibly love anymore, but everyday your heart makes just a little more room ♥," meaningless song lyrics, "Even if your hands are shaking and your faith is broken" or life advice that rhymes "Some people are busy talking, but I spend my life walking ........ Be part of the solution."
If you're the kind of stalker that wants to know where your stalkee is located at all times, Twitter is not always the best place for you. Instead, try Foursquare. Foursquare's most appealing feature for stalkers is its "checking in" interface. Members "check in," meaning they let everyone know where they are located.
Members that like to make themselves especially vulnerable to stalkers (easy prey) can win badges for checking in multiple times at a certain location. Easy prey that check in to 10 places win the Adventurer badge, 25 places gets them the Explorer badge, 50 places scores them a sweet Superstar badge and if they check in 30 times a month, they're considered a Super User.
The easy prey that checks in to one location the most becomes the mayor of that location or, in other words, a complete and total loser.
Much like the Girl Scouts, Foursquare members get badges for stupid things like going to the gym, finding photo booths or checking in at four different locations in one night. Unlike the Girl Scouts, they don't have amazing cookies. Girl Scouts: 1, easy prey: 0.
Gowalla is another site losing to the Girl Scouts (its lack of thin mints isn't boding well), but can still be valuable to stalkers. Gowalla users have a passport, or a log of places they've visited. These passports can be used to follow easy prey around town, tracking their every step. It's like a scavenger hunt, but you can get arrested.
Gowalla is more intense than Foursquare in that it allows you to share photos, comments and highlights from your trips as opposed to just "checking in." In this sense, Gowalla is a good choice for the more thorough stalker.
If you're more of a "hyperlocal" stalker, meaning you prey on fellow classmates here at Miami, you might want to look into MiamiStalk, or the Miami directory search tool on MyMiami. Once you can prove that you're a true Miamian (log in after searching their name), you can view your stalkee's home addresss and home phone number.
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What better way to weasel your way into his or her life than by paying a visit to Mom and Dad or calling sister Debbie up to talk about her middle school's upcoming production of "The Music Man?"
The Internet has endless resources for the dedicated stalker. So snuggle up to your laptop and shut out reality, because it's time to creep.
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