We’ve complained about Foursquare before, but no matter how many times we block it from our Facebook accounts, it continues to show up.
On Wednesday, we stumbled upon an article from Gawker.com that caught our eyes: “If You Use Foursquare, You Are an Annoying (expletive).” You all can search the Internet for the last word; we can’t print it here.
Social networking is great; we’re communication majors, for crying out loud. We get it. The Internet is awesome, yes, but the problem with all social networking Web sites, not just Foursquare, is that some people think they are meant to be personal and that everyone cares where they are and what they are doing all the time.
This simply isn’t the case.
Even your sweet grandmas don’t care about everything you post, and never mind robbers. Oh, you didn’t realize that? Yes, bad people have access to the Internet, too. And if you tell them that you just checked in at your favorite bar, they might check if your address is available online — which we can almost guarantee it is somewhere — then they can rob you blind.
All of this is thanks to narcissism, self-centeredness and a lack of common sense.
“The lede in the Observer of the inevitable FoHo (that’s short for fauxhemian) backlash almost writes itself. ‘An increasing number of New York’s exclusive hotspots are forbidding visitors from ‘checking in’ on Foursquare to keep the hip locations secret and oh so fabulous.’ The article will detail how Paul Sevigny isn’t letting anyone Foursqure from his latest boîte, so that the unwashed masses don’t know how fabulous it is and come crashing into his velvet rope,” the article said. Now, we’re not promoting secrecy or snobbiness, but you also happen to be ruining our favorite dive bars and hidden coffee shops for us. One of the reasons we liked the places so much was because they weren’t constantly packed, which they may be soon.
So this is our pledge to you, students. The Daily Cougar needs not use Foursquare. If you need to find us, just shoot us an e-mail or call us. Nine times out of 10, we’ll be in the newsroom working.
