Instead of browsing websites on information, many people have started browsing… other people, even ones they don’t know. I had lunch with a friend yesterday and was discussing social networking with her, and how we will begin assessing the mathematical relevance of a relationship using profile and picture views as a small part of the equation. She retorted “Yeah, but I view a ton of profiles of people I don’t know personally, how does that factor in.” Good point. It could either indicate a future relationship or it could indicate that person is popular or a celebrity in their own right. It’s interesting to use celebrity on such a small scale, but I think it’s important to acknowledge.

The daughter of the president of a local university here has a Facebook account. I talked with some freshmen at the school the other week, who were just brimming with the fact they got to see her profile, and asked me a ton of questions about her (I am good friends with one of her friends). These freshmen were using this avenue to get their mini-celebrity fix.

For a time I experimented with a celebrity account on Facebook. I was receiving thousands of friend requests a day, and had to write a macro that I would start before I went to sleep to auto-accept them all during the night. It was overwhelming the response I got from the rest of the social network. Even if it didn’t mirror the celebrity’s reality, I got a taste of the fan crush.

It is interesting to think of the idea of ‘browsing’ people in different terms than in People Magazine, for instance. How will the upcoming titanic proportion merge of media and internet change the way that fame is created, and celebrity is viewed by the general public?