Infiltrating Facebook

My best friend and I concocted a scheme. While I will not give you exact details of why we did this, I will tell you what we did. We infiltrated the Juggalo/Juggalette community on Facebook. It's easy to do. But what took me aback is how easily we were accepted and how quickly people were reaching out to us.

   If you are not familiar with what a Juggalo/Juggalette is - it is a fan of the Insane Clown Posse (ICP). A hardcore fan - the

This is ICP.

type that shows up with his or her face painted like an evil clown. The stereotypical member of this society smokes a lot of weed, drinks a lot of Faygo, wears a lot of black especially HatchetGear clothes, is obsessed with horror and murder and they say "whoop whoop" a lot and call each other ninjas.
   I like ICP, but I am not a Juggalette. I am a fan of their Great Milenko album, but according to my cousin (who is not a full-blown Juggalo, but definitely a bigger fan than I), everyone likes The Great Milenko, so that doesn't really count.
   But, back to the story at hand. My friend and I created faux personas. I was a Juggalette from Louisiana and she was a Juggalo from Tennessee. Everything was fake - pictures, information, email addresses - everything. We both did brief research on how the people communicate with one another and we struggled to replicate it. We both enjoy writing in complete sentences with proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. These people are not fans of that.
   When we got everything put together and made opening posts on our Facebook pages, we joined a few Juggalo groups on Facebook and started sending random people friend requests. A majority of them accepted. I did not find that odd. After all, I have some friends on Facebook that I have never met - friends through the blogging community. What I did find odd was the messages I started to get from them. One woman opened up to me about her slacker ex-husband. A man was telling me he was stoned. One gentleman asked me to marry him. My friend had a female messaging her a phone number, begging her to call. That was in less than 12 hours of creating the accounts.
   I asked myself what these people were thinking - telling a random stranger they met on Facebook such personal things. It's not exactly what I would call the wisest thing to do.
   The next day, though, is when I got creeped out enough to permanently delete the account. By this time, even more people had accepted my friend requests. But, the kicker was when I saw I had 300+ friend requests! I texted my friend and she was experiencing the same thing.
   "What have we done?" she asked.
   "We've opened Pandora's box!" I told her. "Shut it! Shut it NOW!"
   That night, both accounts were deactivated. And we both learned that some people use Facebook as a way to reach out to others and make a connection. Maybe they do not find acceptance in their real communities or in their families, but they can find it on Facebook. And they do not have to be Juggalos/Juggalettes. It could be anybody. So, take random friend requests with a grain of salt. In my opinion, if someone starts telling a stranger personal details about their life, they might be a hindrance to your life. So, if you accept or send out random friend requests, that's fine. But if the person with whom you have contacted on Facebook becomes too friendly too fast, it's time to close the box!