FB Fair apps not lovely
By Techgirl

Sadly and foolishly, some Indians have an unhealthy obsession with the colour of our skin.  Even today, all things being equal a fairer Indian girl has a better chance of clinching the deal in an arranged marriage.  Meanwhile, our men folk can breeze through life singing: “Kale ko to kya hua hum dil wale hai’.

Now it seems that there are so many white Americans who prefer to stick with other white Americans that it may have been one of the factors in the downhill slide of MySpace which was once the dominant social networking site in the world.  MIT Technology Review is reporting

“
Did Whites Flee the 'Digital Ghetto' of MySpace?

A new analysis by Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd argues that Facebook's success is due in part to "white flight" from MySpace.

We were talking about the social media practices of her classmates when I asked her why most of her friends were moving from MySpace to Facebook. Kat grew noticeably uncomfortable. She began simply, noting that "MySpace is just old now and it's boring." But then she paused, looked down at the table, and continued.

"It's not really racist, but I guess you could say that. I'm not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever."
“

Recently, Vaseline India released a Facebook (FB) Application which shows what your face will look like if it is more ‘fair’ and by extension ‘lovely’.  The actual Vaseline cream promises that it ‘not only whitens your skin but is also designed to reduce 5 types of dark spots on your face’.

While much of the Indian media ignored this Vaseline Facebook application that whitens your photographs on the social networking site, the western media lapped up the story this week. CBS, CNET, AOL, AFP, The Daily Mail, Express, Boing Boing, Independent were among the more than 100 western national media that jocularly wrote about this Facebook software that makes dark Indians more fair.

What next?  An application for Americans and Europeans to look more tanned in their photographs?

And what if the Vaseline Facebook application has a bug or is hacked by a cyber activist who believes brown is beautiful? Maktoons.com and I wondered what would happen if Aish secretly logged on her hubby Abhishek’s Facebook account to test it out and the system crashed.

 
Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com