Fans of irony must have loved reading the story Facebook? LinkedIn? Leave 'em to the riffraff. It reported people who see themselves as elite are leaving Facebook and LinkedIn to ordinary mortals and are “now looking for a comfortable place to mingle with like-minded people.”
Milton Pedraza, CEO of The New York-based Luxury Institute, a research company specializing on individuals with a high net worth, was quoted as saying that the “elite,” which he equates with “wealthy consumers,” have been reluctant to start using networking sites. Apparently what separates a person described as elite from the “average Joe” is a greater concern about privacy issues. A second difference is that the elite have their own social-networking strategies, including international meetings, company get-togethers and private clubs, where entrance is restricted to people of certain social or educational classes.
This is not to say that social-networking sites do not appeal to them; far from it. In fact, an increasing number of elite people love the idea of online social networking but have a lot more to lose to the kind of shenanigans designed to victimize lesser mortals. They're always prepared to pay good money to have someone filter their contacts with people for whom they have little time or use, and be able to feel comfortable without the great unwashed wasting their time.
It's not just about wealth; it's not as important as the ability to “be interesting and bring something to the table,” says Arya Marafie, owner of DiamondLounge.com, which has all of 150 members and has been shifting its emphasis from business networking to dating and fun. Unlike the open-door policies of Facebook and MySpace, DiamondLounge.com wants a slow and controlled growth, mainly because Marafie isn't relying on fast growth to attract the advertisers to ensure success over the long run.
Moreover, people are beginning to see LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace as a free-for-all. One way to get rid of that is by paying a fee, which weeds out the ones who don't belong.
Hey, this wasn't supposed to happen.
It violates the conventional notion of the socializing nature of the Internet, going back to that old New Yorker cartoon of two dogs on a computer, with one saying to another, “Online, no one knows you're a dog.”
It has been a meme among many social cyber-evangelists that the Internet will become a “democratizing force” that would erase the differences not only between corporate entities but also people. It was always a naïve concept, perhaps because in the early days of the Internet most people that inhabited cyberspace shared so much and couldn't conceive of any other people in the world. But it was so firmly entrenched that anyone who demurred and tried to point out the obvious — that all societies eventually break up into social strata — would be jeered for being a curmudgeon by, of all people, the very “riffraff” that the elite are now paying good money to avoid.
