1.3K views Dec 2009
A mock news segment presents Friendster as an ancient civilization, as an internet archaeologist explains its abandoned pages, users, and favorite music lists.
0:07 Last month, internet archaeologist Dr. Maxwell Fry stumbled upon the perfectly preserved ruins of an online community called Friendster. 0:17 Dr. Fry, good morning to you. 0:18 Good morning. 0:19 Dr. Fry, tell us about this amazing discovery of yours. 0:21 Well, it was called Friendster, and at its peak, it was a vibrant social network with more than 50 million members. 0:27 50 million. 0:28 That's right. But then, out of the blue, the civilization just ended 0:32 Oh. 0:32 and the site was completely abandoned. 0:34 Strange. 0:35 One day, Friendster users were posting a seemingly endless stream of bulletins about awesome parties and cool shows, and then nothing. 0:43 That is so 0:43 Total silence. 0:44 Eerie. 0:44 Today, the ruins of the site remain perfectly preserved as they were at the time of Friendster's demise, sometime around mid to late 2004 AD. 0:52 Wow. 0:53 Their lives just come to a complete stop, like a, like a fly trapped in amber. 0:57 Exactly. Yes. 0:58 It's really beautiful. You can see how much work went into it. 1:01 Now, you just made this amazing discovery just by looking through an old desktop's browser history? 1:04 That's right, and as soon as I entered the site, I knew I was the first human being to lay eyes on those pages in many, many years. 1:12 There must be so much to learn from the remnants of this site. 1:15 There is. Evidence suggests Friendster users or friends were as simple people, spending most of their time gathering the names of bands to display on large ornamental favorite music lists. 1:26 Ooh, I'm getting chills just looking at. 1:28 Birthdays were important to them, just as they are to us today, but they revered something called Six Feet Under, as well as the Shins. 1:35 They also prize photos of themselves drinking. 1:38 Everyone looks so happy. 1:39 Such a mystery. 1:40 So what happened to Friendster? 1:42 Well, no singular explanation is universally accepted. Some of my colleagues believe that a computer virus may have wiped out a large portion of the Friendster users, 1:50 Uh-huh. 1:50 and then the rest fled their accounts out of fear. 1:52 Oh no. 1:53 Others believe that Friendster was only meant to exist temporarily to fill a void left by another mysterious civilization known as All, or perhaps Aul. 2:02 Wow. 2:02 Now, if the public is interested, they can go to visit the ruins of the website at www.friendster.com. 2:09 All we ask is that they leave the, they don't alter any content. 2:12 Right. 2:12 They leave the site just as they found it. 2:14 Of course. Well, thank you, Doctor Fry, for being our guest. 2:17 Thank you, Doctor Fry. 2:17 Thank you. My pleasure. 2:18 Coming up, a new study has linked heart disease to eating like a big, fat, disgusting pig that no one could love. 
