If you don't get it, or if you think it's stupid, then you're not doing it right.
Seriously. Foursquare isn't about just getting badges and mayorships or stalking your friends. You can leave tips at places you love; when you go to a new place, you can check the tips to find out what is good there; you learn about new places just by seeing your 'friends' check in there; oh, and it is a great way to remember where you went last night... you know, when that is necessary (we've all been there).
And guess what? It doesn't have to be stalkerish. You can make it so your checkins don't show up. Anywhere. You can make it so you have no 'friends.' It can totally just be for personal use if you want it to be that way. (But that is kind of lame, in my opinion).
Anyway, I'm just sick of people making fun of it. Or making fun of me for using it. That's just rude.
Oh, and I'm sick of this guy who wrote the AdAge article How Location-Based Social Networking Gets Creepy. Basically, he creates a location for his son's school and when he gets dethroned, his jealousy gets the best of him and he does a little research on the guy....
"Turns out the new mayor, from what I could see, was a real Foursquare pro. He'd amassed more than 40 badges -- awards Foursquare gives out for certain behaviors, and in this case those awards included:
Crunked -- 4+ stops in one night
Player Please -- Look at you checking in with 3 members of the opposite sex
Animal House -- Off the Wagon Appreciates Your Business, COLLEGE!
Douchebag -- Doublepop that collar son
Hookup -- Two different hotels? This is Austin, not the Jersey Shore! (though you made The Situation proud)
Along with a variety of other Austin, Texas-specific badges. This guy was definitely a Foursquare playa. He also earned the Super Mayor badge as well, for holding down 10 or more of these mayorships simultaneously.
And of those 10, almost all of them were in Austin -- the only Bay Area ones (along with my son's school) were "Underwater and ON THE MOON" and Firefly Restaurant.
Oh, and his profile picture was not one to inspire confidence in a couple of suddenly suspicious dads. Who was this crazy, bar- and bed-hopping guy from Austin? Why was he mayor of OUR school?"He proceeded to look the guy up on Twitter and call him out, implying that he was some sort of pedophile or something. Ummm... inappropriate?
Turns out, the guys was a Dad of a kid at the school. Oops.
Okay, let's be clear here sir. It isn't Foursquare that is creepy. It's you. You got jealous. You looked this guy up. You jumped to conclusions. You are the creep.
Did you ever just think he liked Foursqaure a lot and checked in at a bunch of places, earning those mayorships? As for the badges..
- he could have gotten the Crunked just by going to four places in one day (even though the language says 'night', it is for a whole day, which is totally normal)
- he could have gotten the Player Please just by checking in with a group of friends (believe it or not, it is normal and socially acceptable to have 3 or more friends that are members of the opposite sex...)
- the Animal House badge is for checking in at three locations with a 'frat boy' or 'college' tag. Ummm this could be pretty much any bar, college building, library.... not that big of a deal.
- and the Douchebag badge is for checking in anywhere that has been tagged with 'douchebag'. Chances are, this was the same place that was tagged as 'frat boy' and college'.
- as for the Hookup badge, maybe he works for hotels. Maybe he was travelling. Maybe he was just checking them out. Maybe a million possibilities....
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