Remember the famous cartoon by Peter Steiner that was published in The New Yorker way back in 1993, the caption of which said, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”?  The implication, of course, was that no one cares who – or what – you are; you’re represented solely by your words and not judged by your looks, gender, race, age or even species.

The Internet has changed a lot since then. In those days, most Internet communications were text only (email, IRC) and even many web sites had few or no photos since picture files were large and took a long time to load on slow modem connections. Today, broadband is commonplace in most first-world countries (at least in urban and suburban areas) and multi-media is the name of the game. Some people still opt to remain faceless online, but more and more share their photos and videos with the public over the ‘Net with our friends. And even if they don’t explicit post photos of themselves, many will be “tagged” in photos posted by their friends or family members.

And social networking has greatly expanded our circles of virtual friends, as we “meet” friends of friends or find them through groups, fan pages and mutual interest resources. Search engines can help you find not just personal information but also images of the people you know only through the Internet. We’re a lot less anonymous than we used to be, and that’s both a good and a bad thing. With all of this interaction and information out there, we get to know online acquaintances more quickly and perhaps to a greater degree than we did back then. But we also give up a certain amount of privacy.

One thing is certain, though: in today’s social networking environment, folks are just as ready to befriend a dog as anyone else – maybe even more so. I recently did a little experiment: I created a Facebook page for my Japanese Chin puppy, Suki. Yes, I know technically it’s a violation of the terms of service, and I guess if they want to cancel my account (or at least her account), they can do so. But if they want to be consistent, they’re going to have to cancel quite a few other accounts, too. What actually inspired me to do it was a friend request that I received from another Japanese Chin.

So I set up her page and sent friend requests to a dozen people (including the Chin who had friended me). Well, I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Within two days, my dog had 76 friends. I know lots of people who have been on Facebook for a year and don’t have that many friends. And all but twelve of these friend requests were completely unsolicited. Wow. I have a popular puppy.

Many of Suki’s new friends appear to be … other Japanese Chins, although there is also at least one poodle, along with many humans who own Chins (or, perhaps more accurately, are owned by them). Even as I write this, the requests are still coming in. It makes me wonder if maybe people feel more comfortable asking to befriend a dog than another person. Maybe there’s less perceived risk of rejection. Maybe there are a lot of folks out there who just like dogs better than people (there are days when I feel that way myself).

It’s especially interesting to see what an eclectic group of people my pup has attracted. It’s different in many ways from my own group of friends, most of whom tend to fall into one of five categories: relatives, fellow writers, IT professionals with whom I’ve worked or whom I’ve met through the industry, cops/former cops I know from my own cop days or police-related groups to which I belong, and political people I’ve met through my involvement in municipal government and various political causes.

On the other hand, there are some similarities. The first thing I had to do for Suki’s page was go through the feed and “hide” all the posts from apps – Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc. etc. It seems that many of her friends, like many of mine, play a lot of online games in which my doggie and I aren’t particularly interested.

It’s fascinating to watch this as an “outsider,” seeing how something begun on a lark can grow so fast (and it’s a little scary, too). If this keeps up for long, my dog will have more friends than I do. I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

deb@shinder.net    www.debshinder.com