FMyLife.com – new craze hits Internet
Published 04 April, 2009, 15:55
A controversial new website that started life in Europe is rapidly gaining popularity in the US. Fmylife.com allows users to share their awkward moments in life with the rest of the world, to get it off their chest.
The English version of the French ‘Vie de Merde’ website has become a sensation with up to a million hits a day. Now the site developers are thinking of launching a Russian equivalent.
If you got into an embarrassing situation, were humiliated, fell down, were dumped by your lover, lost your glasses or keys, feel like an idiot – FMyLife.com, or FML, is a place for you to come and share your story.
“Today, I was trying to get drama students to attempt to make themselves cry. I was not having any luck, until suddenly a girl burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. I jumped up to applaud, saying what a wonderful thing it is to have such expressive kids. Turns out her grandma just died. FML,” one user writes. Over 25,000 users agreed – his life ‘is f…ed’. 3850 said ‘you deserved that one’.
Another one complains: “Today, I found out that because of my high blood pressure I can't have sex for one month. My wedding is next weekend and the following two weeks are my honeymoon.”
One unlucky girl writes: “Today, I got into a huge fight with my boyfriend after driving 200 miles to see him. While arguing, I told him I never wanted to see him again and left after slamming the front door. I left my car keys in his kitchen.”
Is laughing at other people's misfortune really a good thing? And why is it so popular?
Maxim Valette, founder of fmylife.com says:
“It's pretty much like confession. So people in a sense confess, telling their stories of misfortune, and at the same time they read other people's stories and realize this can happen to anybody. It is more about calming yourself than about laughing at others. It helps by reading these stories.”
Ivan Zasursky, a media expert from Moscow State University, also sees nothing wrong with people sharing stories of their misfortunes. He says what’s important is that this site lets “you understand that you are not alone and you get some compassion.”
“When people get alone, much crazier things happen. People just kill themselves,” he said.
Russian online author Dmitry Glukhovsky is not so sure the website can become as popular in Russia as it is in English speaking world. He says it all depends on how you judge it.
“If you take it as just a reason to laugh at – there’s nothing bad about it,” he said.
”Russia has its own tradition referring it a very certain way to winners and to losers. Basically, Russians are quite jealous of winners and they pity losers,” Glukhovsky said, but adding that “if people want others to laugh at their misfortune, if they are kind of masochists – it’s their problem. But cultivating it, making other people laugh at others misfortune is not ethical.”
Meanwhile, not all stories are seen as worth publishing by moderators – only the funniest or the weirdest. The size of the text is also limited – it should not exceed 300 characters.
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