I feel really preachy, writing this, but I still feel like it needs to be written.
When I click on an FFnet user’s profile, I typically take a look at the scroll bar on my screen’s left hand side. Most of the time it’s tiny, indicating that the user either has a hundred stories posted, or has been posting “I’m one of the 2% of teens that doesn’t smoke pot”-type of chain junk until their profile says nothing more about them other than how they like to copy stuff from other people. It’s usually the latter scenario, and to be perfectly honest, I usually don’t even give that stuff a chance. I click the “hide profile” option as soon as I see that tiny cursor.
I’m of the minimalist’s camp, you see. On my profile I post the stuff people actually need to know. I don’t waste space on copy-paste junk, I don’t chatter about myself, I don’t hold conversations with fictional characters. I put my contact info, links to my other web pages, a brief about-me section that’s only a paragraph long, and the chunk that by far takes up the most room of all: links to the pages of people who have drawn art based on my stories. Recently I’ve added a small blurb that contains a link to a short story that welcomes people into my world, plus a section with links to my blogpages that contain tutorials on various subjects, but I’ve tried to keep my profile as concise and clutter-free as possible. I don’t even have a quote section! OMG! I just have a single e.e. cummings quote at the bottom of my page because it’s inspirational and is probably the single most meaningful quote in the entire world, at least from my perspective.
Anyway, I feel like I’m acting all superior and insufferable right now, so I’m going to stop talking about myself. My overall point is basically that profiles that have miles of meaningless crap on them aren’t making you stand out or seem unique. Most people just skip them. Your profile should say a lot about you as a person, but by posting that you’re one of the two percent of teens who don’t smoke pot, you’re actually blending in to a very large crowd. You’re also a part of a large crowd by having a list of generic personal information that looks like this:
Name: I can’t tell you that, you stalker!
Age: Between 1 and 100, you stalker!
Gender: I’m a girl, duh!
…and so on, and so on. Everyone does that. Break free of the mold! Be unique! I know you can do it!
(If this applies to you and you’re at all offended, I apologize! I’m sure you’re terribly unique and awesome, and I’m sure that some exceptionally long profiles don’t fall into my assessment of long profiles, but… for the most part, I think my thoughts hold true.)
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