The Jamie Sanders Experiment

"Who is Jamie Sanders?"

That's the question I asked myself whenever I received a friend request from her over Facebook last year. So, being the curious guy that I am, I took a look at our mutual friends. We had about 15 friends in common, so I decided that although I didn't really remember meeting her, that I would add her. After all, if she knows my friends she's got to know me from somewhere.

Time passed, and every now and then, I would go through my friends list and look for people to reconnect with. And every time I did that, I would see Jamie Sanders there.

"Who is Jamie Sanders?"

I would keep asking myself. I don't remember her, and I don't recall seeing her around campus. She must be somebody that just adds friends for the sake of adding friends. Oh well, I might never meet her.

Facebookers add friends of friends for various reasons. Some people just want to get out there and meet new acquaintances, and some people just want as many friends as they can get. With sites like Facebook and Twitter, it is increasingly easier to increase your circle of contacts. I for one thought she was just wanting to meet new people.

Whatever her reasons were, curiosity got the better of me one day, and I finally wrote on her wall:

Hey, I don't quite remember you, could you refresh me on where we have met?

A day or so later, I got a reply:

We took a Sociology class together in the fall, remember?

Strange, I wrote her back:

You might have me mistaken for somebody else, I've never taken a Sociology class in my life.

She never replied back. I didn't think anything of it at the time, because I have people say that I look like various celebrities/relatives all the time (I wish I was kidding). I didn't do any further investigation into the matter, nor did I check her profile again. But little did I know, that perception of how we were connected was shattered on January 26, 2010, when this seemingly innocent friend request turned out to be much more than what I had imagined.

It was past midnight, and I was doing my last round of Facebook surfing before I went to bed. Something caught my eye, however. My friend Sarah had made a status update concerning Jamie Sanders:

Sarah - is pretty sure Jamie Sanders isn't real. If someone can prove she isn't a #CreepyOldManOnFacebook I'll give ya a million bucks! ;)

I guess I wasn't to only one asking the question.

Me and our friends started talking in the comments under Sarah's status, and I discovered that NOBODY knew Jamie Sanders. My friend Ryan said that she had deleted him after he confronted her about who she is. My suspicions were raising quickly, so I checked her profile. She had deleted me. Something was up. We were all wondering:

"Who is Jamie Sanders?"

I decided to go to bed and get some rest, and tackle this issue after classes that afternoon.

After classes were through, I decided to start a Facebook group dedicated to tackling this mystery. I invited all of my mutual friends with Jamie, and I got to work. I brainstormed with the group members and my friends, and this is what I came up with:

1. If Jamie was not lying about her age, she should be a senior right now.

2. She has a lot of friends involved in the Baptist Christian Ministry at UWF, as well as Flamingo Road, Olive, Marcus Pointe and Hillcrest churches.

3. She is or has been a member of UWF judging from the Facebook groups she is in.

4. She has a tendency to delete you off of it's friend's list if you confront her about who she really is.

After compiling that information, I logged off of Facebook and went to my job, hoping that the people in my group would be able to brainstorm and come up with information about our mystery person.

I came home that night to a shocking revelation.






...Guess who decided to join our little manhunt?



Jamie Sanders herself.

She decided to become a member of my group so she could clear up the issue and reveal her agenda. This is what she had to say, word for word:

Hello. You all have been very gracious in participating in my social experiment. I'm deleting my account at the end of the week for everyone's peace of mind.

To begin with, I do go to UWF, but that's all you'll get from me. I'd rather not be “That nut who freaked everyone out on Facebook”.

This 'project' began as a discussion between a friend and I in the fall semester sometime. She mentioned that she had a Facebook friend request from someone she didn't know and asked if I knew them. I said no. My friend then added that she'd accepted the request, since they had 20 mutual friends. I told my friend that was a bad reason to add someone, and that I only added people I could recall having a conversation with. She shrugged and said, "Well everyone else knows them I guess." This turned into a late-night bet that I could create a false account and gather 100 friends before the week was up - meaning people would be adding "it,"( as Garrett so eloquently christens Jamie) based solely on connections.

Well, I began by crafting this profile. Originally she was named Shannon Cole, with a picture of a tree as her profile. I made her profile appear to be that of a conservative, Jesus-loving good girl; unintimidating, cute, and friendly. As time went on, people starting asking (approximately 2% of people Jamie added) who on earth Shannon was. So I switched to Jamie Sanders, and Googled "cute blonde" images until I found one which looked authentic. Needless to say, this went well, and then my friend and I upped the bet to 1,000.

Approximately 3 times a week I'd log on, add all of the people Facebook suggested for me (which spiraled around the Pensacola/BCM/Church area, consistent with Jamie's image), “like” a few random statuses, and leave Happy Birthday messages on peoples' pages - to try and make Jamie look authentic. For a while Jamie joined Farmville, since it was so popular with Jamie's friends and would probably buy her rapport, but her “puppeteer” thought it was the dumbest thing ever. (Sorry FV lovers.) I never bothered looking at people's pages or “stalked” anyone, I can do that well enough on my real account just like everyone else. Admittedly, my strategy for dealing with Jamie's interrogators was dull; I'd delete them to keep them from blowing Jamie's cover.

As my friend and I discussed this, we realized just how many “creepers” could be out there, and how simple it must be for them. Also, every group, page and application you add to your profile can get as much information from your profile as the friends you add. So when you consider that... nothing's private on Facebook.

Over the past month, Jamie has been getting lots of messages and wall posts about who the heck she might be. Oddly enough, she's also been getting friend REQUESTS, presumable based on Facebook suggestions, since she's friends with half of Escambia County by now. So I decided I'd make a “public service announcement” similar to this one soon, that Jamie Sanders was indeed a false account, created to test a sociological theory. However, Garrett proved the inquisitiveness of the human spirit yet again, and made this wonderful group. So I suppose the time has come, for her demise.

If you learn anything from my experiment: Don't talk to strangers. This time it was a bored college student. Next time you may not be so fortunate. Go through your friends list and delete those people “everyone else knows.”

I'll leave Jamie up until the rest of the week so you can peruse/deface/flame/genuflect to her page if you wish. Then I'm “deactivating” her. RIP Jamie. But believe me, there's probably more out there. Peace, Pensacola.

Wow. I was floored! So why is this important? Although she raises a very good point about cyberstalkers, she also shown us how strong the herd mentality can be through social media. Throughout "The Jamie Sanders Experiment," she had gathered 1,284 people in her list of friends in the UWF network. Nobody had met Jamie Sanders in person, not ONE! And yet people would interact with this puppet, even I tried talking to her! A person that didn't exist had a social life. Throughout the discussions on my group, I discovered that a person at the BCM even remembered talking to Jamie, and said that she was a nice girl.

All I have to say is, bravo Jamie. You got us good.

So who IS Jamie Sanders?

Is Jamie a guy or a girl? What is Jamie like? What does Jamie want to accomplish in his/her life? We will never know. None of us will. However, Jamie Sanders showed us how powerful social media can be. Jamie Sanders can be our biggest strength...and our biggest weakness. So, whoever you are Jamie Sanders, Thank you. You have taught us a very important lesson on how we connect to each other.

After talking with Jamie for a short while, we decided that it was best for me to publish this. She did not want her identity to be revealed, and through this blog I am acting as a proxy to reveal the results of all her hard work. All the credit of "The Jamie Sanders Experiment" and everything in this blog goes to you.