How to Gain Hundreds of False Friends and Influence Them in Meaningless Ways

In the last few years I have become a social media maven, to whom many turn with their questions, their qualms, their technical glitches. You probably know my name via MySpace, where I have a staggering 2,500 friends -- a record number among people named Alexa Weber Morales. Or perhaps we're friends on Facebook or Twitter, where hundreds -- yes, you read that correctly -- hundreds of people have "friended" or "followed" me.

And there's my blog, this space right here that you're reading because you saw an article linking to it on the homepage of the New York Times. This is where I express my strangest thoughts and expose the most private lunacy of my family, all for a comment or two and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees paid by ad agencies to fund subliminal purchasing messages seeded in every post Colgate.

Indeed, social media companies themselves have approached me, chief power user, for my input on how best to monetize the social activities of their lemmings, or users.

But that is not the focus of this essay. No, today I want to help you make many fake friends and then influence them to do things that serve your own agenda.

FIVE TIPS FOR FRIENDING

1. Use a bot. This will bring you many high-quality friends who want nothing more than to sell you something or perhaps give you an entertaining virus.

2. Choose by photo. The more retouched, the better.

3. Choose by intelligence. Monosyllabic friends may be easier to manipulate in the long run.

4. Choose by ambition. Self-important friends react quickly to self-aggrandizing statements of your own. Starting a meaningless popularity contest is easy with these friends.

5. Choose by excessive personal sharing. Friends without boundaries may be more willing to write you entertaining comments. They may also be dangerous in real life.

FIVE TIPS FOR INFLUENCING FRIEND BEHAVIOR

1. Be viral. Do something so incredibly timely, funny or daring that it instantly traverses the globe and racks up millions of hits.

2. Interact methodically. Send automated messages 20 times a day to all your friends.

3. Be famous. Use your celebrity status from 20 years of bad sitcom work as a platform to establish authority. Command friends to do things like watch videos or download songs and watch them instantaneously swarm your target.

4. Be sexy. Unfortunately due to the crowded market for sex you will have to be highly freaky to earn significant genital share. If you were raised in a meth house this should be easy.

5. Be funny. So funny that people become incontinent and women spontaneously give birth when they read your words.

There you have it. If you follow my advice precisely you will become one of the most famous and powerful people ever. Unless there's a power outage.