I’ve never understood Orkut. I don’t understand what makes it so popular and why people spend so much time on Orkut. Apparently, I totally missed the “Social Networking” bus.

So, in an effort to catch up, I recently asked a “Master” of Orkut some tips and tricks. I was shocked to learn the existence of several “unwritten” laws that need to be followed for proper Orkut etiquette. Here are some of the Orkut Laws that this person shared with me:

Orkut Law #1: U wil lern 2 spek da talk.
Apparently, using complete words and correct grammar will reduce your “coolness” factor. Only nerds and Grammar Nazis speak in proper English with full words. On Orkut, your sentences don’t even have to have a subject, predicate, verbs and adjectives. That’s what they mean by freedom. “Free us from the tyranny of the subject and the verbs”

Orkut Law #2: Thou shalt upload photos from all your trips.
The Orkut album section apparently says a lot about you. Proper Orkut etiquette says that you should upload 1 photo for every trip that you’ve gone to. If these trips are to foreign places, then you get bonus points. And If you’ve been to the Golden Gate bridge, you HAVE to put a photo of you in front of the bridge. It is an Orkut LAW.

Orkut Law #3: Collect scraps and testimonials
The number of scraps you have is a direct indicator of how popular you are, not just on Orkut, but also in real life. Also, if you have testimonials with weird ASCII art like this makes you cool.

               .-"""-.    .-"""-.
              /       `..'       \
             |                    |
             |      H A P P Y     |
              \    VALENTINE'S   /
             __\     D A Y !    /
        _   /  |`\            /'
       | \  \/_/  `\        /'
       \_\| / __    `\    /'
          \/_/__\     `\/'  .--='/~\
   ____,__/__,_____,______)/   /{~}}}
   -,-----,--\--,-----,---,\'-' {{~}}
           __/\_            '--=.\}/
          /_/ |\\
               \/

Orkut is really a contest to see who can collect more scraps and testimonials. Even though Orkut allows you to delete scraps, it is Taboo to do so.

Orkut Law #4: Thou shall join Communities
The Communities you join show your intellectual bent. If you are the computer geek types, then you NEED to join the “C++”, “I Love JAVA” and “Javascript is my Mother Tongue” communities. You don’t have to do anything in these communities, you just need to join them. You also need to join the your local City’s community. Also communities around your favorite actor/actress, and some “cool” communities like “Bangalore Party People”

There are lots of laws like these. It is acceptable to change your name to indicate if you’re travelling to a different city (“Aditya (in SanFrancisco) Kulkarni“), if you’ve gone on a latest trip (“Aditya (new pics uploaded) Kulkarni“).

Do you know any more Laws Of Orkut?

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