Murdoch student Australia's most popular

by Danielle McComasky

April 14, 2008

A MURDOCH UNIVERSITY student is the most popular Australian on the internet.

‘Hanny’(real name witheld), originally from Singapore, started up her MySpace site in 2003, hoping to make new friends and expand her horizons.

She told eMUNews she was curious about different people and open to different cultures, and MySpace was the perfect virtual platform to do that.

MySpace lets people design a profile for themselves on the internet. Users can ‘meet’ new people or catch up with virtual friends by viewing others’ profiles and requesting to be their cobber.

 “I was interested in people, the way they acted and portrayed themselves over the internet,” Hanny said.

Since 2003, Hanny has accumulated over 217,600 virtual mates. She spends about three hours a day on the site.

To her, a friend is someone she can confide in, be it locally or from across the globe.

Through MySpace, she’s met about five people whom she now classifies as real friends. However, she admits it’s hard to keep in touch with everyone.

 “I hardly have time to talk to most of them because I’m too busy with school, work and friends,” she said.

In the future, Hanny hopes to work in media and entertainment. However, she says, her website has a downside.

“I don’t want people to take me as a joke, only thinking ‘Hey it’s that MySpace girl,’” she confided.

“I want them to see me as someone who is really serious about their career in the industry.”

Her popularity keeps on increasing, with hundreds of people requesting to be her friend each day.

“When I log in, I have up to 300-400 people requesting me to be their friend,” she said. “The funny thing is just that, I don’t even have to do anything!”