Facebook: people outside America don't understand the "interested in" phrase | Hacker News Reader

Facebook: people outside America don't understand the "interested in" phrase

vilepickle.com

21 pointsvilepickle33 comments

All the quasi-dating stuff in facebook profiles is kind of awkward anyway, they should probably just get rid of it. It's mostly good for a laugh when a facebook noob signs up and fills it out like an online dating profile. I know people use Facebook to meet people, but they usually do so in a more discrete way since you usually communicate with friends and family on the same channel.

Lesson #1 if you have an international product: don't use euphemisms. Either be straight (no pun intended), or don't ask the question.

The problem is of course that in some cultures, speaking in euphemisms is so deeply ingrained that the speakers are no longer aware of it.

It would be interesting to know if this confusion happens in other -countries- and not just Africa,

Opps. I know it's not what you meant, but you should probably make a quick edit.

Actually, I think the line in my post is correct, I was specifically referring to this happening in Africa and I am not aware if it happens in other countries.

I think what he meant is that your phrase implies that Africa is a country.

You're right! I'll make the change.

While we're on the subject of nationalities -- "interested in" is pretty clear for people in the UK too. I imagine Irish people, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and many South Africans also know what's meant.

I'm from France and this is pretty clear too.

Thanks for that clarification :)

Facebook used to have a "looking for" field, and I always thought "interested in" modified that. I'd always been interested in men and women for friendship (on Facebook), before that field disappeared.

... and I still find men and women interesting. Why does it always have to be about sexual preference?

This "confusion" isn't unique to Africa, just ask my parents. :)

> Why does it always have to be about sexual preference?

Because otherwise it's not a meaningful field. If you're just talking about interest in the sense of "I find people of this sex to be interesting", then 99.9% of people would select "both" and the other 0.1% would just be advertising their misogyny/misandry.

I used to be interested primarily in socializing with women. This had nothing to do with sex at the time, because my sex life at the time was nonexistent.

Simple: You ask the wrong lesbian (or gay guy, if you're a straight woman) if she's interested in dating, she'll tell you off. At worst. Most of the time, it's not nearly that dramatic.

If I ask the wrong guy, I get into a fight. Most straight men are still offended at "being mistaken for a gay man." I can short circuit this by pre-checking something like Facebook.

Most straight men are still offended at "being mistaken for a gay man."

I'll note that this even happens with freewheeling Discordians who pretend to flirt with men and pantomime kissing them for lulz. Sure, they can flirt with you and everyone else in some outrageous, campy way, and brag about doing anything on two legs with a hole, but then you extrapolate that to mean they're bisexual (omnisexual?) -- and you get genuine and incongruously out-of-character offense.

It's unclear even to some (probably a lot of) Americans. I've known Americans who set it to "men and women" despite being straight. They changed it when it was pointed out what it meant. It's a really poorly-worded option.

I don't think it's that awkward with a north american mindset. It's in the Basic Information category, next to Relationship Status. Furthermore, I think some basic questions are reasonable:

1. How many people are so harshly prejudice, that they're not even interested in one gender?

2. How many of these people would admit it?

3. Why would Facebook want to know?

4. What does it probably mean?

I just logged into Facebook to check. It's not next to "Relationship Status" any more, at least not in the "Edit Profile" area where you'd actually set it. This doesn't really matter anyway.

The fact that someone can deduce what it means doesn't mean it's not an extremely poor wording. A user shouldn't have to go through your 4 questions to figure it out. There shouldn't be any confused-user results when searching for "facebook 'interested in'" online (and there are).

I can report that my bud studying in Japan says that most of his Japanese colleagues list "interested in Men" due to this very confusion.

This isn't just a translation issue, it's also a cultural-attitudes issue as well. Why do we even put sexual preference as one of the primary line-items on your profile? For the US (or at least US college undergrads), this makes sense: it's relevant information that you want to share. But when you take it international, it may not be relevant, or may not be something you want to share. There are a few countries where homosexuality still carries the death penalty, quite a few where it's far more taboo than the US, and plenty of other ones that practice arranged marriages instead of open dating. A social networking site created in countries like those would never consider putting dating preference in their profiles at all, much less how to phrase them. Even if the phrase were translated appropriately, it wouldn't make sense to ask it.

Considering that, it's probably better to leave it open to local interpretation.

Facebook caught on, to some extent, as a type of dating service.

I'm Zuckerberg's age and watched Facebook grow while I was in college. For a large majority of people, during the .edu restricted times, it was mainly a way to check if you might have a chance with the girl in your Statistics class.

This could be intentionally unclear, defined by the group instead of declared by Facebook. I mean, the "Poke" is intentionally undefined, so various friend groups use it for different things. Maybe the answer is more illuminating when you give people room to interpret the question.

I know people who first thought it meant that you're publicly announcing that you're interested in (seeing other) men/women even if you're in a relationship or married. "No honey, being interested in women just means I'm not gay."

Isn't that what translations are for? Or do translators get it wrong too?

It depends on context. The simple phrase "Interested in" would not be translated to "Sexual Preference"

That's the key. "I'm interested in men's soccer" and "I'm interested in men" are expressing two completely different meanings of the English word "interested."

It's not a translation issue in terms of translating to another language -- many Africans are fluent in English (some speak in natively). It's an issue of cultural translation, which is a lot subtler.

Believe it or not, a ton of people outside the US use the en-US localization.

I can see that happening if they've gotten sick of all the crappy en-to-* translations on the web. Even if your English isn't very good, it's probably easier to read English than a crappy translation. (Not FB in particular, just as a general habit.)

Many Africans (esp. people who can read and hence use the internet) speak English fluently. In some countries many schools teach entirely in English. There are dozens of languages in Africa, software aimed at the western market is rarely translated to African languages, hence many Africans would use Facebook in English.

"Interested in" might also mean in an academic sense, as in "I'm interested in the study of men and women, as a sociologist."

Oops,i had no idea it meant "Sexual Interest"!

Why don't they change it to "romantic interest"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com