The Myspace Blues

- So, I've got a confession to make. Shortly after I had my wisdom teeth pulled, boredom convinced me to join myspace.com. I swore I'd only stick around for a week or two before deleting my account but here I am about a month later and its still up. I hate it, but I don't delete it because it fascinates me. Profile after profile of roughly the same the thing, a flattering and unrealistic picture, often closeup to make getting a real idea about how the person looks impossible, coupled with busy overstimulating backgrounds and survey/quiz results that don't display any real information about people, just information they would like to be true about them. People race to see who can get the most friends (I've gotten friend requests from people I haven't talked to in years or who, if I saw them on the street, I probably wouldn't know who they were) and post countless bulletins begging for people to comment them or thier pictures to provide an illusion of an unrealistically active social life. They complain and whine over recieving or not recieving spots in the "Top 8", a feature that ranks a persons friends in the importance in thier life and its even gotten to the point where some people use the site to meet people and, at the same time, to break up with people. The funny thing about all of it though is that I've gotten sucked into it. Mind you I don't try to pad my friends number or comments or anything like that (I save that for facebook ;) ) but I caught myself filling out a survey today when I had a half hour to kill. I think there's a certain narcisism to it, much like keeping an online blog, that people care what you think about X or what kind of animal you would be in another life or that others want to read line after line of inside jokes between your friends capped off with serveral lol's and bff's. I really hope these myspace morals won't carry out into real life. I'm afraid of living in a society where people are completely inwardly focused and make friends not with an attitude of maintaining meaningful relationships, but instead to make themselves look better.

- Myspace also offers another unique feature that makes it hard for me to just quit and be done with it. I get a look into the lives and minds of people I probably wouldn't really have a chance to get to know otherwise. Myspace more or less expects people to provide information about themselves in a quick cut and dry manner that a couple years ago would require, oh say, getting to know the person and trusting them before you would learn them. I was reading the profile of a certain preteen boy that I know that added me and things I read suprised me. Apparently, 13 year old boys are drinking and doing drugs these days as well as getting girlfriends and falling "in love". He may be lying, I understand that, but this is a kid I always saw as a good kid and even the fact that he needs to feel pressured to act, or pretend to act, in ways way older and darker than him is kinda disturbing.

- Don't get me wrong, I'm not better than myspace. I mean, I've still got an account and I'll admit I check it everytime I check my email and this stupid online blog provides for me many of the same things myspace profiles do, I just hope it doesn't replace true friendship with a hollow substitute and maybe that people won't take it so seriously. Its fun. But its not important. I hope nobody forgets that.

- And thats my two cents.