The Unspeakable (I Wish) Word [Thursday, March 02, 2006]
There is a word in this culture that in me evokes disgust and anger when I hear it float in from other peoples' conversations and shame when it pops up in my conversations (and outright humiliation when I have to use it). The word is MySpace.
Why is this atrocity of a website so popular? It's like taking all the drama of high school and putting it on the web. Every time I hear something like "Steve got in trouble with his girlfriend because of a comment he left on Sarah's MySpace", I want to kick a pidgeon.
MySpace went too far when it entered the realm of everyday conversation. People can put thought into their online webpresence, but MySpace has stripped the individuality out of creating it. On journaling sites like Livejournal, the content is the journal entries and the comments are secondary. On MySpace, the content is usually how many friends you have and their comments to you and the journals are just an afterthought, and thus it has turned into a popularity contest with no real thought involved. Sure, there is a slight competition to win "eProps" on Xanga, but most people just post primarily when they want to post and don't worry about their eProp count too much.
You may ask "Why haven't you deleted your MySpace profile then?". And believe me, I have considered it countless times (and I'm sure one of these time's I'll just delete it and get it over with) and with each mention of it in real life conversation, the temptation to nuke it grows. But, I still have it up there to serve its original purpose: To give people who may have lost touch with me information about me and to serve as a portal to this site. (There is a link to it on this site, but I won't provide it for you here.)
So, although it has already ensnared me, too many of my friends, my brother, my sister, my girlfriend, and my other sister (in that order), there are still people out there who have not let this disease taint them.
My closing advice is this:
If you don't have a MySpace, don't get one.
If you do, why is Tom still your friend?
Why is this atrocity of a website so popular? It's like taking all the drama of high school and putting it on the web. Every time I hear something like "Steve got in trouble with his girlfriend because of a comment he left on Sarah's MySpace", I want to kick a pidgeon.
My MySpace experience:
Back in August 2004, my friend Mirelle showed me her (MySpace) profile and kept telling me to get one. I finally caved and made one and immediately deleted the creepy Tom guy as a "friend". Back then, not too many people knew about it and it seemed like "Facebook" (another site that started out all right, but ended up being online High School) was more popular anyway. I liked that you could directly add CSS/HTML (technical stuff) to your profile and that random people from my past would sometimes message me/add me as their friend.
But, then random people started messaging me/attempting to add me as a friend. It got a little better when Dane Cook joined and let me add him as a friend, but it continued to decline. Then, I started hearing it pop up in conversations and hearing about it was affecting peoples' lives and that pushed me over the edge.
But, then random people started messaging me/attempting to add me as a friend. It got a little better when Dane Cook joined and let me add him as a friend, but it continued to decline. Then, I started hearing it pop up in conversations and hearing about it was affecting peoples' lives and that pushed me over the edge.
MySpace went too far when it entered the realm of everyday conversation. People can put thought into their online webpresence, but MySpace has stripped the individuality out of creating it. On journaling sites like Livejournal, the content is the journal entries and the comments are secondary. On MySpace, the content is usually how many friends you have and their comments to you and the journals are just an afterthought, and thus it has turned into a popularity contest with no real thought involved. Sure, there is a slight competition to win "eProps" on Xanga, but most people just post primarily when they want to post and don't worry about their eProp count too much.
You may ask "Why haven't you deleted your MySpace profile then?". And believe me, I have considered it countless times (and I'm sure one of these time's I'll just delete it and get it over with) and with each mention of it in real life conversation, the temptation to nuke it grows. But, I still have it up there to serve its original purpose: To give people who may have lost touch with me information about me and to serve as a portal to this site. (There is a link to it on this site, but I won't provide it for you here.)
So, although it has already ensnared me, too many of my friends, my brother, my sister, my girlfriend, and my other sister (in that order), there are still people out there who have not let this disease taint them.
My closing advice is this:
If you don't have a MySpace, don't get one.
If you do, why is Tom still your friend?
posted by Ryan at 1:01 PM
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