My Space is in an Old Folks home

I don’t like myspace. I know this is probably because I’m old. While “social networking” seems like an ok idea (I used to be a fan of friendster cause I’m also old school) and I’m the first to jump on internet trends, myspace is a wasteland. The community has moved beyond social networking and into building personal shrines – which wouldn’t be so bad, I’m obviously pro personal shrines (see: this blog), if people didn’t love animated gifs so damn much. As far as I can tell the only smidgeon of good that has come from the myspace craze is irrefutable evidence that most people have awful taste and should not be allowed any creative freedom whatsoever. It is now time to apply this knowledge by taking away access to falling glitter, vulgar animated gifs and (in some extreme cases) text.

I joined myspace a couple of years ago so that I could spy on people from high school (call me a bitch but when I’m having a bad day there is no greater life affirming piece of knowledge than “wow, half my graduating class is still working the same job they had senior year!” I’m positive that this makes me shallow and of questionable moral character but honestly, are you surprised?). I didn’t fill out anything in my profile to ensure that no former classmates could ever feel superior to me. This Christmas I asked my 25 year old brother why he never responds to my emails and he said, “Why can’t you just write to me on myspace? It’s easier.” I chose not to point out that this was in fact, not easier (for me), since it required logging into another website not to mention finding a picture cute enough so that when people from my past find my profile they’ll feel just a little jealous so that at 29 I will be 2 points closer to winning the highschool popularity contest (Vote Brianna for Home coming Queen!). I also resisted pointing out that replying to an email takes exactly the same amount of effort as replying to a myspace message only you get to avoid burning your retinas with electric blue comic sans on a yellow background.

I’ve chosen the road less traveled when it comes to myspace friends – my list includes a select group of people who I actually know. I could be much more popular. I get about 4 myspace friend requests per week, almost all of these are from people who are decidedly not my friends. Apparently much of generation Y is confused about the concept of friends. Friends are people who know you in real life where half of the time you look like a white trash circus clown and still choose to invite you to their theme parties because no costume beats “white trash circus clown.” Friends happily eat anything you cook even if you’re in willful denial about which vegetables they supposedly hate. When you’re really hung over friends will walk a mile in 30 degree weather to bring you a bottle of Gatorade even though there is a mini mart across the street from your house (are you listening AMY?). Friends do not expect you to read about their favorite salad dressing or their most awesome high school memory. Friends know that there are better ways to waste time at work. Below are a few examples of ways that we might know each other which do not indicate that our relationship should be described using the world “friend.”

• You saw my picture, thought I was hot

• We were in the same world history class in 1994

Myspace also seems set on showing me awful things that I cannot unknow. Some key examples:

• My 40 year old cousin has a friend who thinks it perfectly acceptable to wear a completely see through tank top provided it has two strategically placed sequined stars.

• My brother seems to have a very unhealthy liking for the movie Cars and thinks that a huge picture of the tow truck character makes an awesome background.

• The girl who was my freshman sister my senior year in high school has TWO children.

No good can come from this.