MySpace: A Place For Barely Acquaintances

MySpace has become, for me, the place where all my hopes go to die. An online trash bin of superficial pointlessness, that, like the all day suckers of cartoons past, keeps me coming back to its monotonous droning hum that sticks in my ear like a handful of snot. So why am I still on it?

Though originally attracted to the site for the same reasons I got all atwitter about chat rooms in the mid 90s, this site, and therefore vicariously "Mysite", has slowly withered and atrophied into the sad and pathetic husk of a man that. . . no wait that's me. MySpace RULZ!! LOL!!

I started years back when the site was not very well known, by putting up a page for my music project (see: avoiding the word band, due to social stigma) after a friend suggested it might be a good idea. I thought "What the hell?" Or more accurately, "What the ass-groping donkey-cock-guzzling shit-wrangler?" Not long after that, I figured I needed a personal profile as well, due to the potential hundreds of emails I was likely missing from gorgeous, intelligent women, who until then, had no way of contacting me, let alone seeing what my favorite movies were! (You see, 'cause that's really important).

My early exploits with the site yielded fairly socially relevant results. I talked to many new people, went out of my way to find friends (mostly female), and even ended up dating a girl I met on the site (who now gets to be a target of my new interest in psycho-analyzation). But I noticed an annoying tendency for a lot of people to friend request me, who had gone to my high school, worked at a job with me in the past, or had frequented a social scene that I constantly made fun of, but still ended up going to anyway (long story). Needless to say, these are people I would not like to give my phone number to, but don't mind accepting a "friend request" from, to be nice, and due to its complete lack of interpersonal connection.

Fast forward to the present day and I can't remember the last time I was contacted by a new person who was interested in becoming an actual friend of mine. But boy, do I get my fair share of spam requests! Usually shit bands (truly terrible) that I end up writing about how awful they are (hint: look for a future blog), or porn bots who "just moved into town," seem to think I'm cute, like my generic profile, then want me to click their webcam or send them an email to a suspect address so I can give my computer cyber herpes. Obviously I'm still good friends with them now (the last holiday letter I got from spam bot "JuicyGurlXOXO69" was really heartfelt and sweet. I hope her family is doing well).

Likewise, I rarely, if ever, feel compelled to search for people based upon common interests, in an attempt to find another friend, or someone to share hobbies, music styles, philosophy, advice etc. I usually don't care much. At least online. Now, meeting someone in person who is interested in philosophy, analyzing everything to death, and making fun of creationists (not to mention the occasional genital humor) would be fine by me.

. . .Which begs the question, why am I on MySpace? What is the point, if I don't find new friends, new friends don't find me, and the "friends" I do have mostly consist of old acquaintances I never talk to, nor have a desire to talk to? It serves no positive purpose for me. The only thing I can think of is self promotion.

Like most people, I seem to use it as a promotion tool. Obviously I have been writing a lot more this year. I am quite enjoying putting all of my random social, philosophical, psychological and humorous observations and stories out into the world, and I do have some eventual bigger goals in mind for them. The only thing I've really used MySpace for recently, is to announce any new blogs I post on my King Of Deprecation site, in the, *pause*, hope (I hate that word) that a few people might be interested enough by a topic or description of one of the blogs to actually go to the site and read something. However, I doubt it's really worth it. Since I rarely (never) interact with them (you know, THEM?) why should they give two shits about me and what I'm promoting? Answer: they don't.

But wait, I'm probably being too negative. On the plus side, I can view a bunch of random people's bulletins! Hopefully they are a bunch of trite surveys about what they are doing right then and there, what their favorite bands are, and who their celebrity crushes are!!! OOOOOoooooOOOooooOOOooo!!!

Yep. They are. And if they aren't, which is rare, it's just advertisements for people to "go to this club! Go to this show! See this band!" If I wanted to be more disgruntled with society I could always watch TMZ, EXTRA, and the E! network, but so far this site gives me my daily quota of irrelevant mind-numbing penguin shit in a can. Thanks MySpace peeps. Oh, sorry. "Peepz".

I also "get" to see a list of friend updates, or in my case, barely acquaintance updates displaying their current mood (which I don't care about) and a quick sentence about what they doing (which I don't care about). I can't really think of many scenarios where I would genuinely be interested in someone's ongoing day to day mood and event statuses, and that includes family, my dead cat, and the unlikely event of a girlfriend. If I do care, take a guess at what I'm going to do to find out. Is it wait online until they log on to display their new update and mood? Well, though that does seem efficient and a giant diaper of joy, I'd just call them using Mr. Graham-Bell's intermittently wonderful invention.

I think this site was more fun and exciting when I was younger, and really, so was anything where being social and the internet were combined. The novelty of "chatting" lost its luster years ago, and most of the kids on there seem more interested in decorating their page within an inch of its life, and taking quizes, as opposed to trying to create some worthwhile social connections.

I can tell you freely, that logging on is thoroughly depressing. As much as I love being reminded of friends I don't have, relationships I don't have, and things I'm not doing, there are a few, very seldom moments (meaning always) where, once signed in to the great soul sucking site, I just sit and stare blankly at the screen, my inbox pilling up to the brim with emptiness and resignation, my self image doing the same. Every time I sign in to MySpace lately I ask myself out loud why I just did so. Apparently I am a glutton for pain.

Almost any "friend" that updates anything on that site, is a reminder of people I used to hang out with in a previous life, which for me, is like crack cocaine for the chronic "dweller of the past". Some connections are from many years ago, some from a bit more recently. All carrying on with their existence (as people seem to do), in a way that does not involve me. This serves the purpose of keeping me in a "remember when" mode, sometimes nostalgically, many times regrettably, feeling ever more strongly how time progresses, changes your perspectives, changes your situations, and erodes that which is no longer useful or beneficial, in this case friends. Although this is mostly for the best, I still can't help being placed into a gummy, melted emotional state by seeing the frequent information and updates by handfuls of people I used to interact with, even when the majority of those people I'm happy to stay away from. It's still the principal of the thing.

Worse still, is seeing mood updates, new photos, and general information on anyone who I've ever been romantically connected to or interested in during my life. There is no faster way to destroy any decent mood I may have had going, by simply seeing a new photo of an ex girlfriend or ex something-or-other with someone else, being generally content and happy. Dear God that kills me. Luckily I can turn off updates from those select few, otherwise I'd be downing the special Kool-Aid by now.

By the way, did you notice a conflict yet? Remember all that jazz earlier about me not caring about friends online, and then suddenly lamenting my lack of genuine and meaningful social interaction? You don't? Seriously? 'Cause I just said it. Well, I changed a few of the words but I assure you they are fairly interchangeable (see a thesaurus). Yes, thus is the dichotomy of it all. Craving that valuable and profound social interaction, while simultaneously not caring about any of it.

Several of my real life friends have put up messages about deleting their MySpace profiles, no doubt for similar reasons. It's crap with a fresh parsley garnish. Maybe I might have to go the way of those pissed off trailblazers, and do away with the source of my online strife, depression and mental turmoil.

But then, what kind of self-hating emotional masochist would I be?

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Tags: myspace online friends social networking sarcasm