I was talking with a coworker about the recent MySpace lawsuits regarding parents who feel the Internet is not living up to its imagined promise of being a babysitter, in a similar fashion to how the teevee let them and the generation before them down in the late 20th century.
The motivation behind the lawsuit is the unfortunate sexual assault of a handful of underage girls who agreed—through MySpace, natch—to meet strangers in real life. MySpace will not allow children under 14 to have a presence on the site at all, and the profiles of children under 16 are viewable by "friends only." By this point, however, it would seem you can't get much older without the whole deal beginning to seem exceedingly creepy anyway. Of course, let's not forget that these predators weaseled their way onto the minors' "friends list" anyway, proving that rule to be about as effective as a seatbelt made out of toilet paper.
It's like a nature show in there, and I mean that almost literally: it's the human mating dance of the 21st century. None of the males on MySpace seem to wear shirts, and all of the females seem to think that turning the exposure way way up on their webcams will hide their facial blemishes and make their skin seem geisha-perfect. In reality, it only makes it seem that they've turned the exposure way way up on their webcams. Now, I'm only one guy, I admit, but my idea of beauty is hardly a powder-white oval with two eyes and a dim pair of lips in a sad frown. Is it fair to claim that everyone on MySpace is looking for a hookup of a sexual nature? Sure it's not fair, but judging from the way some of these people write, their minds certainly aren't on English grammar and composition (or, for some people, even being coherent).
This coworker of mine is 26, and she confesses that even she feels a bit too old to be doing the MySpace thang—which is why she doesn't. She described one of the only times she visited the site thusly:
"I brought it up, and it was like instant confusion. 'What's going on? Who are you people? What're y'all doing? I want to go home! Mommy!' You know how you used to feel as a little kid when you got separated from your mom at the grocery store? Visiting MySpace feels like that to me."
It was the "What're y'all doing?" that got me. I laughed, long and hard. I think it should be their new slogan.
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3 comments:
I finally got Kamui back! ^^ And now he has a spiffy yet-to-be-named dual interface entirely-too-much-storage-space-for-one-girl external. *^^*
MySpace, for me, is the epitome of creepy, honestly. I mean, I got messages from people I didn't even KNOW. >_> But it's weird. I'm on Facebook, but I don't find that creepy at all. Hm. Maybe because sexual soliciting isn't everywhere... >_>;;;
Nice! I hope his heating issues have finally been laid to rest.
But yeah, to quote Roger Murtaugh, "I'm too old for [that] shit." Even if I wanted to use MySpace as a hookup portal, something tells me I don't have much chance of meeting a quality local girl through it.
No kidding... Nicole gets so many messages about parties and stuff like that. Not my thing at all. When I think MySpace, I think of sixteen year olds trying to be twenty-five. -_-;;
Oh! Have you ever heard "Internet Relationships" by MC Lars? It mentions MySpace and the stalk-age that goes on. XD
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