Me and MySpace

I've never seen the appeal of MySpace, since it seems easy enough to keep in touch with friends via email, phone, etc. Besides, who needs one more account to monitor? But then I signed up, and I got to pick a SONG to go with my profile! Honestly, I could spend the whole rest of my life just picking and changing songs. I went with "Freedom" by George Michael, even though my favorite song of his is actually "Father Figure". I figured that was just asking for trouble - lots of messages saying, "I'll be your Father Figure." Ick! If you watch enough episodes of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator", everything starts taking on different connotations, but it was interesting thinking out my profile. There are so many ways to go wrong and for kids to innocently put out information without realizing who it might attract.

The other exciting thing about MySpace is that it has FAMOUS PEOPLE on it. I found Bono, Drew Barrymore, Sylvester Stallone, and even Al Pacino, but I had my suspicions about the legitimacy of his page...I don't know, it kind of looks like a fan would have set it up pretending to be him. It would be so easy to pretend to be someone you're not - scary!

The other big breakthrough with this assignment (aside from friending KCLS 27 Things) was that I found my long lost former best friend while I was poking through Friendster as part of Monday's exercise. We became friends in kindergarten, but grew apart after college, and I was never able to reconnect. I knew there had been some severe depression, mental illness, use of medication, but never got a straight answer. Last time I saw her mom, she said my friend was "doing what she needs to do." Huh? How cryptic is that? So, after years of confusion - I cracked the case on Friendster. The Artist Formerly Known As My Best Friend is a self-proclaimed "loser" whose hobbies include "sleeping, procrastinating, watching crappy TV, and making soap." All of her "friends" made comments about smoking with her. Ohhhh! That explains a great deal of vague thinking and randomly dilated pupils. I can't believe I missed all the signs, but then again, she always was secretive, and I had no indication she ever went out of her room - much less to buy pot. So, the moral of the story is that sometimes you can use these social networking sites to figure out who you no longer need to network with. Cathartic, eh?