Friday, March 31, 2006
All Those People You Knew Were the Actors
Will's Diatribe on Why MySpace.com Scares the Fucking Hell Out of Him
I've thought about it and thought about it, but I always come back to: It makes people look like items on a Greek restaurant menu. You know the kind I'm talking about -- so gigantic you can't see around it. Laminated with that heavy plastic. And each page has those bright, color pictures . . . . and so many items. There are like four versions of a tuna melt throughout the entire menu.
1. It's picture-based. Anything steeped in visuals puts me on edge.
2. One can have "friends". There is a latent feel of "Who's popular, who's not." to the whole site.
3. The comments -- and this is almost to a tee -- are brief, known banter. Often meaningless.
4. One can search by high school, college, etc. THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE. To be able to instantly find out that several dozen people you once knew are still alive and annoying is unhealthy and disturbing.
5. One can assign reasons (like "looking for serious relationship") for being on the site. So whenever anyone sees this person's site, they know: "Yep, he's here to get laid." Or: "Yep, she's hunting for a ring."
6. Everyone seems to feel forced to sum up their life in four sentences. "I graduated with a degree in psychology. I love my job most of the time :). I like to go out on weekends. I'm just trying to live the best way I know how." Those sentences -- give or take a few words and some phrasing -- is on 713,491 MySpace sites. Goddamnit, people, there are more words in the language.
Add all these reasons up, and, to this casual observer, the site is responsible for converting human beings into vending machine items. Down with MySpace. Down with it.
I've thought about it and thought about it, but I always come back to: It makes people look like items on a Greek restaurant menu. You know the kind I'm talking about -- so gigantic you can't see around it. Laminated with that heavy plastic. And each page has those bright, color pictures . . . . and so many items. There are like four versions of a tuna melt throughout the entire menu.
1. It's picture-based. Anything steeped in visuals puts me on edge.
2. One can have "friends". There is a latent feel of "Who's popular, who's not." to the whole site.
3. The comments -- and this is almost to a tee -- are brief, known banter. Often meaningless.
4. One can search by high school, college, etc. THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE. To be able to instantly find out that several dozen people you once knew are still alive and annoying is unhealthy and disturbing.
5. One can assign reasons (like "looking for serious relationship") for being on the site. So whenever anyone sees this person's site, they know: "Yep, he's here to get laid." Or: "Yep, she's hunting for a ring."
6. Everyone seems to feel forced to sum up their life in four sentences. "I graduated with a degree in psychology. I love my job most of the time :). I like to go out on weekends. I'm just trying to live the best way I know how." Those sentences -- give or take a few words and some phrasing -- is on 713,491 MySpace sites. Goddamnit, people, there are more words in the language.
Add all these reasons up, and, to this casual observer, the site is responsible for converting human beings into vending machine items. Down with MySpace. Down with it.
