MySpace all it's cracked up to be

Countering criticism of the immensely popular social networking site

THERE ARE BASICALLY two types of people in this world: those who have a MySpace account, and those who would like to have a MySpace account, but have spent the past year and a half ridiculing it and can therefore not allow themselves to cave in now.

For those of you who fall into the latter category, all I can say is this — MySpace is not entirely evil.

The primary criticism towards MySpace is that it has opened the door for child predators to peek in on the lives of unsuspecting young kids.

While this is probably true, it’s not fair to lambaste MySpace as though its sole purpose was to benefit weird 45-year-old men with mustaches who live in vans.

Child predators have lingered around the internet world since the caveman days of chat rooms, and they will continue to exist until Y2K eventually kicks in and destroys the cyber world.

Those who believe that the end of MySpace will signal the end of Chester the Molester are in dire need of a reality check.

The other major criticism of MySpace is that it becomes obsessive and serves as a major distraction to people, especially for college students who would rather browse the profiles of complete strangers rather than study for a midterm exam.

I can attest to the fact that, yes, MySpace becomes highly addictive to a new user.

You will very likely find yourself spending multiple hours looking up everybody who was in your third grade class; even that red-headed kid named William who used to eat his own boogers but now (according to his profile) owns a film production company, dates a Jessica Alba look-alike and writes Haiku poetry.

For those of you out there who are rather new to MySpace and currently find yourselves in that obsessive phase, believe me, it’ll pass.

It may take a couple of weeks, but the novelty of looking up everybody you’ve ever known in your entire life eventually becomes very, very lame.

Once you’ve moved past those awe-inspiring first couple of weeks, MySpace then transforms into something much simpler: an effective method of communication.

I have friends in various locations throughout the world, but because we all exist within the realm of MySpace, I can still crack a one-liner to my friend Steve in Korea which I know he will receive (and laugh about) within a matter of hours.

MySpace has thus redefined the idea of long-distance friendships.

Back when my only method of communicating with non-Fresno pals was through e-mail, I would sometimes feel obligated to write multi-page essays detailing everything I had done in the previous weeks.

This became a laborious process, and as a result I would find myself not talking to close friends for weeks at a time simply because I couldn’t find the time or effort to relay the mundane aspects of my life.

MySpace has changed all that.

My long-distance friends can now stay updated on all of the mundane aspects of my life.

Even if they don’t feel like writing anything to me on a particular day, they can still glance at my profile and listen to my ever-changing song selection in order to get a taste of what I was “feeling” that afternoon.

The closeness that I’m able to maintain with my long-distance friends allows me to feel as though none of them ever left Fresno in the first place — we are all residents of MySpace-ville, population 150 million.

If you’re a MySpace ridiculer, go ahead and continue turning your noses up to those of us who “gave in.”

I really don’t have time to listen to your complaints about how MySpace is ruining our society — my friend Adam from San Diego just sent me some photos of his roommate feeding beer to a rabbit.

Comment on this story in the Opinion forum >>