Thursday, September 06, 2007

Mytake on Myspace


If you pay any attention to the links that I include on my blog, you'll see that I recently created a Myspace profile. I admit, it’s been sort of adventurous. But – in the interest of being my usual critical self – I’ve identified some major issues I have with the site. Here’s what bothers me about Myspace.com so far:

1. Nine times out of ten, I wind up on a page that takes an hour to load. This is coming from somebody who uses a high speed internet connection. I feel bad for the cats who still use dialup (incidentally, they’re probably the same folks who ride chariots to school). I guess some people haven’t figured out that the more crap you add to your page, the longer it takes to load.

2. Brothas always feel the need to put up images of their oily, muscular bodies. I mean, damn dawg. For real?! Dude, there are kids on here. Put those away. Then again, maybe I’m just jealous because trying to be intelligent and nice seems to take a backseat to being physically good looking. It doesn’t help that whatever 6-pack I’ve ever had is now a cooler.

3. Oppositely, a lot of sistas like to put up photos where they’re bent over with skin tight clothes showing just about everything they’ve got and tops that are hanging on for deal life. Then, they say (get this): “I’m lookin’ 4 a real man who can handle a real woman.” Well if your appearance is any indication, I hear that A Pimp Named Slickback is hiring.

4. Everybody insists on “showin’ you luv”. Is that the only line people can come up with?!

5. Having fun toys like pictures/slide shows, video clips, and music is pretty cool. Having too much of them isn’t. But, I have to admit: Facebook is the King of being superfluous and over-the-top with all of those silly applications.

6. People, please. If you’re over 35, you ain’t got NO BUSINESS posting photos at the club behind a spray painted background. I’m just sayin’…

7. Also, for the aforementioned group, please stop calling yourself “SeXy MoMmA”, BoOtYLicIious”, or anything equivalent.

8. I’ve never been on a site where phishing and spam were so rampant. Well, maybe on Blackplanet. But you get the point.

9. I imagine that most Myspacers aren’t too HTML or Java proficient. You kinda get that feeling when you’re looking at their impossible-to-read pages.

10. Even some of the more HTML savvy people must’ve at least missed the lecture on good to semi-good grammar. Trust me when I say that punctuation helps. Spelling words correctly helps. No, it doesn’t have to be at the dissertation level, but c’mon people. Get a clue.

11. It bothers me to imagine how much $$$ that Tom guy has.

12. I didn’t know that there were so many 100 year olds in cyberspace. Then again, I guess that’s a pretty good balance to the hoards of underaged teenagers on the site.

13. With the proliferation of teenagers on the site, the privacy settings are pretty good to have, I guess. But in some cases it’s just getting too out of hand. I mean, for some folks you have to get their approval just to say hello. Sheesh!

14. It’s pretty cool to reunite with folks. But in many instances, my conversations with them remind me about why I stayed away in the first place.

15. Am I the only one who hates chain letters, graphic designs, and symbols (asterisks in the shape of a heart, middle fingers, crosses, etc)?

16. On a related note, what’s up with the insanely large and blindly-colorful images people put in your comment section just so they can say “Hi”?!

17. I’ve noticed a lot of the same pictures circulating on various profiles. This leads me to believe that a bunch of folks feel the need to submit fake or stolen pictures. People...look: if you’re that self-conscious about yourself maybe you shouldn’t be putting up a profile in the first place.

18. Believe it or not, people will actually get offended if you don’t add them to your top friends list.

19. Speaking of which (sorta): I always think it’s funny how Friends Lists create the illusion that you have more friends than you actually have. Maybe if the term was changed to “Subscribers” it wouldn’t be so deceptive.

20. Finally, anybody over 21 would be better served just starting a blog.

All the same, Myspace isn’t all that bad either. With close to 200 million profiles created up to this point, it must be doing something right. For me, it's been a pretty cool outlet to catch up with people I haven't seen or spoke to in a second while also meeting other interesting folks. I guess my whole thing is: if you can realize that at the end of the day this is all just fun and entertainment you should be OK.

But in the event that you ever get bored with Myspace, start blog! It's pretty rewarding.

- ACL

12 "Insiders" spoke their mind. Join in...:

Diane@Diane's Place said...

I tend to agree with you on just about all points. I have a MySpace and Facebook account, as well as a Hoverspot account. (My niece insisted I join Hoverspot, which I did about 3 months ago, and she has yet to leave me so much as a "Hi!")

I much prefer my blog to those other community sites, although I do visit Facebook more than the others.

One thing that bothers me above all else on those sites is the rampant sluttery and just general nastiness. Not my thang at all, but I guess I've outgrown all that tomfoolery, thank goodness!

Hope all is well with you and yours, Sir 'Dre. :-)

Love and hugs,

Diane

Anonymous said...

LOL! Reading yours and Diane's comments makes me think back to how silly and immature some of my old friends' Myspace profiles are. Some of my friends have pictures they took during Freaknik '95. Lawd, what is this world coming to?! LOL!

heiresschild said...

whoa! i can't get over 'a pimp named slickback.' as far as myspace/facebook, etc., i'm doing all i can to keep up with blogger. there are actually 100-yr old people on there? and who is tom?

heiresschild said...

i'm watching this daytime talk t.v. program, and today they're featuring single dads raising daughters who need a little help. well, 2 of these teen-age girls had myspace accounts. the front page for one of the girls, who's 13, was ok, but the next page showed her in a bra and see-thru skirt. dad didn't know because he said he wanted to give them privacy, and they promised him they wouldn't put anything improper on there. the questions she posed on there were very provacative. so much for privacy. dad said he'll be monitoring a lot more now.

Andre said...

Hi Diane. How ya been?

I can't say that I've heard of Hoverspot. But I think I'm just gonna rest on my cybernetic laurels and stay committed to my blog and occasionally Facebook and Myspace. I refer to my blog on both of my other sites; but most folks who peruse those don't pay any attention to my plugs.

To address your other point: you're right. Lots of that stuff seriously lacks refinement and decency. In a word, it's pretty uncouth. I often tell folks to be careful what you post. Not only do you NOT want to advertise yourself to pyschos, but also to future employers.

Hope things are going great for you and the fam.

@ Cyn: Freaknik! Cyn, you're trippin'! LOL! What ever happened to that?

@ Heiress: Sorry about the A.P.N.S. reference. But it's usually the first thing I think about after seeing some of the pages out there. :) As far as I can tell, there aren't a lot of 100 year olds on myspace. Literally, that is. Most people do that instead of revealing their age. Odd. And Tom, by the way, is the President of Myspace. The dude is PAID!

@ Heiress (again): The story you saw only represents a microcosm of the issues with social networking sites and underaged youth. So much so that Congress started to pass the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) back in 2006 (though it passed overwhelmingly in the House, the Senate never voted on it. Since then, the bill expired as far as I can tell). The site is too easily accessible to young kids.

heiresschild said...

thanks for the explanations. no prob about A.P.N.S. either i see it here, or thru my daughter. i didn't realize you meant people just put their age as 100. i guess you can tell by now you have to spell things out for me.

Anonymous said...

I never really got into the Myspace phenomenon, but I know my kids and my nieces/nephews are pretty involved in it. Like Heiresschild said, I try to monitor their online behavior by placing the family computer in an open area. They don't have access to my laptop. There's no telling who's out there preying on children.

Andre said...

"I try to monitor their online behavior by placing the family computer in an open area. They don't have access to my laptop."

Very smart, Joanne.

The H.C. said...

Hey Dre,
I got talked into a myspace account by my son who though it would help get my blog out there. All it did was make more work for me, and to be truthful, it does feel creepy having one when all my myspace friends are in their 20's. Especially when I keep getting friends requests from young girls who all seem to have friends that want them to pose nude. You know, I don't think they really want to be my friend.

Marianita said...

Myspace is ridiculous. Facebook's where it's at!

DobyD said...

My space sucks, I have a page but haven't been on it since i don't know when. The thing i dislike the most is random people asking to be your friend and it turn out to be a new band thats trying to get people to listen to them. I got so sick of it i just left them there.

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