LittleWyvern.com

Off topic link dump – If you watch The Office (and you should) you will find this particularly hilarious. The More You Know.

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A few days ago my sister asked me a question about some randomly trivial discussion she came across on MySpace. The page in question was viewable only by registered myspace users, an obstacle that would normally halt any further exploration on my part. However, particularly bored at the time I overcame my longstanding and intentional avoidance of MySpace by completing the intensely personal four-question registration process. Behold the latest citizen of Planet MySpace! I even have my own url alias.

Two days ago, when I first intended to write a MySpace post, my general feeling on the subject was very negative. I take serious issue with several aspects of the site and its users; manifested with my passive-aggressive boycott of all things MySpacey. However, boredom being the mother of obsession, since the creation of MY space I have discovered the perverse enjoyment that only this particular brand of electronic stalking can provide. Unlike the equally irritating and ubiquitous Facebook, MySpace allows you to browse the profiles and pictures of people you don’t even know. In fact, the only restriction I have so far encountered lies in posting public messages to people who have not formally accepted you as a friend. I don’t imagine that’s really a deal breaker for the casual stalker though. With such widespread freedom at my disposal I have wasted several hours browsing the profiles and pictures of various people who – are – used to be – never were – never will be – my friends. Naturally, the greatest enjoyment comes from the discovery, re-discovery really, of people you once knew but no longer know.

It is an electronic reunion! – complete with annoying profile music and shitty webdesign.

I want to take a moment and single out one such high school friend in particular, Chris Bryan. We were never really close, but I’m comfortable in saying that we were friends. I visited him in college a few times, went to see his plays, etc. I was there when he talked about his first music postings on mp3.com, and I was there not long after he was signed by a record label. Music from his first cd is in one of my iTunes playlists and has made its way onto a mix cd or two. At any rate, I stumbled across his MySpace account and was rather impressed to see that he has just released his second cd and is developing a pretty good following, judging by all his myspace ‘friends’ anyway. I’d recommend that you guys all take a few minutes to drop by his page and listen to some of the music samples he offers. And Chris, if you happen to see this, keep up the good work.

Writing this post I am very tempted to drop into the anti-MySpace rant that has been coursing through my mindd, but I just don’t see the benefit of so much criticism. Maybe I should try instead to be more constructive in my anger, offering a bit of advice to the internet n00bs who constitute the majority of its userbase. I’m aware that this might come across with an aura of elitism and snobbery, but as someone who frequents the web and even knows a bit of HTML I find it hard to hide my subtle contempt for those who don’t see that which is to me so painfully obvious. For those of you who can look at a page like this, a page that even the lamest geocities member would petition be deleted, and say to yourself, “Hey! Pretty cool!” I offer this friendly, well-intentioned advice.

>> If you have to side-scroll to see your whole page… try harder. Seriously.

>> Watermarking a super sweet picture into a page’s background is, contrary to what you might think, not super sweet. Not even a little bit.

>> Enormous and annoyingly colored font not only makes your page unreadable, but it makes me want to punch something. Most likely, you.

>> Normally I have a very strong and unwavering hatred towards websites that play music. Thanks, I didn’t want to listen to the music that I selected anyway. MySpace is particularly bad with this one; personal music being one of its sarcastically great features. But now that my profile literally rocks, I can’t really fault anyone else. Still, all non-myspace pages should be forced by law to be music-free. Notable exceptions to my righteous decree include this page, and of course this page.

There.

I could go on, but those are the big ones. No point getting too OCD with my pet peeves. No doubt I’ll just end up offending someone.

In closing, does anyone have a good system for deciding who gets to be your myspace friend? I could go to one extreme and befriend everyone that I ever knew. That strikes me as very pathetic. The other extreme is to befriend only the people that I actually still talk to on a regular basis. That strikes me as very useless. If you’re already my friend you would realize that I don’t use myspace for any functional purpose anyway. I think my friend requests are very inconsistent in nature. I accept most anyone who asks, but my own requests range the entire gamut between my dna-related sister to the super cool Bo Bice. Surely there is a middle ground.

I hope Taylor Hicks accepts my friend request.