AnybodySpace.com

Meet Carrie, a tertiary acquaintance of mine who I added to my myspace page early on in my haste to accumulate friends. Carrie is a 40 year-old bisexual who hearts pussycats, Dr. Pepper lip gloss and posing provacatively. But if you actually take the time to read her extremely lengthy "about me" section, she reveals that she is also coping with cancer, adores her autistic daughter and has a heart of gold. Carrie has also managed to amass over 12,000 friends.

It's called myspace.com, a place to harbor all of your dreams, fears, sins and secrets. But once you post all of these things, they don't really belong to just you anymore, do they? Anyone can peek into your private world. Anyone can steal your thoughts or take your photos (much like I stole the one above for this blog entry). Everyone knows what myspace is and lots of people have their very own smiley-face infested pages. All for the sake of innocent entertainment of course. But what's it really doing to us?

At first, I saw myspace as a sort of personal paparazzi. My crew could keep up with what was going on in my life. They could post pictures and comments about me...you know, share the love. Make me the celebrity in my world. But it also allows you to keep score of how many "friends" you have, which begs the question, "Do I have more than you?" And if I comment on your page, I expect an immediate, glowing comment back on my own. Or else I might just remove you from my Top 8. What's more, you have the power to approve or deny requests from would-be new friends. It's like playing a virtual game of God.

I also thought it was a good way to reconnect with old friends. Like random people in college you hung out with a few times but then lost touch with. Naturally, I found a few fun ones. But after requesting a few others to add me, I noticed that my number of "friends" didn't go up. Well, perhaps these people simply hadn't seen my request yet. After all, not everyone checks their myspace page for updates every 30 minutes, right? This logic kept my ego safely coddled for awhile...until three weeks passed and I realized the awful truth: I had been "denied." But why? Why don't they love me?

As a mature adult, I considered myself impervious to the negative side effects of myspace. I'm not some kid in high school anymore, desperate for attention and praise. The football jock can't check my page for catcalling fodder the next day. But myspace does have the potential to affect me as a career-oriented young man. Recently I've heard rumors that myspace, Lord help us, has become the go-to tool for career headhunters and HR directors. Who even needs a private detective anymore? Myspace seems to have eclipsed even Google as the perfect stalking device.

Myspacing is a popularity contest akin to a baby beauty pageant. The judging can be extremely superficial and overly critical. Anyone and everyone can sentence you in an instant, deciding whether to approve, deny or simply leave your friend request in the limbo called "pending".

So while it's fun to promote your personality, I'd take a second glance at everything before you post it for public viewing. And while you're doing that, don't forget to leave a comment on my page letting everyone know how creative and philosophical I am...