The Final Frontier

I've documented my hate for MySpace on multiple occassions. I rail against it, it's totally pointless, it's super ugly, it's more inane than any other social networking tool. So, of course, it's the market leader and worth millions of dollars. Of course.

My old MySpace was created in order to test out the site's blogging function for the book. I added a few friends, played around a little, and then left it alone. Of course, I got in trouble for not adding a certain someone during my brief test run but that's a whole 'nother story. With some prodding and goading (and people actually making it for me), I now have a personal MySpace.

I feel so awesome now. Very awesome. Like very connected awesome. It's almost a spiritual high. Euphoric I'd say.

I'm trying to figure out what sorts of things I can do now but I can't think of a single thing. I guess when I fall out of touch with people, I can publicly message them and briefly and generically ask how they're doing but really, isn't that what email is for? And I guess having a MySpace would enable long lost friends to find me but I highly doubt anybody's missing much in their lives without me around. If they were, wouldn't they have found me already?

You would think that I'd be super big on social networking since I have this constant fear of losing friends. I like making sure I have one or two ways to find somebody in a worst case scenario. I've managed to fall out of contact with only a few friends here and there and each time it's been semi-traumatic for me. Social networking should be my friend tracker but it's been totally ineffective.

Anyway, despite its many shortcomings, I'm giving social networking a chance. I even tossed things onto my Facebook in order to give it some life. I read an article about the recent success of Facebook and how it's really good at (1) connecting people and (2) keeping them apart -- by not accepting an invite, you can bar people from your circle. I can really appreciate this mix of openness and exclusivity so I've decided to embrace the dichotomy.