Myspace, Yourspace

I know I’m just as disturbed as anyone by all the badness going on on myspace. And though catfish just made a post similar in theme, I thought I’d go ahead and post this anyway ~ ah, the perils of writing posts ahead of time! The other night 20/20 featured three stories that revolved around the internet website and there seem to be more popping up all the time. It’s an odd thing when you consider the popularity of facebook and the number of young people there. Beyond the droves of college students who use facebook to check out their potential roommates, it’s not made nearly the noise that myspace has!

I personally love myspace! After weeding through the yahoo’s who would request adds so they could offer me obnoxious sexual propositions or post ads as comments, it’s become a cool place to meet people. Actually, what I find both funny and annoying is that I have more “friends” on my personal page than on the film page. Though, I do still receive requests on the latter, where the former has pretty much tapered off. My personal page was only created to connect with friends in England who had one, so I didn’t fuss with it much for a long time and have made few requests to be added to other pages. So, it’s still a bit funny to me that my friend list is nearing 100 when I’ve done almost nothing to encourage it! Obviously, with the film page I’ve made a slight effort!

Anyway, in my experience it’s been an effective way to connect with other folks in the business as well as just folks who share commonalities with me. What frightens me is the trend to do evil.

Of course there is the story of the girl who killed herself after her myspace boyfriend dumped her. Instead of being a real boy, it was only another girl - a former friend - trying to find out if the girl was saying mean things about her. And, what horrifies everyone is that her parents had full knowledge of it. What happened to parents who teach their children that there are better ways of dealing with problems???? And, what further angers people is that this family is simply going on with life as though nothing happened. Yes, the mother lost her job, but when the couple issued a statement, it in part, said that they only knew of the cruel things said after the girl took her own life. Uh, a shitty excuse because they knew what their kid was doing ~ they knew she was pretending to be an online boyfriend ~ they HAD to know it would end badly. But, instead of being responsible parents, they sat back and let it happen. And, since there was no crime commited, they whole crew will never really be held accountable.

Then you have the folks who post video clips and pictures of people they’ve terrorized and humiliated. The horror there is how many people not only find such things hilarious, but encourage it. I mean, it’s the trend anymore. The nation appears to be full of teenagers and young adults who only find amusement in the harm done to others. What the Hell????? How have things gotten to this point??? When did everyone seem to lose their capacity for empathy??? It’s been a joke of mine for a minute now, that by letting Nella-bean watch Hostel that I got a glimpse that she may be capable of feeling empathy. The joke was that when Josh was killed, she uttered a small “aw” ~ meaning that she kind of, sort of felt bad for him. Of course, if she were a teenager who seemed so numbed to her own feelings, I’d be on that immediately! But, aside from my 4 year old who’s still learning the difference between fantasy and reality, how the hell does anyone get to that place??? What isn’t being done???? I was a latch-key kid and raised in an abusive household. Yet, I don’t feel the need to do harm. Making someone else feel bad won’t make me feel good. Is it what shrinks have warned about? That by having too much ~ too much freedom ~ too much stuff ~ things coming easier than the generations before? Hell, has the no-holds-barred access to everything and anything on the internet spawned what can only be described as soulless creatures? It’s been said that when asked about the most disturbing scene in Hostel, hands down people would point to the American client, played by Rick Hoffman. Not the torture scenes, but, the scene with only dialog. The scene where a man who anyone could know in their daily lives becomes giddy over the chance to torture another human being to death. What’s worse is the knowledge that some who watch that scene will not find him horrifying!

It’s frustrating because there’s only so much policing that can be done on sites like myspace. If you add a page and are under age, no one over 18 can add you as a friend. Of course, they can add you, though! My most recent friend request came from my teenage nephew, Michael. At first I was thrilled! He and everyone else is back in Hell (Texas), so I saw it as a way to keep in touch with him. I won’t lie to ya, though. On myspace he can be his normal, teenage self and it kinda freaks me out! Sure, he’s not posting clips of violence, but under his “who I’d like to meet” he wrote “your mom”. NOT the responsible beyond his years boy I know. And, though I acknowledge that he’s simply being a normal boy who’s one of the star players of the high school football team, it still freaks me out! There are just some things I don’t wanna know! But, as his auntie and someone who can access his page ~ I have no choice but to look. Actually, yesterday I had to ask him to please stop posting ads for “fake weed” on my comments section! Next, it’ll be the myspace trackers that I’ll have to ask him to quit putting there! What is that about????? Ya, that stuff I’ll over look ~ just like the church gathering I was dragged to, where I spotted my niece (then 7) sneaking pieces of ham. That, I simply looked the other way about because I knew the kid was only curious (er, and that my sister’s head would explode!). But, if I had any reason to believe he was interacting with people he shouldn’t or anything else that could lead to harm, I’d have no choice but to call up my sister immediately! Besides becoming a wealthy writer paying for all the college tuitions (*gulp* if you do the math - that’s a total of 11!) I also need to be watch dog where my sister can’t be.

I wish there was an easy answer to all this. Even the ability to track down the wrong doers isn’t enough. All anyone needs to do is cry 1st Amendment and they’re free to post whatever horrors they want! Have a tape of someone being brutally murdered???? Put it online for everyone to watch! The rights of the murder victims family???? Right-shmites! That’s entertainment, baby! Pass the popcorn!