Non-Believer of the Church of MySpace

Will Dixon over at uninflected images juxtaposed introduced me to MySpace. When I say that, what I mean is he posted an entry on his blog called So, What's the Deal with MySpace? Which made me inquisitive.

I’ve already read articles about the site in the broadsheets. Shame I didn’t keep any of them but, it from what I read, I couldn’t really see the point. And if you’re thinking, How late is your awareness of MySpace? check out the date on the opening salvo of blogs. Both Blogger and MySpace weren’t on my radar because they didn’t need to be.

My first response upon glancing at a variety of MySpace pages was “My eyes! My beautiful eyes!” Apparently not one single page satisfies the criteria for valid HyperText Markup Language laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium, which isn’t that surprising.

Even worse than it causing accessibility problems, the site is set up to allow everyone to customise their profile page. Which means a muckety-muck of designs by people who have absolutely no fucking idea about design. At least the available blog templates were put together by actually designers.

The majority of MySpace pages look like they were cobbled together by manic kiddies who had raided the crayon box and gone amuck, creating playbills for participants appearing at the carnival night on The Island of Doctor Moreau. Others were frankly dull.

Once I finally found a site that didn’t have garish pink lettering on a turquoise background, or something equally as violent, I started to look around to see what the pages have.

There wasn’t much. So, the point is simply to big yourself up and make friends. Is that it? Okay. Not to promote myself as the anti-social type, but simply amassing ‘friends’ from out across the ether to exchange banal pleasantries with does seem all that great to me.

Frankly, I prefer real friends. Ones you can actually socialise with. Ones that will do you a solid when you’re in a bind, and vice versa.

I suppose people can say the same about blogs. But a good number of them are informative, witty and entertaining. As a writer who doesn’t always get the chance to write, especially when we have a filming assignment, writing the blog gives me the chance to flex the muscle. Even when I am writing, the blog gives me the opportunity to write something different and more personal.

Maybe blogs are the new “Dear Diary...” allowing you to see how far you’ve progressed over the weeks, months and years. Which makes MySpace the new penpals. The problem is, most people don’t have much to say. Instead it lets them jump up and down and wave their hands, trying their best to be noticed.

If that’s all there is, I don’t see any reason to be a Worshiper at the Church of MySpace.