The MySpace Phenomenon, or There Are A Lot of Shitty Parents Out There

We've all heard of MySpace. It's this year's fad that we will be making fun of on VH-1 in a few years (now that I think about it, when will we start making fun of the "Remember the blanks" show on VH-1 on a show making fun of past years? Okay, I'm rambling...). I joined a while back; you know when cause I made a comment about it here (I don't remember when exactly, and I'm not going to bother looking it up). So now that I've been on MySpace a few months, what do I think about it, and about the current controversies surrounding it? I'm glad you asked.

I was very embarrassed when my dear friend Mayra made me join MySpace. It's way too trendy of a thing for me to do usually. However, I let her talk me into it, and I must say it's been a great experience for me. I've met up with a bunch of friends from college who I haven't spoken to in a while, met up with old friends from high school who I've been very happy to hear from, and become better friends with friends from the past that would not have happened if not for MS. Of course, I've heard from some really random people as well, even some really crazy people. But that's the beauty of the internet: you just hit delete when you bump into them, and move on.

Do some people take MySpace too seriously? Of course. I find nothing more annoying than people who complain about whether or not they are on your Top 8 (you want to see new faces every once in a while people, or others are closer friends than you, sorry it's nothing personal), and some people really would like to talk over MS than with "real" forms of communication, like the phone or spending time together. But like anything in the world, if you take it too seriously it's not fun, but if you just roll with it and take things with a grain of salt, you're going to really enjoy it. So for adults, it's good clean fun (or dirty fun, if you're into that, but it's your choice).

Of course, one cannot be a popular piece of new web technology without controversy, and with kids is when it gets interesting. Of course kids got on and went what I like to think of as Avril Lavine on the page. They were talking about how much they hated parents/teachers/authority/whatever, talked about sex and drugs, basically just acted like kids. Nothing unusual, nothing they didn't do before they had a web page with which to permanently document the dumb things they say or did, but unfortunately for them, now it is out there for the world to see.

Parents around the country pulled a Sheila Broflovski and said, "Wh-wha-what?" There were immediate calls of protest from parents across the country, and several ridiculous stories have come about--high school girls flying to the Mid East to meet boyfriends out there, of course pedafiles meeting children on the site, "terroristic" threats made against teachers and schools, etc. MySpace's reputation in a matter of a couple months has changed from a fun and cool sight to meet friends on to an evil breeding ground to Columbine-like violence and pedophilia, capped off by news reports such as this article by Bob Sullivan that claim, "Fundamentally, MySpace is popular for one reason: Young people publish hundreds of thousands of risque photos of themselves, and others like to look."

Okay...parents...MySpace supporters...Bob...let's all take a deep breath and calm down. Are we calm? Are we relaxed? Are our minds open to honest, rationale thought and open discussion? Good.

Now that you're clam, I have to say this to angry parents and Bob: grow up and get a fucking clue.

Man I'd make a good mediator! ;-)

Anyway, to the parents first: while yes, of course it is necessary for MySpace to have some sort of controls in place, it is both totally unreasonable and literally impossible to expect MySpace to come up with a bulletin board site (which is essentially what MySpace is) that is perfectly safe for children. I have bad news for the idiot parents out there: THERE IS NO PLACE WHERE CHILDREN ARE COMPLETELY SAFE. Nowhere. None. Not at church, not at Scouting, not at a park, not at a mall, not at school, not at day care, and not online. Wherever children are, predators are there waiting. It's a sad fact of the world. So while yes, each of these institutions has a responsibility to make their situations as safe as possible for kids, it's up to you, parents, to be on guard for such activities, because there is no such thing as a foolproof security system anywhere.

This is just another example of shitty, lazy parents passing their responsibilities on to others. It's YOUR job to keep track of what your children are doing. It's YOUR job to make sure they're not participating in things they shouldn't be participating in. Parents need to teach their kids to be aware of strangers online just as they would strangers offering them candy on the street corner. It's a different medium, but it is still their responsibility. Get your kid's passwords. Know what sites they visits. TAKE SOME TIME and spend it with your kids as they surf, so you know what they're doing. All it takes is a little time and a little patience as you listen to your kid whine, but hey, I've got news for you, THAT'S WHAT BEING A PARENT IS ALL ABOUT.

I think too many parents believe that their children have a right to privacy. What a foolish notion! Let me dispel that here: Your children have no right to privacy from you. None. Their emails, their letters, their room, their web pages, are all subject to your scrutiny. I don't recommend doing a full search of their email account every day when they've been behaving, but it's your responsibility to keep an active interest in their lives and make sure you know what they're up to. If parents to that, then kids won't have the opportunity to, I don't know, say plan in detail with 5 other kids the massacre of a school? Or try to book tickets to the Middle East to see an online boyfriend they've been talking to for months? So get off your asses you shitty parents and take an active role in your kid's lives. It's your job to teach your kids to be safe and to keep them safe while they're young. Go do it.

And to media pundits like Bob Sullivan: fuck you too! Fundamentally MySpace is popular for risque photos? Huh? WTF? Get a clue. Thanks for yet another example of sensationalist journalism. I'm glad to know that I, and all my friends, are voyers and pedofiles and just want to look at underage kids on the internet. You got us. We're all just out there looking for kiddie porn, according to you. What a moron. I've detailed above why MySpace is popular; I won't bother to do it again. But the sensationalist claims of the media that MySpace is a breeding ground for that kind of thing are absurd. And I'm not just speaking from an adult's perspective: my youngest (almost) brother is 16, and has had a MySpace page for almost a year. Obviously most of his friends are the same age. I see his page all the time, and I've seen many of his friend's pages as well. I've never seen anything that made me think, "Wow, that's really inappropriate for a kid that age to have out there" in either a sexual or a violent nature. So don't even try the lame excuse that all kids out there are doing the worst of the stories you read. It's crap, and you know it.

So in the end, MySpace is a fun way for people to keep meet up and stay in touch with each other. Can some people use it for possibly inappropriate purposes? Sure. Can some people use it for evil and criminal purposes? Unfortunately, yes. You know what that makes it? Just like another institution in the world.

So leave MySpace alone, raise your kids yourself instead of trying to pawn that job off to someone else, and let the vast majority of MySpace users have the good, clean fun that they've been having.