I would agree with the commonly held opinion that My Space is a little hinky. People just don't use their brains. They put personal information on their pages that can get them in trouble with work or school. It's definitely a meat market too. People can see where you live if you provide the details, and then you get messages asking if you want to hang out (or worse). Then there's the local bands and bars looking for free advertising.
All the cons aside, I do have a page and I do enjoy browsing around from time to time. I like that you can be a bit voyeuristic without actually interacting with someone unless you want to. And I'm nosy. I like checking up on people I knew 10 years ago.
But I'm not one of those people with 685 "friends." I only add someone if I know them. I've reconnected and stayed in touch with old friends and kept tabs on others. For the most part, it's been limited to people that I have had at least casual communications with over the years.
This past weekend though, I got a message from someone I'd gone to high school with. It's been over 12 years since we've been in touch and longer since we've seen each other. He was someone that meant a great deal to me in high school, and I was thrilled to hear from him.
He's a single dad to two little girls, which is hard to reconcile with the boy who would drive by my house and honk the same pattern just to say hi. Or the boy who mocked me for wearing Birks with no socks at football games when it snowed. Or the boy who stuffed me behind a jukebox when a brawl broke out at the bar he'd taken me to when I was 17.
How did it happen that we're not kids anymore?
6 comments:
I'm with you on the my space thing. I have a page too and really just use it to keep in touch with people from high school and college. I don't talk to people I don't know. It's interesting to find out how people are doing. And although I suspect you are just a bit older than I am, I often wonder how we all gre up too.
I am. I'm the younges 62 year old you have ever seen. I don't keep in contact with any of my high school people. I didn't like them then, why do I want to see them now. Besides, many of them are dead now. So it all isn't bad.
I'm on my Space, too. Because of Jane and TA and Ty. So I know what's going on in local poetry music and and art--OR--not so local any more but still interesting to me.
It's those very ads, promotions that interest me--just to keep me on the ball.
High school friends? I've either lost them or, with the few that remain, I email them.
And Coffeypot, if you're back, we're in the same ballpark.
mary stebbins taitt, I went to your blog site to read and leave a message, but lol it looks like a New York phonebook. Which site do you use as the primary site for random postings?
Hi Coffeypot, it seems strange to be talking to you on someone else's blog (HI ERIN!!!). YOu could leave me a message on ANY of them and I'd get it, of course.
No Polar Coordinates is my random blog where I post nearly every day. That's where the name comes from--the blog doesn't have a theme or a driving force.
I also post to IMAGIK nearly every day--it's my art and photoblog.
Erin, I was on My Space just yesterday for a while. Ty Marshall's (R)Evolution Zine has a presence there. As well as MN Poetry, TA James etc. And ME.
I just can't get into the My Space thing. Somehow it rubs me wrong. Also, it does seem to be a meat market. At least that's what my sister in law uses it for, and anything she does, well, I don't want any part of it. Bad, huh?
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