A Place for Friends… and Stalkers.
Remember how I said “Facebooking” is the new “stalking” last week? Read on for a very relevant essay.
(written February 2006)
I know Tom. But we aren’t friends. You probably know Tom, too. And because of him, you and I sit at our computers for what seems like hours per day, essentially stalking people instead of calling them – mainly because we’re not really close enough for that. We are, however, close enough to be “friends” on what seems to be the biggest addiction since James Frey’s alleged crack habit – MySpace. The motto is “A Place for Friends”. At first, I suppose it was fitting, but now it’s decidedly “a place for stalkers”. It used to be “a place for annoying scene kids”. Then, at some point last year – I really couldn’t pinpoint when – it became known as “GaySpace” (I’m not slandering, there was an escalation of homosexuals on the site). Recently, according to Date Line NBC, it’s “a place for sexual predators and the under-aged” - although, that’s been the internet forever. So leave Tom alone! Besides, there is a world of a difference between “internet stalking” and “internet predatoring”.
Without the ability to stalk, I wouldn’t be able to keep track of my 236 closest friends and enemies. I certainly would never have found my next-door neighbor from elementary school. And I definitely would never have found several people from my different classes. I’m not naming names, but yes I probably stalked you during my research. To think, over a year ago, I was forced to create an account. Now I am one of over the fifty MILLION users – most of which are probably just as compulsive as I am. It’s routine – you wake up, brush your teeth and snort a line check your MySpace.
Speaking of crack habits and users, they really should have an AA of sorts for MySpace because it really is an addiction. Some have tried to quit; to delete their accounts, but in the end they all come running back, only to sign on and with a sigh of relief and check the number of new comments they have. It’s really like an ego boost. Who has the most friends? Do I have any new picture comments? How about a friend request from a band that I will never listen to? But it increases the number of friends I have, so I look way cooler. But then there is the factor of being “MySpaced in public”. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been out in a club and someone has come up to me and said, “Hey, aren’t you on MySpace? Aren’t you the one with the cool moving picture?” At that point, I stare at them in bewilderment and then face-palm and run off.
Somehow, from the comment and friend race, MySpace celebrities were born. These are the people that have thousands upon thousands of “friends”. The MySpace celebrity status is reserved for the likes of “Forbidden”, “Tila Tequila”, “Joey Badass” and “Jeffree Star”. Many have tried, but none can compete. The title of “MySpace Whore” is reserved for those that are incessantly trying to gain celebrity status by begging for comments and innumerable friend requests from acquaintances and strangers, alike.
Then, with the accumulation of friends, comes the problem with the Top 8. Initially, the Top 8 was set up in such a way that you couldn’t choose who resided there at the bottom of your page – for the line up was comprised of the first eight people on your friends list, in the order that they signed up for this monstrosity. Dismayed with not being allowed to have who were most likely his real friends, a programmer assembled a code to change around and customize the Top 8. After a while, Tom caught on and made it accessible to the masses. Little did he know, the “do it yourself” Top 8 would be the demise of humanity as we know it. Drama ensued. People were offended, added, removed, floored. Friendships were destroyed! MAYHEM!
On a more legitimate and less chaotic, but definitely not less stalker-ish level, is FaceBook. Launched a little over two years ago by Mark Zuckerberg, this website took the world – well, the college campus, by storm. Drew Leinonen is a self-proclaimed FaceBook stalker that grew up in Michigan but went to Seminole High School in Florida. He is a Gemini psychology major and is gay but apparently “married” to Lauren Rowland from the University of Florida. But you already know this about him – and more – if you’ve seen his profile on the FaceBook. The “online directory that connects people through social networks at schools” is the new reason for college… or at least activating your college e-mail account. This new networking stalking phenomenon is as common to college as pizza and caffeine pills. If you know a person’s first name, last name, birthday, class or major, you are almost certainly able to find them. A prime example taken from Drew’s online journal:
Met a cute boy at FARH (Florida Association of Residence Halls). Didn’t catch his name, all I knew is that he went to Lynn and he appeared to be gay. Using the list of people from Lynn that were presenting, I did not see him on FaceBook. So I tried those same people on MySpace, and none of them were on there! So the logical (but lengthy) next step was to look up males at Lynn University on MySpace. Since there are only about 700 students TOTAL at their college, there was only about 15 pages of males to sort through (between 18 and 22, of course), and I of course found him by page 12. Pain in the assssssssssss! But it worked…
In the same vein as non-fiction memoirs, celebrity tabloids, and reality television, the general public is enthralled with other peoples’ lives. And with their best friends and sworn enemies at the tips of their fingers, it has become easier to keep tabs on everyone and anyone. From pictures to “blogs”, personal information is readily accessible to nearly anyone that wants to find it. It is quite possible to know a person’s entire life-story without even having met them. It is also quite possible to find the whereabouts of others if they decide to put their most personal information on their page – such as actual address or phone number. This is where stalking potentially turns to “predatoring”. But that’s a subject left to the late night news or even Oprah.
Internet predators are as old as the internet itself. Why it must be rehashed over and over on the news is beyond me. When I was in high school, I had a personal web page on AOL – one that was only accessible to people that actually knew me (unlike MySpace or FaceBook) and Oprah had a show all about internet predators coincidentally in the same week that my mother found it online. I was lectured and grounded because a 40-year-old man in Texas was most likely going to find my screen name. And with it, look at my web page to find my school, car model, and extra-curricular activities. Clearly with this information, he was going to find me, rape me, and then leave me on the side of the road with a sock on my forehead. But, of course, it was okay for my mom to put a personal ad on J-Date and go out with strange men. The world is cruel, what can I say? Talk about falling into the generation gap.
On a more serious note, though, the problem that we’re socially facing is that our generation is the last generation to know what life is like without the internet and MySpace. Generations after us have grown up with it, so their mindset is incredibly more vanity-oriented than ours ever will be. This means that there is a huge explosion in kids pretending to be models, saying that something is “haute”, and basically enveloping themselves in aesthetic importance in place of things like school, playing outside, hanging out with friends, etc. They’re all like, “look at me, I have 50 million pictures of myself in high contrast, I am a model and I’m cooler than you because my pants are five sizes too small and my belt sparkles. HIGH FASHION IS ME. I AM HOLLYWOOD.” On the other hand, personal profile websites have become normal and acceptable, as opposed to personal dating websites which still carry stigma.
MySpace seems to be the new outlet of personal expression. It used to be that people dressed or did their hair a certain way to express themselves. They joined clubs or hung out with certain groups of people. Now there is another way to express yourself – MySpace customization. Your page basically tells your personality in a one-stop-shop sort of way. And then, the rest of the electronic world is responding to the explosion of internet-centered relationships. “Land-line” phones are becoming obsolete because people are sending text messages or leaving comments rather than voice messages. So companies are responding by coming out with internet-integrated wireless and cellular phones so that people basically have a mini, portable connection to MySpace or FaceBook no matter where they are.
The website started as a small “place for friends” – probably because Tom didn’t have any. But now, Tom has many – including Rupert Murdoch, President of NewsCorp. (FOX news, 20th Century FOX, etc.) Murdoch paid Tom 580 million dollars for rights to his website. Without any hesitation, Tom accepted that “friend request” and is now reaping the benefits.
