MySpace is a disease

-or- spreading like a cancer

from JoeUser Forums
Yes, you heard me correctly. MySpace is a disease.

And not just a benign disease either. This is a serious, aggerssive, pernicious disease. One that seems hell-bent on taking over the internet. In fact, this vile, filthy, perverted disease has risen to be in the top ten sites globally. Yes, top ten English sites in the world. Like a particularly aggressive cancer, it is consuming all in its path.

Why do I call MySpace a disease? Just go over there and start looking at random sites. Aesthetically they make me want to puke and gouge my eyes out with rusty nails in turns. Cluttered beyond belief with no actual content buried in the dross. Abundant grainy photos that look like they were taken by fatally intoxicated, blind donkeys (no opposable thumbs) adorn most sites. Guys who look like they have glued a pair of pubes on their chin to make them look more manly epitomize the word "poser". Girls apparently striving to be the next big Playboy model toss up "glamour" shots of themselves willy-nilly.

But what concerns me the most are supposedly intelligent, bright people who are jumping on the bandwagon. I have seen a couple of prog metal bands that I really respect pimping their MySpace site. I suppose this just exemplifies the axiom that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Come on though! Did they actually even check out MySpace before they started their sites? Are these the people you want to attract? I suppose publicity is the key, and with the disturbing growth of MySpace they are sure to get that. But there is just something about MySpace that turns my stomach.

Oh, right, that disease thing.
internet
101,655 views 90 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
i had a myspace. i did not put any weird or stupid pictures or tell the whole world my exact location like most of the others i know. but. i deleted mine a month or so ago. realizing the stupidity of it. as well as all the abductions there have been across the nation. it's very dangerous. kids are so uninformed and so naive about how to use the internet. they post way too much stuff about themselve so that anyone who had the desire could pinpoint their exact location, name, age, and have a picture to go along with as well. it's so stupid.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top

i had a myspace. i did not put any weird or stupid pictures or tell the whole world my exact location like most of the others i know. but. i deleted mine a month or so ago. realizing the stupidity of it. as well as all the abductions there have been across the nation. it's very dangerous. kids are so uninformed and so naive about how to use the internet. they post way too much stuff about themselve so that anyone who had the desire could pinpoint their exact location, name, age, and have a picture to go along with as well. it's so stupid.

Thanks for the comment.  I think you highlight one of the reasons I think it is so pernicious.  It just really becomes an breeding ground for inappropriate and potentially dangerous action toward minors.

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Having recently started a myspace site... I agree with you nearly completely.

The friends I joined the site to correspond with are actually very intelligent, and (possibly for that reason) don't really use the site very much! They've used it specifically to correspond with their friends and family, not to whore themselves out to whomever "friends" or "adds" them on myspace.

I admit, I've looked at local women on there. It saddens me:
1) that I've sunk to that level and
2) that they've sunk to that level.

I'm a hair's breadth away from kiboshing my site, even though I added another friend (a IRL one) just today.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
LMAO...All I can say is...Uh...Um...God save us. I love the self discriptions the girls give themselves...bitch...trash...Hoe...How...however they say it. I wonder who they're trying to impress with that? And just about every page I clicked had this blaring crappy rap stuff on it...for the life of me I cannot understand how anyone can listen to that crap. Anyway, I'm with you on this one BlueDev. It's circling the bowl. And if I ever heard my daughter started a page on that site I'd send her off to boot camp.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
It's a sickness, but the sickness isn't MySpace. MySpace is a symptom. What you are looking at is our culture. We have created a world where acceptance is the rule and any accountability is unfair. If it wasn't MySpace, it would be something else, or we'd just be more ignorant of the cretinous mess our world is becoming.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't understand. What's wrong with MySpace? I'm not that familiar with it. But it's basically a blog site right?
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top

I don't understand. What's wrong with MySpace? I'm not that familiar with it. But it's basically a blog site right?

I wish I could pin it down Brad.  There is just something about MySpace that attracts the ultra-attention whoring types.  Teenagers, and not even teenagers, post all about their sexual conquests on MySpace, post ridiculous photos of themselves, and it really seems like a dangerous site for youth.  Something about it just screams "sexual predator playground". 

There is an intangible about it that just pushes it over the edge of a normal blog site. 

Oh, and it is ugly as hell.  Seriously, the pages are so poorly designed and laid out, so cluttered with crap, so full of refuse.  Perhaps I am just being snobbish about the aesthetics of many of the Spaces.  But there is just something about it that seems "off" to me.

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
When I'm surfing around, I ignore all the myspace and blogs and whatnot. I find it all pretty annoying. But when people bring their online world into reality, that just creeps me out. People talk about myspace like it's a real place. They 'meet' people and have ten billion 'friends.'

People have started to use internet shorthand in verbal communication. Can you imagine someone making a lame joke and adding 'Oh, J-K.' Needless to say, they got a swift kick in the throat.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F78ejbPVto&search=myspace
All you really need to watch is the first 3 minutes. That is what myspace is all about.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Who goes? I'm sick of hearing all the horror stories about it on the news. If they hadn't allowed it to turn into the cesspool it is, there'd be no reason to talk about it at all.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top

Just an idea that you may want to consider, STOP GOING TO MYSPACE THEN!

I don't go.  In fact I hardly knew anything about the site at all until I stumbled across that Alexa article last week.

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top

But what concerns me the most are supposedly intelligent, bright people who are jumping on the bandwagon. I have seen a couple of prog metal bands

Intelligent?

Gawd...give me Spinal Tap, anyday....

Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sonny Szeto, 22, of New York, used the site to meet an 11-year-old girl, while Stephen Letavec, 39, of Pennsylvania used it to meet a 14-year-old girl, federal authorities said.
“People with nefarious intentions exploit that technology and target our children,” Kevin O’Connor, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, said at a news conference in New Haven, Connecticut.
Some 60 million users post photographs and personal information about themselves on the social-networking site owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
MySpace Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe declined to comment on the arrests, saying the company doesn’t discuss criminal investigations.
MySpace also uses software to identify minors, flagging profiles with terms likely to be used by children under age 14. Some 200,000 profiles have been deleted from the site on suspicion that users had lied about their age.
Still, there’s no fool-proof way for MySpace or any other Internet site to verify the age of all users, DeWolfe said in an interview.
In a bid to fight abuse, the company posts warnings about the potential for its members to become crime victims. “We think that education is the most important piece,” he said.
MySpace not blamed
O’Connor said the blame doesn’t lie with MySpace. “This really is about the predators,” the U.S. attorney said in an interview. “When it comes to blame you can only point the finger at the defendants.”



I just found out my niece has a site on there. She is 13. She posts herself as 21. Her 'buddy's' all post as over 18 and such and they are 13 and 14. They use the 'my bitches' slang and 'my Ho'' and post the photo's, schools, dance schools etc.

It's just not right.
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sorry about the double post. These server error messages are driving me nutz
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
While I do not have one, nor ever plan on getting one, I do not see why it is such a "disease." Why do you care if people post on myspace? Everyone is looking for themselves, and if they choose to express themselves in that manner, what is the point of condemning them?
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
i have a myspace, and I post random stuff there. It seems to be a promotional tool. A lot of bands send me invites/calendars to upcoming gigs. It does have a teenage vibe, though.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top

I listen to the Kim Komando show every week, and she has new stories all the time detailing how sexual predators have used myspace to find victims. To put it simply, Myspace is to sexual predators what AOL chat rooms were 5 years ago.

As far as bands "pimping" themselves on MySpace, the idea actually has some merit. When you advertise, you want to be where people will see you and, like it or not, MySpace is the current fad. I don't use myspace and don't plan to use it anytime soon, except maybe to provide a portal to the main site I'm hoping to build. But it is as good or as bad as people make it. And hey, discerning parents can watch their kids tattle on themselves in front of millions.

Although I agree, the layout sucks

Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just went and checked it out. Feels like I stepped in it. Hope my kids do better. It's all about choice, I think, is why we're here. What am I talking about?! I'm the one who's sitting here in the house and could be out in the wind. Too hip...gotta go.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thank you for your opinion. But you do realize that you sound like your parents did about "that godawful music", right?

In terms of CONSTRUCTIVE discussion, I wish the myspace site had some good templates/design guides for people. Cutting and pasting CSS (which is one step up from html/command line coding) is just so 1970's. That is the main reason the sites look so abominable. A nice little point and click design program would be very nice indeed.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
But you do realize that you sound like your parents did about "that godawful music", right?


Of course I do. Every day I realize just how much like my parents I am becoming. Sort of sad, but oh well.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top

It's a sickness, but the sickness isn't MySpace. MySpace is a symptom

Could not have put it better.  Thanks Baker.

Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top

Could not have put it better. Thanks Baker.

Yeah, that is true.  Baker is correct, I believe.  This is just a manifestation of a larger issue.  Thanks Baker.

Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
I guess it could be considered pretty bad. There is a sever lack of community administrators on there and the site basically just sits there and takes whatever and whoever puts up on it.

I have a MySpace sitee mostly because I want to communicate with artists and models (real ones)and move some of them to my site as well as promote them for no compencation. I even want to develope a non-profit around the idea... but anyway, the point is that MySpace is successful because of its connection to music and art and it allows people to live out their dreams. The very sad side of it is that it is no monitored in any real way and is horrible as to how it runs code wise.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Just an idea that you may want to consider, STOP GOING TO MYSPACE THEN!


Idiot.