About a year and a half ago, I had a complete mental breakdown brought on by my identity on friendster and my obsessive stalking of former friends, enemies or general human curiosities. This breakdown basically consisted of me talking through my issues with the wonderful Katy and Laurel and then deleting my profile. My beef boils down to the fact that it’s a construct. The friendster profile is like super-ego diarrhea. It’s an outpouring of the self-concept that cannot possibly be checked though interaction. It’s deliberate and pre-meditated and not at all real. It’s a world in which everyone is 1.witty, 2.smart. 3. happy and 4.exceedingly deep as partially evidenced by points 1 and 2. Though it might be argued that the face and personality we present every day of our lives is also a construct, it’s at least one that requires constant challenge in the form of shifting interpersonal conversations and situational needs. It is therefore about as close to real as can be achieved, unless of course you’re a sociopath or pathological liar. (Coincidentally I’ve met both! (Yay college!)). My breakdown came after looking at the profile of someone I was extremely close to at one point in my life and feeling like I didn’t know them AT ALL. This leads me of course to the successor of friendster, myspace.
My mind has been repeatedly blown that so many people I have known are on myspace. It’s like the great internet equalizer—the place where everyone, even the technologically challenged, can have their very own webpage. I understand its utility for musicians. It’s a good source of news and new music. But I do not understand the utility for anyone else, and maybe it doesn’t even need to have utility. I guess my main point is that I have gotten some truly fantastic internet stalking accomplished over the past few weeks. I think it’s safe to say I never need to go to any kind of reunion ever again, because I know roughly what everyone is doing. It breaks down like this (generally)*:
K-8 associates:
Republican, going to lots of rodeos, into nascar, listening to country music, live in Missouri, no college.
High school associates:
Republican, like to drink A LOT of beer (and possibly lift up shirt if given the right set of companions), design myspace page with very flashy/trashy graphics like huge American eagles or flashing pink hearts, live in Arizona (Oklahoma is also apparently popular), no college or took 6 years to finish associates degree.
College associates:
Democrat, in grad school or just finished grad school, live all over, lots of pictures of pets, not married.
*(Granted, my categorization scheme might bias my conclusions)
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