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MySpace mania


Michele

Michele is from Luxembourg and is currently studying Literature at Kingston University. She enjoys music, festivals, Bill Bailey, sunshine, sarcasm and laughing a lot.

Michele thinks MySpace has spun out of control. Not only is it about how many friends you can pick up, but now it seems universities and employers are checking up on you and your out of work activities, so watch out...

"Hello gorgeous. I'm 46 and own a company. Wanna meet up?" No thanks. What is all the fuss about MySpace? OK, it started off with a great idea, but with over 57 million members and 500,000 new subscribers each week, it's slowly turning into a haven for self-obsessed teens and stalkers. And let's not forget Rupert Murdoch, who's found yet another way of making more money, after buying the whole thing for £330 million.

The craze is unstoppable. MySpace has become the world's fourth most popular English language website and is even ahead of Google and eBay in the number of pages viewed. Slowly but surely it's taking over Britain as well as the US, and there's even talk of Murdoch launching a separate UK version.

The purpose behind the networking phenomenon is to enable users to stay in contact with old friends, meet new people with similar interests and provide a platform for unknown bands and filmmakers. But three years after the creation, Tom Anderson's idea of an 'online community that lets you meet your friends' friends seems to be altering the very nature of friendship, rather than extending people's social networks. Quantity is becoming more important than quality with users collecting more and more virtual 'friends'. The typical US MySpace user has 278 friends, and it seems the more the merrier, but two thirds of them have never even met. It's almost similar to when you're a child and you have an imaginary friend because you feel lonely. Now we're coaxing strangers into being our friend. Screen-to-screen friendships are easy to maintain, they don't need effort or care, you don't even have to communicate because they will always keep the label of 'friends', and that's what matters, isn't it? Users escape reality by producing fake personalities, which are basically idealised online versions of themselves. They carefully select their 'interests' and music tastes and show off in posed pictures. Their online 'friends' seem to act more as decoration on their homepage than for being real people.

Research suggests that 61% of British 13-17 year-olds have a MySpace account and teenagers are spending at least three hours a day on the site, but one in three say it negatively affects their lives. Nevertheless, MySpace is turning into a vast popularity contest - it's all 'about me' and who's got the most friends, the most comments and the hottest photos. It's a forum for vain and self-obsessed people who are desperate to become popular. So although the site was designed for 'normal' people, it seems to be adding to our obsession with celebrities, and yes, it has created celebrities - like the 'Girls of MySpace' bunnies in the June 2006 edition of Playboy.

"MySpace is turning into a vast popularity contest - it's all 'about me' and who's got the most friends, the most comments and the hottest photos. It's a forum for vain and self-obsessed people who are desperate to become popular."

The virtual world is becoming a major concern with parents. Although you have to be 14 to set up an account, teenagers can easily lie about their age. They have become the prey of stalkers and sexual predators. Police say that more than 50,000 potential sexual offenders are thought to be online at any one time. Many 14-17 year-olds pose in skimpy outfits on their pictures and give out enough information about themselves, such as their school name or places they like to hang out, to enable paedophiles to track them down.

What's also scary is that MySpace is taking up Big Brother-like characteristics. You can keep track of the people who looked at your profile, how often they did it and how long they stayed for. Rumour has it that universities are actually checking applicants' profiles before offering them a place. The postcode from your CV is enough to identify you. The same goes for employers who are believed to check up on their future employees. So, no matter how great your CV looks, if you mention on your MySpace that you like to enjoy a drink over the limit or the occasional spliff, it could compromise your chances of getting into uni or finding a job.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which already makes $23,859 billion with papers such as News of the World and The Sun, is making money out of your personal information. And it's a handy way for advertisers to target their potential customers, bombarding you with adverts of their latest products.

The 'private community' of MySpace has turned out to be a public display of your private life and MySpace is actually turning into 'YourSpace'.

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