MySpace: WTF, Mate?

Okay, so I have a MySpace account. Yes I do.

I originally set it up so I would be able to actually learn about the system so my daughter couldn't pull the wool over my eyes about what the server is capable of and what it's not. I also wanted to learn all the little tricks so I could decrease the chance of her getting one over on me.

So I set up the account, using a fake picture and minimal information. My 15-year-old daughter was my one and only friend (not counting Tom, of course).

Then my daughter's friend sent me a "friend request." I was thrilled! Someone wanted to be my friend on MySpace!! So what if it was another 15-year-old?? Then I found out my son has a MySpace account, so I sent him a friend request. Now I had three - count 'em, three - friends!!

I can't even describe the utter ecstasy I felt when my first comment was posted. You know you're really somebody on MySpace when you have comments.

I learned how to embed a song or video into my profile. Oh yeah. Folks who visited my profile now had something to listen to as they perused my comments!!

I slowly collected a few more friends. Some were actually adults. And then my daughter and I decided that I needed more friends, so she posted a bulletin advertising my friendless state. Lo! and Behold!! Friend requests galore!! I skyrocketed into delusions of popularity as I changed my "Top Friends" capacity from 4 to 16 to encompass ALL of my 14 friends.

Yes, I know that most people have at least 200 friends. All I can say about that is: cyberspace imitates life.

Then, my friends started to ask questions like, "Why am I behind so-and-so if he leaves you comments and whatnot and I don't?" Of course, I had to post an entire bulletin dedicated to the fact that I don't arrange my "Friends" space in any particular order except for the first two - my daughter and my son. I qualified this bulletin by acknowledging that some people might manage to be offended by being placed in no particular order, but that I would have to persevere and possibly lose their MySpace friendship in order to abide by my own personal values. I shudder to contemplate the day when my "Top Friends" space doesn't have room for ALL of my friends. What drama awaits? How will I prioritize my friendships then??

More importantly, how am I going to prioritize Toby Keith, Jake Peavy, and Gil the Crab?? Does their specialty status in life automatically entitle them to preferred status in my friends list? Is there a protocol for this??? I am overcome by etiquette stress already and Toby Keith hasn't even responded yet.

Exhausted from all this negotiating, I noticed that my profile was boring in comparison with the icon-studded and video-laden profiles of some of my friends. It was time to freshen my perspective and join the ranks of those who pimp their MySpace. After three tries, I was able to change the colors and basic layout of my profile - and embed a personalized photograph.

Now we're getting somewhere, I thought gleefully. Now my friends not only had cool tunes to rock out to while visiting my profile - perhaps to leave comments!! - but had soothing colors to enhance their profile-visiting experience. I was proud of my new-found cyber-knowledge. I was impressed by my own derring-do. I was hip, man!!

And now, I'm committed. Now I have to manage comments and messages, accept or deny friend requests, mediate the personal drama of my 14 friends, and read pages full of surveys and personal confessions. Instead of calling my friends on the phone, or visiting them at their various places of residence, I now visit their MySpace profiles to get updates on current events in their lives, most of which need to be cross-referenced with the profiles of their friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...

It's more than a hobby, man. It's MySpace.