I am going to admit something I am not necessarily proud of. I somewhat-kind-of-maybe have a little addiction to social networking sites. I can’t exactly tell you the reason why, but what I can tell you that I have been known to check my Myspace and Facebook page more than I check my email.
I’m a musician; I originally was introduced to Myspace because of this. “A free website where I can network with other musicians”? I thought. “Web exposure”? ”What? You can put your own songs up and customize your page too”? “Awsome” I said to myself. “Where do I sign up”? I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Before Myspace ever became popular. I considered social networking sites for losers, guys who have problems meeting girls, and freaks who women laughed at. I felt confident that I was not one of these despised online characters. So I continued forth among the few who represented themselves virtually. "I'm a good looking guy, right? At the very least I should at least get some more play out of this"? And to prove my MVP status, I decked my flag of individualism with my best pictures and a nice black background. Not that I'm trying to impress anyones (yea right). I’m just using this as a tool to get some exposure. But social sites are like cigarettes. At first you get a slight rush or buzz from the experience, but after a while you're left with a boring addiction. I know people who will sign up, realize they're wasting their lives away and then delete themselves immediately. All within the span of a few of days. Three weeks later they're at it again. I used to think these people were nuts. But now I’m starting to get their point. I kind of liken it to a smoker who buys a pack of smokes only to throw them away once they got their fix. Lung damage not included.
About three months after I signed up, my boss and I noticed my work production was going down. Not that I really produce anything at work anyways. I’m a manger. But managers are not supposed to have their page minimized and logged in all day: constantly checking every chance they get to see if they received any messages or friend requests. I called it a “trifecta” when you received a friend request, a message, and a new comment notification. For some reason I became obsessed attracting people to my page. I would post tons of bulletins in an attempt to notice me. I would leave quotes like “what up fam” or "Lemme know what you think of the tracks on my page, any feedback would help" on the pages of the nobodies who added me. I even designed a picture of a half naked girl with a cartoon quote coming out of her mouth relaying how much she loved me (you should see how many profile hits you can get with a racy picture like that, perverts). All of this, in the name of profile view counts. That correct, I wasted a great deal of valuable in-the-prime-of-my-life-time, worrying about profile views. You can now laugh if you’d like to, its o.k...
About three months ago my addictively numb fascination with Myspace simply petered out. I was beaten to death with the endless march of accomplishing nothing. No one was noticing me, I am an obsolete blip in cyber space. One of 230,000,000 cyber somethings virtually (pun intended) saying, “Hey look at me, I’m cool too”. I felt tired, like some sort of cyber whore who had just got done with her nights shift. With my hat in my hand; I surrendered to the zillions of rap groups, people who really aren’t who they say they are, and the spammers persistently trying to get you to click on their “get a free Macy’s gift card” link. The rush just wasn’t there for me. But I couldn’t delete my profile; I am member 11,432,567. I have 1,378 fake friends who love me for the fact that I have a page too. Doesn’t all that work I put in stand for something? Can my life go on without me trying to impress a web page? For sure, no problem, I can kick Myspace. That’s why I have Facebook.