(note: big words have been linked with handy definitions for Myspace readers)

I’ve discovered that the only really interesting sections of Myspace for me is that devoted to bands, but I occasionally get sidetracked. Tonight I spent a few minutes profile-surfing in Myspace, starting with one of my ‘friends’ and tracing through several ‘friends’ removed, investigating these people’s profiles, and I found myself very self-consciously uncomfortable doing so. Most of the profiles I came across…

were so loaded with self-aggrandizing BS they read like rich-kid resumes or lonely hearts personal ads. As I hopped from one person to the next, the experience invariably devolved into a morass of skin and degeneracy at some point. I backed out, and found a new ‘friend’ and followed the trail of connections out to it’s inevitably disappointing result several times. Ruminating on this for a bit, I began to wonder if maybe *I* was the one with a problem. Perhaps instead of reading I should spend some time snapping sexually suggestive photos of myself in black leather pants for a better Myspace avatar!?

I’m continually amazed at the amount of private, personal information people put up on their Myspace pages. If I had a criminal mind, I would certainly be here daily looking for info on my next identity theft victim. The profile people (that’s what I call these caricatures of people as described on their Oh-so-obviously BS profile pages) must devote countless hours to primping and preening before the Myspace mirror, until their personal character sheet is perfectly designed to attract… what? It’s almost an exhibitionist display.

Before you get too upset by all this perhaps wondering if I mean *you* - if you’ve read this far, I probably don’t mean you. I can understand the utility of a ‘profile’ for purposes of meeting new people with similar interests. The almost desperate and certainly pathetic insecurity and abject loneliness that I believe are the real motivators behind these train-wreck profile-people pages are indicators of how broken our society really is. Instead of meeting new people in the context of a social gathering (at a party, at school, at work, at a local tavern), people are meeting solo, without introductions one on one, without any form of chaperon, and with neither the comfort of friends, nor any of the social restraints traditionally imposed by a social setting. I really think that at least as it comes to potential romance, that pursuing a new relationship in this manner is possibly unhealthy and certainly dangerous. If people don’t interact in a real (non-virtual) social context, the subtle social queues that are so important for young people to learn can’t be learned. We are social animals - we need to socialize, but our socialization requires more than just words typed on a screen, we use body language, we use our sense of smell (whether you realize it or not), we touch (and do we grab or caress?), we listen (and hear the laughter as well as groans which are only intimated by smileys and other cryptic emoticons on the web), and we see (we learn to perceive the subtle body movements that indicate un-expressed feelings or reactions to what we say and do).

In ancient times, the society was far more important to the individual than it is today, because there was wilderness between each small social group, and it was much more difficult to survive if shunned by the group for some social infraction. Today everyplace looks pretty much the same all across the country with most places connected by a seemingly never-ending trail of strip malls and fast food restaurants.
Not very long ago, for two people to start a relationship there would have been a formal courtship, and there were social obligations, rules and expectations that needed to be recognized over its course.
It might be argued that the automobile did more to change American society than the internet, but the information highway has rewritten how we can interact, and who we can reasonably interact with in much the same way, while offering a privacy of communication heretofore unseen. Though it offers a dizzying array of choices, the basic rules of socialization for any culture are subtle and (currently) impossible to program. I think that we do not recognize the magnitude of the changes that are happening to our society as a direct result of this fundamental change in how interact. I am not calling for a ‘return to the good old days’, but there is a thread of something disturbing in the images I saw tonight.

China, a society that was once the very antithesis of our own culture of celebration of the individual, is still up to its old tricks. The Chinese government is stamping down hard on bloggers and online forums. The Chinese governement believes that for their nation to be strong, and to act as one unified force (to become the next only global super power) they can’t very well have a bunch of bloggers running around calling for human rights and democratic votes on everything. It appears though, that they recognize how influential these new social networks will be, and how disastrous the cultural changes will be (at least to their current form of government). The US has always valued the individual, and honored the individual’s rights, but I can’t help but think that it may become more difficult to fight that inevitable (hopefully economic) fight against China in the next 20 years with only a bunch of ‘profile people’ to do the job.