I've been meaning to make a new post for a while.

Recently a rather large score of friends has contacted me via MySpace; two cousins, a high school friend, and my best friend. I had gotten out of the habit of checking MySpace.

I took the time to look up a few of my old friends, like they did. I found people who I have missed so much! I find it strange to suddenly see them at my fingertips. What do we say? Should we try to "hang out" on MySpace? MySpace fosters such a different community from a typical blog community. I think it would be a very real challenge to have any sort of meaningful contact. Let me explain what I mean.

MySpace is full of music files, pictures, "comments," kudos, and the ever-growing "friends" list. It's a high-school popularity contest all over again. Every blog you write will be seen by everyone else (or at least everyone who is on your friend's list). All their comments are seen by all your friends too. To get any privacy on MySpace, you have to send messages, which are sort of pseudo-emails.

It's easy to get graphicy with that site, so the tendancy is NOT to get intellectual. It's full of smilies and "kudos" and personality quizes.

A few of these people I used to be close with. We lost touch along the way. Picking it back up with emoticons just -- cheapens that relationship, I think. I could move the conversation to email; at least there I'd feel there was some legitamite effort to contact the real person. MySpace isn't real.

I can't really define why that is.