5.20.2008

Reasons Why I Am Quitting Myspace (Tomorrow!):

- I like facebook, goodreads, and flickr a hell of a lot better - design wise and content wise - and I would rather support and encourage websites that match my aesthetic and my beliefs.
- I spend way (way way way) too much time looking at myspace and, specifically, unhealthily obsessing over a small set of people's profiles, comments, and updates.
- I think that rather than trying to articulate my personality with words in a way that will seem appealing or magical or sexy or cute or funny, I should just try to BE all of those things in real life. And, relatedly, I think it kind of takes the fun out of getting to know people naturally to be able to refer to a list of all of their favorites and a concise summary of who they think they are.
- I would like my 'internet presence' to be content based and myspace is definitively personality based.
- Top friends. Need I say more?
- It's kind of cool to not have it at this point, right?

All of that said, I'm kind of cheating. I put up a music profile awhile back with some of my silly songs, and for now I'm keeping it. I've been working on music again and planning a show (!), so I feel like it makes sense for me to leave it there. I have a fraction of the friends that I have on my regular profile there and I'm not going to promote it any further until there are songs I'm more proud of up. I'm hoping that since I've made the definitive move of canceling my personal account, I won't start using that one the same way. To safeguard against that I'll be turning off email notification on that account and only checking on it maybe once a week.

& so that this post isn't solely an over-analysis of a trivial matter, here's a list of fake bands I've been a 'member' of:
- Shock The Nation / Shark Attack (third grade - me, Andrew, Jackie, Julia)
- Megalife (me, Isaac, Josh, maybe Robert/Mona/Jen?)
- Quicksilver Stallion (me, Sarah, Michelle, Isaac)
- The Poison Vixen Trio (me, Sarah, Michelle)
- Magic Action (me, Michelle)
- Man-Boy (me, Meaghan, Sarah Bear - 70s cover band)
- Another Day, Another Man (me, Mandy, Jen Mo)
- The Post-Sunset Muffins (me, Andy, Craig - possibly not-fake someday?)
- Slow Little Oranges (me, Mandy -- name coined by Kathleen in reference to a tree full of baby sloths (!!))
- Sloth Cabinet (me, Patrick)

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2 Comments:

Blogger sarah said...

Ah, Man-Boy! I want to live the dream!

May 20, 2008 at 7:12 PM  
Blogger John Althouse Cohen said...

I would like my 'internet presence' to be content based and myspace is definitively personality based.

Yes!!! Words to live by. I am trying to put this into practice every day.

I'm all in favor of "social networking" sites, but I think one of the biggest problems with Facebook and its ilk is that they seem to cause everyone to put everything through a jokey filter. Social timeline -- filled with joke hook-ups. Favorite quotes -- always jokes, never good quotes. Profile photo -- something weird that's not the actual person. Facebook would be a lot more interesting if it told people's actual social timelines, some actually intelligent quotes, and just a bunch of nice headshots of your friends. But no, that would be too serious -- everything has to be ironic. Consequently, the ironic becomes the serious norm, and being straightforwardly real is transgressive.

May 26, 2008 at 5:17 PM  

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