This Is Embarrassing...

I've been using Multiply for nigh over a year now, and it is only now that I've discovered how to preserve my favorite web journal posts in list form.

So now, like any over-the-hill band, I can release my "greatest hits" album whenever I want! :D

Social Media: Enhancing the Human Experience

Facebook Can Be Bad For You

According to this article, Facebook can lead to suicide, especially among younger teens.

The funny thing about Facebook, MySpace and the rest of the social networking coterie is that they operate with only the best assumptions about human nature in mind. It's nice to reconnect with old friends and relatives. From the article:

When my sons signed up I thought it sweet when they befriended their aunties and old babysitters, sent virtual pina-coladas to far-flung godparents.

But, the reality is that Facebook, MySpace, et al (henceforth known as MyFace) unleashes the dark side of human nature in greater quantities than the light side. To paraphrase that song about a guy on a horse in the desert, "in MyFace, they can't remember your name". In this virtual arena of total strangers, all manner of internal censors, from etiquette to forced niceness, go right out the window.

Besides, said the psychotherapist, it is the ordinary stuff which devastates her patients, the photos of a sleepover to which you weren't invited, your best friend ignoring you and chatting on someone else's “wall”. And everyone will know, by how many friends you have, whether you're a big, fat loser. It's not even proper bullying, just crude kidult passive- aggression. But, boy, does it hurt.

There's an art to this kind of bullying. Notably, this is the feminine kind of bullying. Girls are the masters of passive-aggressive. Us guys, we just beat the snot out of each other and call it a day. But this long, sustained psychological bullying used to be confined to all-girl schools. Its no wonder that girls are more susceptible to this sort of cyber-bullying. MyFace enables it at a much grander scale. Now, even people you've never met before can stuff your emotions in a metaphorical locker and give them swirlies.

Furthermore, one of the horrible things about MyFace is that on these websites, even us guys with not enough attention span to master this devastating kind of emotional abuse can do it too, with little to no practice, on the weekends in between Halo 3 sessions.

So, I say, down with...

Wait...

So, MyFace picks off the emotionally fragile.

Which means that MyFace can singlehandedly render the entire gothic emo population extinct via mass suicide...

Okay, so its more of a toss-up really. Maybe it won't be so bad.
________

PS

Die, Panic! At The Disco and all your legions of hell!!!

Surreal Multiply Moment

My cousin Ray invited me to be a contact, and I get a message that says the following:

"Ray Reyes invites you to be his cousin."

Yeah, sure thing Cuz. I'll be your cousin.  :)

Good thing I didn't accidentally press "decline", or the family tree may need fixing.

This Place has Strange Themes

One was called "japanese minimalist"...and it looked stereotypically Japanese and was not the least bit minimalist. You don't plaster a gigantic rising sun there and call it "minimalist". I wouldn't want to see that person's version of "cluttered".