APRIL 16th 2005
Musings Regarding MySpace.com
The other day I was flicking through the NME, as is my wont
of a Thursday afternoon, alternating between being enraged by
a remarkably stupid article concerning university education,
and being enraged by a review of Ryan Adams that refers to
our man as “Dad Rock” etc etc.
If it’s a choice between the monotonous, crushingly dull
bollocks spat onto vinyl by your Coldplays or your Athletes,
or the whiskey-drenched whoring and drugging and reminiscing
of Mr Adams and his “Dad Rock”, then I guess it’s the crack-
pipe and slippers for Yours Truly.
Which is all part of the fun of NME, of course. The fuck
wants to agree with these sonsa bitches? Unless I throw my
copy down in disgust at least four times per page then I’m
pissed as a motherfucker hell bent on vengeance, let The Duke
state for the vinyl.
On my second EP, there was even almost a song called I Wanna
Be On The Cover Of The NME, but then what happened was it
fucking sucked.
It might show up on my work-in-progress compilation of Stuff
Fit For Nothin.
Anyway, what I stumbled across during this particular trawl
through the waters of The New Musical Express, was an article
all about this Myspace.com malarkey that everyone’s banging
on about. It’s a kind of a cross between Friendster and
Friends Reunited, except it’s also got blog tools for a fella
to molest, and there’s a fair dose of the old Am I Hot Or Not
type shenanigans. Best of all, it’s free, and there are all
sortsa things for to keep a fella entertained, like the
ability to upload MP3’s and so on for a whole new audience to
ignore.
Apparently folks all over the global earth are jumping at the
chance for to upload photos of themselves and wax a little
about this is what I like / dislike, and maybe even blog now
and again. Turns out, though, that it’s not only us normal
folks that are doing this kinda shit, but celebrity types
too, folks like your Brody Dalle from The Distillers or
Andrew W.K or Har Mar Motherfucking Superstar.
So what you do is you set up your own profile thing with your
blog and your photos and the like, and then you go about
browsing through pages and pages and pages and pages of tiny
little photos of other folks, and maybe some of them you
invite for to be your “friend”. Before you know it, there’s a
whole motherfucking network built up, a whole host of tiny
little photos that represent a fellas friends, and so all the
more people end up finding your slab of myspace, and ignoring
it, or clicking on “Add To Friends” and then never ever
communicating with you ever again.
So I signed the fuck up and next thing you know, there’s The
Duke, typing names into the “browse” box for to see if anyone
I know, or at least know of, is also involved in this whole
shebang. I ain’t gonna tell you what name I tried first, but
I figure maybe some of you folks who pay close attention to
this bullshit maybe figured that one out a couple articles
ago.
And yeah, I asked if I could be Her friend.
And no, I ain’t go no reply as of yet.
Thing is, there’s a lot of impostors on there. Yeah, you’ll
find the real Brody Dalle and Andrew W.K and Har Mar
Superstar, but there’s also a handful of folks all claiming
to be Johnny Depp or Sarah Michelle Gellar, for example.
Chances are, not one of those motherfuckers is Sarah Michelle
Gellar, even though some of them have done their homework,
and litter their profiles with apparently obscure asides. In
addition, there’s all sorts of pages constructed by P.R
folks, like the one for Billy Corgan from out of that band
back in the day. Mudhoney or whoever.
Probably the real-life Paris Hilton is on there, though. I
don’t know, I didn’t look.
The first thing I gotta tell you, man, is that the whole
myspace adventure proved to be an intensely depressing
experience. A man just can’t cope with the level of self-
obsession and vanity required for to keep things afloat on
there. A man needs to act like a rentboy stood on a crowded
street attempting to convince some business-type cat that
yeah, my arse is the one to go for, I’d wager, if he hopes to
survive for a motherfucking second in the cut-throat world of
rankings and kudos and what have you.
On one hand, it’s all too personal, and on the other hand,
it's disturbingly distant. You clock up all these friend
types, some folks have thousands of the fuckers, and yet what
does it amount to? A couple comments about wow, that photo is
sexy as all bejeesus, what I wanna do is maybe cream on your
face on account of the sexiness of it all. A man’s
insignificance is thrust into his trembling yap at every
turn. You’re a statistic is all you are, another “friend” on
a list filled with page upon page of “friends”.
Who would choose you, with your whining and self-deprecating
“humour”, when look here, a thousand jock types with muscles
and nudity. There’s even at least one fella with a close up
photo of his arse-hole, wide as the day is long.
Let me tell you this for nothin’, if I saw My Profile, the
last thing I’d do is add me to my friends list. Look at that
shit, would you ever. A posing photo (it was for a CD demo I
sent off to a few folks a while back), a blurb all “About
Me”, filled with horrific waxing and links to songs from off
of my EP’s, a thing about what music / books / films I enjoy,
what the fuck? It’s just wretched is what it is.
But then the upside.
Take a look at that friends list right there, underneath the
waxing and the promoting and “me me me me me”. For sure,
there’s only seven of them, but I think I’d be happy with
that seven right there, let me state in no uncertain terms.
Mind you, I’d be happier if I could say “What about maybe we
go grab a coffee or go check out that Amityville remake. For
sure, it’ll be no Amityville II – The Possession, but it
might be alright.”
Instead, what a fella needs to do is maybe leave a comment or
send a tiny email or something along those lines. Fuck the
tiny email, I wanna go grab a coffee with you.
Also, that tiny email is competing with thousands of similar
emails, and loads of them are gonna be about “My god you are
so HOTTT”, and then when they get The Duke’s shrug and
“You're really rather fantastic”, they’re gonna think, fuck
that. He didn’t even once say he wants to crack one off over
my photo, not like these other folks.
But then conversations do on occasion crop up, thanks to the
old IM and so on, and it pleases me no end that I’m just as
crap when it comes to the virtual conversing as I am when
it's the verbal, real-life sort.
After a couple embarrassing attempts at having a yack with
folks I never in my life have met, I decided something along
the lines of fuck it, and then next thing I know a fine lady
by the name of Jennifer catches me unawares and it’s 4.30 in
the AM before a fella knows what’s going on.
Jennifer proves to be wonderful, and shares my disdain at the
types a sentiments dripping from myspace. Apparently, one
fella commented on a lasses photo with the following awe-
inspiring come-on;
“Were you born a maggot cause you are FLY”
For fucks sakes.
How can a man compete in this world of maggot talk?
However, the Jennifer Yack convinced me that not everyone on
here fits within the stereotype I had constructed within five
minutes of hitting “Sign Me Up, Motherfucker” or similar.
In fact, this very eve I had a pleasing discussion with a
young Irish lady by the name of Sinead. I’ve had much worse
discussions is what I’ll say, coyly. Not many better, mind
you, I'll also hint.
So what I find is that all a damn sudden a fella’s addicted
to the whole get-up, checking the inbox for to see if maybe
some of those folks who don’t live too far away, certainly no
further than a three-hour train journey, might wanna go grab
a coffee or see Amityville.
Folks like our Sinead, who you may remember from a couple
sentences ago. I have no end of praise for Sinead. If maybe
you were thinking of setting up an account since look, NME
said Har Mar Superstar is on there, you can be content in the
knowledge that there are also folks like Sinead, probably 97%
better than Har Mar.
She turned out to be great, as a matter of fact, more than
great, wonderful, and yet a man still has to jump onboard the
“me me me” train for to even consider hitting the old Instant
Message box thing.
Turned out to be worthwhile, though. Virtual conversation
with Sinead was a world away from the virtual stammering and
making jokes and then apologising that went on with reams of
folks in the pre-Sinead world. I still did that, but turned
out not to be that horrible a thing.
I just get intimidated by the fact that you need to get your
entire personality across in a couple typed sentences, and
how fucking depressing if you succeed? I prefer to sit and
maybe pass awkward glances across a table for a week or two
before I even think about speaking. I wanna have innumerable
fantasy situations concocted, a whole lifetime spent
cavorting with this individual, filthing and singing and
discussing Kirsten Dunst and Pasolini. I wanna have twenty-
five songs written about them before I can even bring myself
to say hello.
It’s all fucked up is what it is.
So what the hell. I think we should grab a coffee and see the
new Amityville. It's even got her outta Home And Away doing
the Lois Lane bit.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Leave A Message
The other day I was flicking through the NME, as is my wont
of a Thursday afternoon, alternating between being enraged by
a remarkably stupid article concerning university education,
and being enraged by a review of Ryan Adams that refers to
our man as “Dad Rock” etc etc.
If it’s a choice between the monotonous, crushingly dull
bollocks spat onto vinyl by your Coldplays or your Athletes,
or the whiskey-drenched whoring and drugging and reminiscing
of Mr Adams and his “Dad Rock”, then I guess it’s the crack-
pipe and slippers for Yours Truly.
Which is all part of the fun of NME, of course. The fuck
wants to agree with these sonsa bitches? Unless I throw my
copy down in disgust at least four times per page then I’m
pissed as a motherfucker hell bent on vengeance, let The Duke
state for the vinyl.
On my second EP, there was even almost a song called I Wanna
Be On The Cover Of The NME, but then what happened was it
fucking sucked.
It might show up on my work-in-progress compilation of Stuff
Fit For Nothin.
Anyway, what I stumbled across during this particular trawl
through the waters of The New Musical Express, was an article
all about this Myspace.com malarkey that everyone’s banging
on about. It’s a kind of a cross between Friendster and
Friends Reunited, except it’s also got blog tools for a fella
to molest, and there’s a fair dose of the old Am I Hot Or Not
type shenanigans. Best of all, it’s free, and there are all
sortsa things for to keep a fella entertained, like the
ability to upload MP3’s and so on for a whole new audience to
ignore.
Apparently folks all over the global earth are jumping at the
chance for to upload photos of themselves and wax a little
about this is what I like / dislike, and maybe even blog now
and again. Turns out, though, that it’s not only us normal
folks that are doing this kinda shit, but celebrity types
too, folks like your Brody Dalle from The Distillers or
Andrew W.K or Har Mar Motherfucking Superstar.
So what you do is you set up your own profile thing with your
blog and your photos and the like, and then you go about
browsing through pages and pages and pages and pages of tiny
little photos of other folks, and maybe some of them you
invite for to be your “friend”. Before you know it, there’s a
whole motherfucking network built up, a whole host of tiny
little photos that represent a fellas friends, and so all the
more people end up finding your slab of myspace, and ignoring
it, or clicking on “Add To Friends” and then never ever
communicating with you ever again.
So I signed the fuck up and next thing you know, there’s The
Duke, typing names into the “browse” box for to see if anyone
I know, or at least know of, is also involved in this whole
shebang. I ain’t gonna tell you what name I tried first, but
I figure maybe some of you folks who pay close attention to
this bullshit maybe figured that one out a couple articles
ago.
And yeah, I asked if I could be Her friend.
And no, I ain’t go no reply as of yet.
Thing is, there’s a lot of impostors on there. Yeah, you’ll
find the real Brody Dalle and Andrew W.K and Har Mar
Superstar, but there’s also a handful of folks all claiming
to be Johnny Depp or Sarah Michelle Gellar, for example.
Chances are, not one of those motherfuckers is Sarah Michelle
Gellar, even though some of them have done their homework,
and litter their profiles with apparently obscure asides. In
addition, there’s all sorts of pages constructed by P.R
folks, like the one for Billy Corgan from out of that band
back in the day. Mudhoney or whoever.
Probably the real-life Paris Hilton is on there, though. I
don’t know, I didn’t look.
The first thing I gotta tell you, man, is that the whole
myspace adventure proved to be an intensely depressing
experience. A man just can’t cope with the level of self-
obsession and vanity required for to keep things afloat on
there. A man needs to act like a rentboy stood on a crowded
street attempting to convince some business-type cat that
yeah, my arse is the one to go for, I’d wager, if he hopes to
survive for a motherfucking second in the cut-throat world of
rankings and kudos and what have you.
On one hand, it’s all too personal, and on the other hand,
it's disturbingly distant. You clock up all these friend
types, some folks have thousands of the fuckers, and yet what
does it amount to? A couple comments about wow, that photo is
sexy as all bejeesus, what I wanna do is maybe cream on your
face on account of the sexiness of it all. A man’s
insignificance is thrust into his trembling yap at every
turn. You’re a statistic is all you are, another “friend” on
a list filled with page upon page of “friends”.
Who would choose you, with your whining and self-deprecating
“humour”, when look here, a thousand jock types with muscles
and nudity. There’s even at least one fella with a close up
photo of his arse-hole, wide as the day is long.
Let me tell you this for nothin’, if I saw My Profile, the
last thing I’d do is add me to my friends list. Look at that
shit, would you ever. A posing photo (it was for a CD demo I
sent off to a few folks a while back), a blurb all “About
Me”, filled with horrific waxing and links to songs from off
of my EP’s, a thing about what music / books / films I enjoy,
what the fuck? It’s just wretched is what it is.
But then the upside.
Take a look at that friends list right there, underneath the
waxing and the promoting and “me me me me me”. For sure,
there’s only seven of them, but I think I’d be happy with
that seven right there, let me state in no uncertain terms.
Mind you, I’d be happier if I could say “What about maybe we
go grab a coffee or go check out that Amityville remake. For
sure, it’ll be no Amityville II – The Possession, but it
might be alright.”
Instead, what a fella needs to do is maybe leave a comment or
send a tiny email or something along those lines. Fuck the
tiny email, I wanna go grab a coffee with you.
Also, that tiny email is competing with thousands of similar
emails, and loads of them are gonna be about “My god you are
so HOTTT”, and then when they get The Duke’s shrug and
“You're really rather fantastic”, they’re gonna think, fuck
that. He didn’t even once say he wants to crack one off over
my photo, not like these other folks.
But then conversations do on occasion crop up, thanks to the
old IM and so on, and it pleases me no end that I’m just as
crap when it comes to the virtual conversing as I am when
it's the verbal, real-life sort.
After a couple embarrassing attempts at having a yack with
folks I never in my life have met, I decided something along
the lines of fuck it, and then next thing I know a fine lady
by the name of Jennifer catches me unawares and it’s 4.30 in
the AM before a fella knows what’s going on.
Jennifer proves to be wonderful, and shares my disdain at the
types a sentiments dripping from myspace. Apparently, one
fella commented on a lasses photo with the following awe-
inspiring come-on;
“Were you born a maggot cause you are FLY”
For fucks sakes.
How can a man compete in this world of maggot talk?
However, the Jennifer Yack convinced me that not everyone on
here fits within the stereotype I had constructed within five
minutes of hitting “Sign Me Up, Motherfucker” or similar.
In fact, this very eve I had a pleasing discussion with a
young Irish lady by the name of Sinead. I’ve had much worse
discussions is what I’ll say, coyly. Not many better, mind
you, I'll also hint.
So what I find is that all a damn sudden a fella’s addicted
to the whole get-up, checking the inbox for to see if maybe
some of those folks who don’t live too far away, certainly no
further than a three-hour train journey, might wanna go grab
a coffee or see Amityville.
Folks like our Sinead, who you may remember from a couple
sentences ago. I have no end of praise for Sinead. If maybe
you were thinking of setting up an account since look, NME
said Har Mar Superstar is on there, you can be content in the
knowledge that there are also folks like Sinead, probably 97%
better than Har Mar.
She turned out to be great, as a matter of fact, more than
great, wonderful, and yet a man still has to jump onboard the
“me me me” train for to even consider hitting the old Instant
Message box thing.
Turned out to be worthwhile, though. Virtual conversation
with Sinead was a world away from the virtual stammering and
making jokes and then apologising that went on with reams of
folks in the pre-Sinead world. I still did that, but turned
out not to be that horrible a thing.
I just get intimidated by the fact that you need to get your
entire personality across in a couple typed sentences, and
how fucking depressing if you succeed? I prefer to sit and
maybe pass awkward glances across a table for a week or two
before I even think about speaking. I wanna have innumerable
fantasy situations concocted, a whole lifetime spent
cavorting with this individual, filthing and singing and
discussing Kirsten Dunst and Pasolini. I wanna have twenty-
five songs written about them before I can even bring myself
to say hello.
It’s all fucked up is what it is.
So what the hell. I think we should grab a coffee and see the
new Amityville. It's even got her outta Home And Away doing
the Lois Lane bit.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Leave A Message
