Γιατί δε μου αρέσει το MySpace

shit! shit! shit! διάολε, δεν ήθελα να κοπιάρω όλο το άρθρο. Ήθελα μόνο να χρησιμοποιήσω αυτά που λέει για το MySpace και να πω πως συμμερίζομαι την αδιαφορία του (αλλά όχι και την ηλικία του!). Ακόμα πως προχτές έτυχε να κάνω ένα account εκεί (MySpace) μόνο και μόνο για να δω κάτι φωτογραφίες και, ενώ εκτιμώ όλη τη φάση με τη μουσική, αισθάνθηκα αυτό ακριβώς που λέει: I've visited a MySpace page [and] I've thought "is that it?" and wandered around the perimeter looking confused, like a blind man patting the walls for an exit he can't find. Αλλά, όπως έχουμε ξαναπεί, τον αγαπάω και η τελευταία του παράγραφος που τα χώνει στη "μπολογκόσφαιρα" είναι όλα τα λεφτά! Οπότε το κοπιάρω όλο.
Κάπως έτσι θα ήθελα να γράφω!!! I love Charlie Brooker.

Supposing ... I'm too old for MySpace

Charlie Brooker
Friday June 30, 2006
The Guardian

It had to happen, and it has. Age has crept up on me. I'm becoming resistant to technological change.

It used to be so different. I've always been a geek, and proud of it. In my 20s, I lived in a chaotic mangle of keyboards and wires. I was the person people would phone up when they had a problem with their computer. I wrote for videogames magazines, making up jokes about polygon counts and cel-shading.

Then the internet roared up. I ran a website called TV Go Home, which was essentially a fortnightly pisstake of the Radio Times with lots of unnecessary swearing in it - just the sort of thing that's been a staple of comedy spin-off books since year dot, except because it was on the internet it was somehow seen as the shiny sharpened bleeding edge of new. My career prospects suddenly changed. Traditional media came calling - TV, newpapers. They wanted me. As far as "they" were concerned I was someone who "got" the "modern" world and all that went with it. For about nine seconds, I felt vaguely cool.

Fast forward to now. I'm looking at MySpace and I'm a fumbling old colonel struggling to comprehend his nephew's digital watch.

Because I don't "get" it. I mean, I know what MySpace is and what it's supposed to do and how influential it is. It's just that whenever I've visited a MySpace page I've thought "is that it?" and wandered around the perimeter looking confused, like a blind man patting the walls for an exit he can't find.

So users create a page and upload their music and photos and videoclips; they post blog entries and links to other stuff and leave witty little messages for one another. And it all meshes together to form a thriving social network. Okey dokey. On the surface it all makes sense.

Yet it's not for me. I mean, I could go and create a page myself, but somehow I'd rather scrape my retina off with a car key. At 35, I'm too ancient for MySpace - I'd look like a school-gate paedo - but that's not really the issue. No. It's simply bloody-minded "olditude" on my part - the same sort of fusty grumbliness that made greying musos boycott CDs in favour of vinyl in the 80s because they JUST DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW about this new-fangled whatchamathing.

Last week, in the US, I saw an advert for a handheld gizmo using the slogan "It's not a cellphone: it's MySpace on the go." It's a terrifying first - a new gadget I know I'll never want to buy. I've never felt so lost.

Or perhaps it's MySpace's "social" element that disturbs me. I'm a misanthrope. Everyone on MySpace seems young and happy and excited and flip and approachable, and this upsets me. Still, at least the teenage MySpacers are getting on with the business of being young and alive, unlike the fustier elements of the "blogosphere", who just waste the world's time banging on and on about how important the "blogosphere" is and how it spells the end of every old notion ever, when the truth is that, as with absolutely every form of media ever, 99% of the "blogosphere" is rubbish created by idiots.

Especially the word "blogosphere". A word I refuse to write without sneery ironic quote marks either side of it. Because I hate it and it's crap and I JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW.