My What Now?

Okay. I kinda get that the world is growing more fickle and silly by leaps and bounds. For some reason, many people think that the internet is a credible source of information and don't seem to use books much anymore (and don't seem to think too much). It's pretty much hard to escape entertainment, what with tv on cell phones now, mp3 players everywhere and high speed wireless on just about everything from refrigerators to raincoats.

But there's something I cannot figure out. What's the deal with MySpace? I mean, I don't get it. I don't have a MySpace account (nor plan to get one), but I don't understand the purpose. I mean, the banner at MySpace says "A place for friends" and whatnot, and I assume it's some form of "online community", but I don't get how it works. I mean, consider the following page of some friends of mine (no offense Colin...you're just a random example...search for "Saskatoon" on MySpace and you're like 5th down the page)

Now these are some good dudes that I know from home; friends.

Looking at their page, they have 4,311 other friends. Oh really? Do you have 4,311 friends that you hang with regularly?

Of course not.

But everyone wants to be on StereoTrap's friends list so they're cool.

And then, looking at the comments, it seems everyone says something along the lines of:

"Hey. You are cool. Thanks for the add."

What the heck? That's SOME form of deep communication. That's the foundation of a meaningful friendship.

So what is MySpace?

Is it a community? Well, in the most basic sense of "a mass of people", yeah...except without geographical proximity or physical presense. It's like the digital equivalent of smoke signals. What a gong.

And I admit that there's a whole lot of irony in the fact that I'm blogging about how stupid MySpace is. BUT, I hung out with one of my seminary friends for most of the day. THAT was good times and actual fellowship, so my hypocrisy isn't complete.

No wonder so many kids are so suffering. If you are caught in sinful patterns of behaviour and struggling with depression/acceptance/etc, you no longer have to hammer through your problems at school, or with your parents, or at church (AS IF!)...oh no. You can get online with 5,000 other equally disfunctional kids and bask in your problems on some crazy vampire/death metal/psycho goth webring on MySpace.

'The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.' - Genesis 2:18.

And yet, with the benefits of technology, we are enabled to go to extreme efforts to isolate ourselves and seek out lonliness.

Isn't it ironic that sin seeks to reverse every good thing God has every done, and then whine about the results? So, I'm gonna make an effort to get to know 2 new people this week and do something social with them where I steer the conversation to weighty matters on purpose. Sounds good. Until Next Time,

The Armchair Theologian