FUCK YOU MYSPACE

So in September 2006, 13-year-old girl Megan Meier was checking her Myspace profile in the 'burbs of St. Louis, Missouri. She probably gossiped with her girlfriends from school about the boy that she had a crush on, complained about her evil English teacher, and gushed about how much fun she had in gym class that day. One day she received a message from a cute boy named Josh Evans. She and Josh became friends over Myspace and started chatting/flirting online every day for almost a month. Megan really liked Josh. Even though she had never met him, she considered him a close friend and valued his opinion. But one day Josh picked a fight with her, and they started quarreling in their emails.

On October 15, 2006, Megan received a message from Josh that said, "I don't like the way you treat your friends, and I don't know if I want to be friends with you anymore".

Megan hanged herself the next day.

Questions were asked, things were investigated, and it came to light that "Josh" was in fact Lori Drew, an adult neighbor of Megan's who lived across the street. Mrs. Drew made up Josh to passive-aggressively probe Megan and find out whether or not she liked Mrs. Drew's daughter. After a year-long investigation, the prosecutor announced that Mrs. Drew would not be charged with anything. He couldn’t find enough evidence to convict her of stalking, harassment, or child endangerment. A 13-year-old child is dead, and the overbearing bitch of a parent who drove an impressionable young girl to suicide is still frolicking around free of charges.

So, online social groups can be a good thing: useful for networking and easily keeping in contact with a lot of people. But they can definitely be abused, and Myspace keeps popping up in the news with stories of stalking, pedophilia, and cases of fake identity gone wrong. It targets a very young, easily influenced group of children and teenagers. 10 million kids across the country who are under the age of 17 are Myspace users. The network also attracts a large population of older adults: 50% of Myspace users are over the age of 35. Now, middle-age adults and young kids online - - - - - > inappropriate interactions = almost NEVER a good thing.


The format of Myspace just begs to be misused to manipulate others who are blind to who you REALLY are. I quit Myspace when I was 16 but was addicted before that. If the wonders of Myspace came in an IV drip I would have mainlined it without a second thought and never looked back. And yes, I had several creepy encounters with people who weren’t who they said they were.

Now on the one hand, you can say that this is just a danger of using the Internet. You accept these terms and conditions, click the button that says “I Agree”, and simply have to be aware that dangerous people are out there looking to take advantage of the naïve. You don’t start IM conversations with random strangers who say that you sound sexy, you don’t enter your Social Security number into text fields to win tickets to a Black Eyed Peas concert. This is all true.

But on the other hand, these kids that are going into chat rooms and setting up profiles on Myspace don’t understand that this is how the world works. They have no idea what they’re getting into and their parents don’t teach them because they don’t really know how the Internet works either. The parents don’t get it, but stay away because they’ve learned to be wary of things that are so open with your private information. For the kids, that’s a plus: they want to be known by as many people as possible. Middle school and high school are entirely popularity contests, and the Internet expanded it to a new dimension.

Yes, Megan overreacted with killing herself. But when you’re an anxious, self-doubting, fucked up 13-year-old you are painfully aware of what others think – whether you made it up in your own mind or not. Myspace has turned into a vehicle for another form of social insecurity for vulnerable, naïve kids who don’t know how to protect themselves.

I’m sad, and I’m angry, and I don’t know what else to say. The minimum age listed on Myspace is 14, but even if that were changed kids would lie just to be part of the online social sensation. I don’t know what can be done - or even if any real, effective improvement is possible. I’m being drained of hope for humanity in general.