People are Idiots, Part 1

Yes, have you noticed? People are idiots. In commemoration of this marvelous fact of life, I will henceforth bring you a weekly rant about all things idiotic. And by weekly, I of course mean an arbitrary length of time between late and later. But without further ado, in the crosshairs today is the proverbial u-bend under the sink of the internet: MySpace.

One thing that really amuses me about MySpace is the poetry. Seriously, what angsty teen goes home every day and composes poetry about tears and knives and falling leaves? Well, quite a few, apparently. Somewhere out in the ether between the complete inability to actually write a rhyming poem and the utter inanity of the topic must lie the unfortunate brain cells I lost in my endeavor to understand what exactly the point of all of this is.

Here we used to lie
Under the sky
Now I can only cry
And softly sigh
Blood and ash
In my heart a gash

You know how they torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? Here's a secret the government doesn't want you to know: all they do is read this poetry to them.

Another thing about MySpace that never ceases to amuse me is the proliferation of chain letters. All of them seem to involve friends or sex. Or in some cases having sex with friends. Some are funny, but most are just dumb. Take this relatively innocuous one below, for example:

THIS IS A TEST TO SEE HOW MANY FRIENDS
YOU HAVE ON THE INTERNET!!!
IT'S JUST A TEST. OK, HERE GOES.
INSTANTLY, WHEN YOU RECEIVE THIS PAGE,
YOU MUST SEND IT TO AT LEAST 10 PEOPLE,
INCLUDING THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU

*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*
*Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug* *Hug*

There are times when no comment is necessary on my part. This is one of them.

But despite all this, MySpace can occasionally—very occasionally—reveal some rather useful information. Let me give you a hypothetical situation. Let’s say you're a girl, and you have a boyfriend. One day, you discover that your boyfriend has a MySpace. You also discover that the background to his MySpace page is a Jack Daniel’s Whiskey label. Posted on the page is a large and prominent Confederate flag, as well as the results of an online IQ test in which your boyfriend scored a whopping 85. (You may want to inform him that the IQ test, unfortunately, is NOT a score out of 100.) You also note a large cartoon featuring a caricature of a penis as the main character, and further down, several racial slurs. (By the way, you aren’t white.) You following this so far? Good. Now let's turn this hypothetical situation into a guessing game. Your next course of action is to:

A. Dump him.
B. Not dump him.

You've got a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but if you really want to, you can use the information above to help you decide. Now wasn't that fun? I only wish MySpace could be this useful all the time. I also wish that what I described above really was no more than a just hypothetical situation, but alas! People are idiots.