Standard Oil Sets Precedent -- for MySpace!

I have formulated a theory about MySpace, that crazy cool site for trendy bored teenagers and 40 year old sexual predators. For those that do not know, MySpace is sort of a cross between a journal and a personal webpage. People list their personal information, likes & dislikes, photos of themselves and their friends, links to others, and random diary entries. Most of the members are teenagers freshly imbued by the Age of Technology. MySpace has also become a place for new bands, movies, and artists to advertise themselves by making available music downloads, tour info, pics, and journals. If you do not have a MySpace page, then you are a lame-o. I do not, thus one reason why I am a lame-o (the other reason is my outdated jargon).

The Daily Show once made fun of a particular facet of MySpace: Friends (This clip of the newstory by Demetri is great, please look at it). You can connect to another person's page by inviting them to become your friend. All your friends are displayed on your page, and it is not uncommon for a person who spends a lot of time on mySpace to have hundreds, if not thousands, of friends.

People who do not enjoy 'social website networking' (this is usually older people or those college kids who feel superior -- myself included!) scoff at the concept of listing as friends thousands of people you've never met or interacted with beyond an introductory email. Why the hell would people want to do such a thing? Is it simple competition? "I have more friends than you. You are a complete loser!"

My contention is that this behaviour is not simply just a 'status thing', but stems from behaviour that already exists. And this comes from the business community, especially those that spend all their time on airplanes and attending conferences. These people continously make contacts that are business-related, but almost always consumated (non-sexually, of course) through personal festivities: drinks, dinner, lounging by the pool, etc. So a year after meeting someone, a person can claim to 'have a friend' such-and-such, even though their actually relationship is as superficial as it gets. They may only talk once a year, or had only talked during that business conference in Tahiti. But this person is a 'business contact', although this terminology is deemed to impersonal, and so most of the time the person is refered to as a 'friend of mine' (just like Goodfellas!).

So mySpace 'friends' are merely a way to practice the art of building business contacts. Forty-year-old insurance salesmen who make fun of mySpace users have been doing the same thing for decades. Just check their rolodex.

Issues Hot Off The Press (Pun Intended!)

Say what you want about Rolling Stone's questionable stance on pop music (Mariah Carey? Are you kidding me?), the magazine is still killer when it comes to news journalism. Here are some items that popped out at me from their year in review RS 1016:

• In April, a man of Indian descent was traveling in a cab on the way to the airport and was listening to the Clash (London Calling) and Led Zeppelin (Immigrant Song). Apparently, the cab driver thought the man's taste in music was suspicious and phoned the cops. He was detained and questioned for three hours.
• Northwest Airlines slashed employee wages to stay out of bankruptcy, then distributed a booklet titled '101 Ways to Save Money'. The booklet suggested their employees to move to cheaper areas, cut the kid's hair themselves, and pick stuff out of the trash.
• The army has refused to give residents of the Everglades maps showing the best evacuation routes in case of natural disaster, due to the possibility that terrorists may use that information for their own means. A direct quote: "We just don't believe there's a great need for the public to have the maps."
• "At a press conference in April on soaring gas prices, House Speaker Dennis Hastert drove off in a hydrogen-fueled car to promote the use of alternative energy. But as soon as he thought he was away from the cameras, Hastert ditched the clean car and climbed into his SUV -- for the ride back to the Capitol, a few blocks away." There are pictures.
• America is not the land of opportunity. According to a study "it is easier for a poor child to become rich in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark than in America, where a child born into a poor family has only a one percent chance of being wealthy as an adult."
• Princeton undertook a study in which 200 people played a custom-designed war game. The more confident the player, the more likely that he/she would make unprovoked attacks. The most confident had the lowest success rate. "This suggests that positive illusions were not only misguided but actually may have been detrimental to performance."

The Event of the Century!

Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly are appearing on each other's shows on January 18th. I'm assuming there will be some light-hearted sparing, but I don't doubt a few heavy comments will be passed as well. I've see O'Reilly on other programs such as Letterman and he's not usually the same horse's ass that he is on his own show. Is this because, like a bully, he only feels comfortable yelling and pointing fingers at housewives in his own studio, with his own security? Perhaps. And it's true that Colbert owes his success to O'Reilly, who is the inspiration for Colbert's characterization on the show. Unfortunately, it's in the same way as in the End of the Depression is owed to World War II, or the way Columbus/Pizarro/Cortes owe their success to enslaving a continent. I suppose those metaphors are inexact: I like Colbert and not Cortes. The point is, it's a shame the subject is around for someone to make a success off of. In other words, O'Reilly, please stop doing your show. I liked you better on Inside Edition.

Out with the Old, In with the... same ol' shit

Prime Minister Harper just announced his new cabinet shuffle, and all the talk is centred around the booting of inexperienced Environmental Minister Ambrose from her embattled post. I suppose this means that all of us who smirked and cursed at the Conservative's Environmental Act can now breath a sigh of relief.

Fat chance. Ambrose was just doing the bidding of her boss -- or at the very least, her misguided plans had been approved before unveiling by the High Commander himself. I've heard that Harper's pretty heavy-handed in his dealings and doesn't give his ministers a lot of leash, so you have to know that he was balls-deep into the Environmental Act. A total miscalculation on his part. A cabinet shuffle is suppose to disuade the public into thinking that changes will be made without actually changing anything. I'm not buying it.