A couple of weeks back I got an email from a friend. The email, which seemed frantic at best, ignored most of the laws of conventional English in that there were no capitalizations, no complete sentences, and all punctuations were replaced with ellipses (…). As I read it, my heart began to race, my blood pressure arose, and I suddenly found myself sweating, even though the temperature was at about 75-degrees (Fahrenheit). “Why do people write like that?!” I thought. I shrugged it off as it just being one of those emails written in a hurry, where information is being communicated just well enough for the reader to both understand it and understand that it was done super quickly. After all, this friends was always a great writer and this was something I didn’t exactly associate with her.
A few days ago, I got another email from the same person. This email was written in the same frantic style, making my head feel again as if it was about to explode. “What,” I thought, “could have possibly gotten into her?!” I didn’t actually ask, since I didn’t want to offend, but I couldn’t help think that some form of parasite had burrowed into her brain. I’ll admit, I’m being a bit anal about this matter, but c’mon: I’m a writer and an editor. It comes with the territory. (Note: I know, I know — I don’t edit this blog as much as I could/should. It’s not meant to be that professional anyway. Like it or not, that’s the way it is. Hypocrisy be damned!)
Yesterday, I was at my parent’s place. My younger sister, who has her own MySpace page and circle of friends, was sitting at the computer writing an email to one of her MySpace pals. Being the cyber-quidnunc that I am (sometimes), I looked over her shoulder to see what she was writing.
There it was again: the writing.
hey…didnt c u at Amp last night… tell mel i’ll be flying in at 12… i dont plan on staying up too late either… yeah, I feel old too, but at least u’re already doing what older people are supposed to do….lol….responsibilities!! I will definitely keep u updated…
It seems like the Internet’s spawned yet another lingo: MySpaceTalk.
MySpace has always been a bit of an enigma to me. In fact, I hadn’t heard of it until about a year ago, when someone told me that it was “like LiveJournal, but different.” Yeah, real descriptive there, buddy. Other than that, I’ve pretty much ignored it until recently, when I began to hear that a lot of people were using MySpace as a way of getting in touch with old friends. “That’s not a bad idea,” I thought. After all, MySpace has something like 75,000,000 subscribed users (or about 10% of all Internet users world wide, if you don’t account for the myriad of users with multiple accounts), so I’m sure at least a few people I know are probably there.
After looking around for a bit, I decided to take the plunge and open up my own MySpace page. I figured it could help me network by helping people who may be looking for me (and who can’t find me via Google, which has Gnorb.NET on the second page for the search term “Norbert Cartagena” after a few meta tag blunders I made with this site when I revamped it), find me. Furthermore, I figured I could use it as a technique to drive visitors to this site while still allowing them to comment on MySpace if they should choose. This one I’m still a bit unsure about, but I’ll see how it turns out.
The one thing I still have to do…aside from setting up my MySpace profile…is work on my MySpaceTalk cos that way i can communicate with people and seem like im all busy…which i am so dont bother me…j/k hahahaha…. loves ya!
You know i signed up for that….and thats about as far as i really got.
Still dont really understand the whole point of it all.
These things confuse me. Whats the point of having a journal (which i was lead to believe contains private thoughts for self-review years down the line) posted online for everyone to see?
Could it be im already too old for this generation?
Nah, you just didn’t find the “Make Private” button. As for having a journal, that depends on the person. Some people just want to air out a bit of what they’re thinking or what they run into, with few, if any, real personal information (this is exactly the type of content Gnorb.NET has). Some people want to talk about their life and hope that there is some wisdom in the masses, that if advice is needed from a stranger, it will come (the democratic process). Some people really are just attention whores, which is all well and good: better they do it online than just about anywhere else. Some people keep themselves anonymous and just post thoughts up to sort of tell other people without risking being “discovered.” That last reason is acually one of the most popular, but you wont’ find many in a site like MySpace, which is ste up for social networking. That’s more of a Blogger or WordPress.com deal, where you hope to attract readers without actually creating bonds. All in all it’s just a matter of it being different strokes for different folks.