Met on MySpace
by Bob on February 1, 2008
I was in downtown Boston today and I saw a man with a t-shirt with two frames on the front.
One frame was a picture of a lady sitting in front of her computer presumably on MySpace and it was captioned, if I remember correctly as:
MET ON MYSPACE
The other frame below it was another picture of a man and the same woman "in flagrante delicto" with no computers at all, saying:
CAME TO MY PLACE
Now I wasn't sure whether to be shocked or laugh.
I wasn't truly certain of the real message but perhaps it's the obvious. Two people met on MySpace and then met in person and did "it" for sure in the bottom picture.
I think that's all a risky business. I don't think that is what MySpace and social interaction networks should necessarily be for. But maybe I'm just old school and old-fashioned.
The one good thing besides the t-shirt being kind of cool was that at least the two people portrayed on it met in person and were supposedly having a good time in vivo.
But I am reminded of the mystery of radio versus TV. Radio was a mysterious medium. You never knew what the program presenter looked like, kind of like a stranger on the telephone. We can imagine what they might look like and know what they sound like, so we can dream about who's on the other side of the radio. But that was an excellent allure to radio as a medium. The mystery factor. We can imagine anything about the people on the radio.
It's largely similarly true with MySpace. One scholar wrote a paper on this topic of MySpace interpersonal interactions and even called it the largest role playing game in the world. Shakespeare would have relished in that sentiment since he wrote that "all the world's a stage". And he even meant in reality.
Now that's changing a bit with radio broadcasting. Many radio stations are running streaming video of the radio studio live on air. So the mystery is lost for better or for worse. It crosses the line from an aural medium to an aural and visual medium. Almost like TV.
I think we should save some mysteries for ourselves. It makes life a bit more interesting.
And I was always impressed with the American musical artist Iris Dement on her 1992 album "Infamous Angel" which included the brilliant song "Let the Mystery Be". Sage advice sometimes. Then again, Iris also included a song on this album called "Fifty Miles of Elbow Room". I presume that's not inconsistent with letting the mystery be.
So, the t-shirt I saw today in Boston was somewhat of a cautionary tale but one which reminded me of the preferred old-fashioned way to meet people, for real: in person and face-to-face. Admittedly, even in person, not everyone's face is the truth. But it suffices.