To MySpace or not to MySpace…that’s the question

Make no mistake, I’ve been loyal to MySpace for more than three years already…I still harbor mixed feelings one year down the road over the site’s selling out to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. conglomerate. 

Hey, I know that Tila Tequila may not be in my ”Friends” list or Lily Allen and Kate Nash aren’t in my “Blog Subscriptions”, but I could say proudly that I managed to meet quite a number of interesting (and, yeah, very real) people through that social networking service.   How real – at least, I did get to meet them in person, validating that MySpace is more than just a cyber-venue for dorks to turn themselves into “hotties” with the right choice of avatar and common interests list.   

On account of my recent busy schedule – work, seminars and all that stuff – I have been mulling about closing down my MySpace account for good.  Come to think of it,  the pickings have been slimming down lately,  now that one has the opportunity to choose privacy levels so that pics and text from one’s spicy weekend sex romp won’t be the stuff mohinder36 and cal45hrb would be talking around the water-cooler on Monday morning.    The fact that MySpace has also been repeatedly invaded by hackers and spammers – inspite of its best efforts to block their entry - has also dimmed my enthusiasm for the site.   However, what’s worst of all is the apparent out-of-control creativity in site-building that has always been a selling point of MySpace vis-a-vis other social networking sites.   If it’s not another YouTubed video of yet another lame My Chemical Romance ripoff band,  it’s stretches of headache-inducing glittery GIFs and badly-drawn cartoon “babes”. 

I did try Imeem.com out – got to post some of my favourite tracks, enter some blog posts – but the media-sharing thing can be a real loading pain-in-the-ass for those with dial-up connections like me.  Likewise, over time, the songs being posted there are crappy, if not even crappier, that 90% of the shit being posted in MySpace. 

Anyway, as I ponder the various alternatives being posted, I am giving myself a two-month timetable before I finally close down my MySpace profile for good.  I haven’t been tending to my profile over there for nearly two months, and my blog posts are practically gathering dust, so I am considering that it’s high time to move on.   In the coming weeks, I shall be posting notices to my friends over there to follow me to my new virtual whereabouts. 

MySpace…it’s been nearly three (or is it four???) years…but I gotta move on.  For all the good times…