What's the Deal with MySpace.com?

If you are like me, you are inundated with news stories featuring MySpace.com and the pop-cultural phenomena surrounding it. They speak of the negative - the numerous sexual predators lurking on the site, the various kids trashing their teachers on the site and doing all sorts of pranks, etc. And yet, the enrollments on the site reaches millions and these users defend the site. So I asked, "What's the deal with MySpace.com and why am I not on it?"

So I set out to claim my little piece of MySpace.com land. I perused a few profiles, did a couple of searches for friends from high school, college, med school, etc and even added a few "friends" to my list along the way. Hell, I even sent a message to the guy in my freshman dorm in college who I had the biggest crush on (imagine that...I find him on MySpace!). I set up my profile (guess the name?) and added a little commentary about myself. Then I decided it was much too labor intensive to have the Adventures of the Troublemaker blog as well as a blog on MySpace.com. So, I just put a link to my blog on the site. I decided to have James Blunt as my blog "music", mainly because Robin Leach and I saw him in concert a few weeks ago and I think he is adorable.

During my few short weeks on MySpace.com I have come to a few realizations:

1) I am by far older than the majority of people on the site (I believe average age is about 16). Yet again, I guess I am reclaiming my youth!

2) Little did I know that a lot of my friends have MySpace accounts that they never told me about. These are lawyers, doctors, etc - not your typical MySpace.com user. I guess they too wanted to become part of this MySpace phenomena. I keep adding them to my friends when I uncover them!

3) I have been solicited by numerous men requesting that we "hook-up". Does my profile seem like I am merely looking for a one-night-stand?

4) I clearly do not have enough time in my life to put as much work into the site as the average user. Blogspot is easy - you type a little something, post a few pics, then press Post Entry.

5) All sorts of strange and unique people have wanted to be added to my friends list. For example, this AM I get a request from George Thorogood (famous rock n' roll legend) to add him as a friend. What is that all about??? Nevertheless, I added him.

I have gotten a handful of interesting emails. For one, my sorority "big sis" wrote me out of the blue. I have not heard from here in over 7 years and yet we reconnected on MySpace.com. I don't know how much longer I will be on the site. It will probably be one of those things that I do for about a month then don't log on for a year. But, at least I can say I have a MySpace.com profile if someone asks.