My Space

As I browsed through various profiles on myspace.com, I was shocked at the amount of personal information some people included. Many profiles included cell phone numbers, addresses, and other contact information. I first viewed the profiles of girls. The first thing I noticed on many of the girls’ pages were the very seductive pictures they had used to represent themselves with. One girl’s entire background consisted of her and her friends lying around a pool with bikinis on. Three of the girls’ pages advertised their interests as drinking and partying. As I noticed another girl listed her favorite drinks as vodka and beer, I scrolled to the top and saw that her age was 20. Many of the pictures involved partying as everyone in them had a bottle of alcohol in one hand as they danced around the room. I was appalled by how many underage people included alcohol is some way in their profile. I think it is crazy that they would advertise their illegal behavior in this way. Next, I looked at the guys’ profiles. The first male’s profile I looked at had a paragraph about himself; in which one of the first things he told about was that he had recently been suspended at college for his poor grades. I was astounded that one would want to project such an image to their friends, peers, and people they do not even know. Most of the guys’ profiles held many similarities; the main one being, they generally kept a serious face for their display picture. Most also had hard rock music or rap playing in the background, and many pages had videos available to anyone browsing My Space to view. There were also similarities between the profiles of the males and females. Music was generally on every profile, as well as many surveys that must have taken the My Space users hours to complete. The questions ranged from many topics concerning piercings and natural hair color to much more personal questions about religious beliefs. Finally most of the pages seemed to be flashing with animation and colors. Although I have heard many comments from friends referring to My Space, I had personally never been involved with it in any way until this assignment. I found it very interesting to look through various profiles and was amazed at the way people presented themselves. It has certainly made me think more about how I want to present myself in other ways throughout my daily life.