« local movies and beer | Main | Jocks unite »

In case you haven’t picked up a newspaper or watched the news in a while, there's been quite a hulla balloo about Myspace lately. Apparently, sexual predators are finding it easy to meet teens on the site and even more shocking, some teens are putting -- ready for this? -- personal information about themselves on the Internet for all to see. From the sounds of it, Myspace, the most popular site on the Web, is basically a pick up bar for pervs and no one is doing anything to stop it.

While I do recognize that Myspace has made it easier for sexual predators to learn about their potential prey, I feel like the media is making more out of this than is really there. What's more, they are completely missing the point, that perhaps by educating teens about sex -- the good, bad and ugly parts, not only the "just say no" parts -- teens would be less apt to fall for the tricks of those out there who wish to harm them.

But I digress...

Myspace is easily one of the most misunderstood aspects of modern culture. Most people over the age of 35 have only recently heard of it, and almost always from someone younger or from the negative news reports. I first learned about Myspace in 2004 when I set up my account to be closer to my friends who live far away. At the time, Friendster was still a popular way to stay connected but was quickly waning in popularity.

"Don't join Friendster. It's lame," one of my friends told me. "Join Myspace. That's where everyone is."

Apparently this person was right because as of my writing of this entry Myspace claims I have 65,959,89 people in my extended network, otherwise known as friend of friends.

I have used the site off and on to keep in touch with people across town and across the country. In Portsmouth, I can find out what's happening at the Coast of Arms, I can see if there's a weird show coming up at Chutney Flatts or see what the hipsters are up to. I can stay politically active, check out local musicians and authors or simply send a quick hello to a friend. It's fun, cheesy and can be a creative outlet.

It's pretty obvious to me why teens have come to obsess over the site. They can create their own alter-egos, be cooler on-line then they are roaming the halls of high school, show off their creativity and personal style and can snoop on the lives of crushes or the people they most despise. If I had Myspace as a teen, I'd be all over it.

On the flip side of things, the site can be a window into the secret world of teen-agers, a world that isn't always pretty. That they swear, drink, act recklessly, want to be sexually desired and can be horrendously cruel are all aspects of teen life that our society loves to simultaneously glorify and repress. Parents don't want to look up their 15-year-old daughter's Myspace page and find her in a bikini with a headline that says, "Nasty girl," but the reality is those Myspace profiles are out there and people can take advantage of it.

Blaming the entire site for this trend, though, seems a bit out of line. Talking with people my age, we all agreed that creepy guys going after teens is nothing new, it's just there's a digital trail now. I clearly remember girls 15 and 16 dating guys who were in their mid-20s. Hell, I dated a guy who was 25 when I was 16 once. I didn't call him back because I felt weird -- and I knew my parents weren't going to believe he was 19 forever. But in the end it was common sense that prevailed and for many teen girls, they have it too.

For those who lack guidance or are especially needy or naive, Myspace can be a problem, but the answer to this social dilemma seems easy to me. Constantly remind teens there are creepy people out there on the Internet who are not what they seem, that want to hurt them. Don't sugar coat it. Teens have been making Michael Jackson jokes for years, anyway. They understand.

Taking Myspace away or banning kids under a certain age won't make a lick of difference. It's already here and they will find a way.

So in the mean time, as the old squares kvetch about how to keep teens out of harm's way, I would like to call a moratorium on the Myspace story. Nothing I've seen on Myspace is any worse than most MTV shows. Anyone seen Next or Date My Mom? These shows would make even our bikini girl blush. It's not news to see teens blogging about blow jobs or getting sloshed behind the school. They've been saying those things for a while and now you want to take Myspace away? Don't shoot the messenger, dude.