MySpace: Anthropology on Steroids
I think I'm addicted to MySpace.com. Since Barstool created its own MySpace page (www.MySpace.com/barstoolsports), I've spent many a gleeful hour searching through MySpace and am sure of two things. One, there are many, many attention-starved people out there who seem totally oblivious to the fact that the internet is a public domain. And two, I love them for it.
I hide the pictures from my college days in shoeboxes under my bed. Naked streaking pictures. In the shoebox. Old girlfriends. In the shoebox. Pictures of me breaking into my friend's dorm room, outfitting myself and three friends in his clothes, lugging a keg to his room and partying with visiting high school girls while he was away. In the shoebox. But that type of discretion is so late 20th century.
Nowadays, college kids (and high school kids but I don't want to end up in a cell in Guantanamo so I'm blaming any visits to those pages on my officemates) have a different theory on the whole breaking the law thing. Essentially, instead of attempting to hide illegal activity, they've decided to broadcast it to the entire world. And I salute them for it.
Smuggling booze into your dry dorm? Take a picture. Selling shrooms out of your suite? Capture that Kodak moment for the grandkids. Giving lapdances to the football team? Don't forget to add Barstool Sports as your friend.
If George Bush wants to sell American democracy to the millions of disenfranchised young people in the Middle East, he should point them in the direction of MySpace. "See, if you start voting and embrace freedom and liberty pretty soon hot chicks will be sending you pictures of them in their slutty Halloween costumes. Democracy gets chicks hot, I'm telling ya."
Even though Barstool has been on MySpace only a short time, we've formulated a policy about the most important MySpace issue- who gets to be our friend. There are always exceptions to every rule but it seems like everyone on MySpace can basically be broken down into eight categories depending on their profiles and pictures.
1. Shirtless Dudes. We get it- you work out. That's awesome. But you're also taking pictures of yourself alone in your room. Flexing. That's just creepy. I am sympathetic to the fact that MySpace is basically one giant meat market but when someone's profile picture is just a torso, no head, no arms, no legs, just pecs and abs, I'm highly suspicious. If I was a chick and saw a dude's profile with a picture that was just some nipples and a six-pack, red flags would instantly be raised. Is your face really that atrocious that you're scared to reveal it? And if your face is that horrid are you prepared to walk around shirtless all year to compensate for your ghastly dome?
2. The One Pic Wonders. I'm scrolling through rows of people and suddenly a cute girl pops up. Hmm, I think, this is exactly the type of person that Barstool Sports likes to party with. I think I'll add her as a friend. So I click add to friends and figure out which single buddy I'm going to pawn this girl off to when she shows up to an event. I'm feeling good so I decide to check out her other pictures and suddenly it's become clear that the picture on the profile page is the only good photo this person has ever taken in their entire life. It's like she flew in a Hollywood makeup artist and stylist on a random Thursday night and hired Annie Leibovitz to snap photos of her drinking Busch Lites in her dorm room.
3. The Pied Piper. Every guy knows that hot girls travel in packs but sometimes getting inside the circle of trust is tough. Unless you know the key player- the cute friend. It's not that she's ugly because she's definitely not. But she is also not dripping sex and sin like her hot friends. She is the one to target and MySpace makes it fairly easy because of the Top 8. It's a good rule of thumb to expect someone to put their best friends in their Top 8. Find a cute girl with an incredibly hot Top 8 and you've found the Holy Grail. Befriend her immediately.
4. The "Accidental" Girl In Underwear Photo. These are some of my favorites and not just because it's girls in underwear. I love the fact that they are pretending to be shocked and horrified that their friend has decided to snap a photo of them just as they've emerged from their bedroom in their matching, tastefully sexy underwear. And they are so shocked and horrified by the friend's reckless photo taking that the girls decide to post that same "accidental" picture on the Internet for the world to see. Good times.
5. The Look At Me Profile. These people are just Shirtless Dudes with diplomas. The Look At Me profiler is typically found at some of the more prestigious academic institutions in the area. The first thing the Look At Me profiler does is use a picture of them traveling overseas as their main picture. Rome. Tokyo. London. The Amazon. The Look At Me has been someplace so cool that it's the first thing everyone on MySpace must know. It's like they're sitting in a classroom with their hands raised, desperately waiting for the teacher to call on them. We get it. You have a passport. You've flown on a plane. You can tell us all the cool places to go in Copenhagen.
But that's not enough for the Look At Me. Once you've grown weary of staring at them posing on a beach in Greece, it's time to further lower your self-esteem by checking out their favorite books, movies and television shows. Here is an actual excerpt from one MySpace page: "i don't really know what else to say about myself. i speak italian. i miss the 90's. my favorite designer is dolce & gabbana. i wrote a book and [it] can even be found on japanese amazon.com…i love to travel-- the picture is one i took in berlin--and am interested in travel writing as a possible career, or at least a way to pass the time. right now thailand, brazil, egypt and russia (trans-siberian) top the list of places I want to go, but the list is always changing." He's so freakin' cool that even capital letters bow before him.
6. Drinking Dudes. If your profile picture was of you chugging Jack Daniels, chances are you received an invite from Barstool Sports to be our friend. I totally understand these pictures because most guys never take a picture…unless they're tanked. Other than graduation, I can't think of another time when I was photographed with my friends sober. It just doesn't happen. I appreciated the guys who didn't even bother to add any sober pictures. That showed real dedication on their part.
7. The Glamour Shot Girls. These girls were definitely invited to be Barstool's friends. The collegiate glamour shot is a strictly female phenomenon. If guys are going out and they've showered and put on an ironed shirt, no one grabs the camera and starts snapping portraits. But girls are different. Every big night out is like a fashion shoot. There are headshots, full body shots, action pics, group shots. Barstool Sports doesn't completely understand the phenomenon but we fully endorse it.
8. The Toughest Guy In The World. The TGITW is closely related to the Shirtless Dude. I'm not sure how tough you can actually be when you are spending hours making sure the color scheme on your MySpace profile works but some guys are convinced that smiling is illegal on MySpace. These guys seem convinced that you can actually get into a real fight on the Internet and are trying to scare away all the 12-year old lurkers. The TGITW always has the same four pictures- him flexing alone, him flexing with his boys, him flexing with his girlfriend and him flexing with his car.
Jamie Chisholm