Confessions of a Litigious Mind

The random, irrelevant musings of a law school graduate.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

i'm young and hate my life...i should join myspace

myself and a few others have discussed the whole myspace phenomenon on this blog and others. of interest might also be mydeathspace, which chronicles the deaths of myspace members. lots of suicides and drug related deaths. what's up with that? adolescent stupidity? natural selection? too small a sample size? i dont know, it just seemed like a high percentage...or at least higher than it should be. perhaps emospace would be more fitting.

i cant really talk as i have a profile myself, and so do a number of my friends. perhaps its my sheltered friend bubble, but we use myspace more to crack jokes and keep in touch than anything else.

people criticize myspace, but really i think they should be criticizing the people on myspace. or their parents. it's an easy cop-out to blame the system, for it avoids assigning any personal responsibility to real humans. myspace doesnt match up teenage kids with pedofiles, the kids do it. where are the parents to step in and teach their kids that its fucked up to meet strangers from online? how do you not know what your kid is doing? ok, maybe they're just dumb, stubborn, rebellious kids. but christ if you cant maintain some form of control or protection over your kids, why are you a parent?

i dont mean to sound so in love with myspace. i enjoy keeping in touch with friends that way, others dont. thats fine. but what bothers me is that everyone is so quick to blame a website for things that could easily be prevented. not one of my friends have had any problems relating to myspace, or from any other website that i know of. but eh, it's probably still all tom's fault. i guess i must have forgotten that the internet is only supposed to be for studying and learning about god. my bad.

posted by josh @ 7/06/2006 01:58:00 PM

10 Comments:

At 7/06/2006 2:37 PM, Blogger josh said...

sorry.* every once in a while i need to go off on my personal responsibility rant when i hear people bitch about things that could easily be solved, and when they blame others who, while they may in some way facilitate the problem, are not the actual cause of it. i feel better now.





*i'm not sorry**






**at all

 
At 7/06/2006 2:52 PM, Blogger sadielady said...

dicta, i can't believe you asked this question:
"if you cant maintain some form of control or protection over your kids, why are you a parent?"
when obviously the only reason people become parents in the first place is that they can't maintain some form of control or protection during sex to avoid getting knocked up.
um, isn't it? that's what i always thought...

 
At 7/06/2006 3:00 PM, Blogger josh said...

well, i'd like to believe that some people out there actually wanted to have their kids. i mean, sure, what you cite is the case when you have the unmarried 22yr old with 3 kids by different fathers. but there are also married parents who complain about stuff like this. "concerned parents" if you will. but they blame the websites cuz why take responsibility when there's an easy out?

again, dare i run the risk of criticism/outrage by suggesting perhaps some form of natural selection is still lurking about?

 
At 7/06/2006 3:38 PM, Blogger Damon said...

"some form of natural selection is still lurking about"

I wish.

 
At 7/06/2006 5:10 PM, Blogger law monkey said...

ugh. myspace. i just hate the formatting. that, and i feel too old for it, but that's probably only because i always hear about how many high school students are on it.

i'll take facebook, thanks.

also, i agree with sadielady on the whole "lack of self-control" thing. and also, i'm sure some people who become "parents" might do so because hey, look, government welfare! more money for porn and booze and those damn expensive cigarettes! (for the record: smoking = gross. porn and booze = porn and booze).

 
At 7/07/2006 7:00 PM, Blogger Ismael Tapia II said...

"myspace doesnt match up teenage kids with pedofiles, the kids do it."

And also . . . the pedophiles. I agree with you 100% that personal responsibility is important and highly lacking in our society. However, I found it strange when you chose to blame the children (read: the victims of pedophelia) and their parents for myspace pedophile activity. You're right, of course, when you say that parents should be monitoring what their kids are doing, but it's a bit outlandish to tout personal responsibility and then not address the freaks and sickos on myspace.

Thirteen year olds, even ones that are well-monitored, are easy to manipulate, trick, and control. If you want to blame a real person, blame the guy solicitig sex from a 13-year-old girl and telling her he loves her and that she should keep it from her parents because they just won't understand.

Just my take on it.

 
At 7/07/2006 7:09 PM, Blogger josh said...

oh, i certainly agree that the pedophiles themselves are to blame for the act. my criticism is of the parents who blame the website. i think responsibility lies within the kids, the parents, AND the pedophiles. all the website itself does is provide one of any number of ways by which pedophiles can find and take advantage of kids. we dont blame van makers for selling to dirty old men who stock it with candy and lure in the youngins.

 
At 7/07/2006 7:16 PM, Blogger sadielady said...

i don't know, i think it's totally utterly completely and only myspace's fault that Katherine Lester spent all those hours on end on my space, got her parents to get her a passport, then secretly flew to the middle east to meet up with and marry that Palestinian. seriously; personal responsibility? parental supervision and responsibility? what are you talking about? clearly this kind of thing is what happens when things like myspace are allowed to exist. damn those kids and their myspace.

 
At 7/09/2006 4:42 PM, Blogger JLee said...

considering Myspace almost launched the Trojan computer virus on my computer at work, I am staying away for a while. Let's hope I don't get fired ;p

 
At 7/09/2006 9:42 PM, Blogger d$ said...

1.) Blame the pedofiles because, of course, when they illicit underage kids for sex its illegal. But at least their behavior is predictable.

2.) Blame the parents for not monotoring their children and keeping tabs on theinternet activity. If the kids know more about using the computer than the parents do then that family isn't ready to have a computer because the parent's can't maintain proper controll over the internet/computer situation.

3.) If the parents have done an adequate job keeping tabs on the kid, warning him or her about the dangers of online predators and giving them typical scenarios about how they lure kids in so the child can recognize if that starts happening, and then the kid still goes behind the parents' backs... then blame the child. And maybe send myspace a thank you note for helping take that child out of the gene pool a little early

 

Post a Comment

<< Home