Here's looking at you, looking at me, kid (on MySpace)

I’ve been sitting on a fairly vacant MySpace.com page for the past few weeks, unable to decide how I want to present myself to the Web-surfing masses. As of now my page has a picture of me — that deliberately obscures my face, mind you — and some information that gives away my age and geographical location. The rest is a big blank virtual canvas that I am hesitant to decorate. Should I even bother?

I look at the “about me” category on my profile, struggling to come up with something unique, honest and interesting to say. Maybe I should describe myself as an “over-analytical semi-conformist skeptic.” But then I would have to delete it. That’s pretty much how this Web site makes me feel.

If you find yourself scratching your head at this strange technological reference, then you probably don’t spend too much time around anyone who is currently enrolled in or dropped out of college or high school, or who works part time at the local mall or Dairy Queen. As far as I can tell, MySpace.com is the latest in a long series of controversial, cultural phenomena, such as rock ’n’ roll and violent video games, which has descended upon our youth much to the “naysaying” of politicians and concerned parents.

The premise of MySpace.com is this: you sign up with an e-mail login and password that gives you access to your very own digital space, where you basically use a template to create a personal profile page, complete with options to upload pictures, video and music.

What do you do with it? For many people, you spend lots and lots of time looking at it, updating it (most profiles will show that the user logged in sometime that day), and clicking thousands of underlined pictures and words to look at other people’s profiles, be they friend or total stranger. MySpace becomes your gateway to a new global community, through which you can chat with friends and make new ones. And sometimes sex predators use it to stalk people. But that’s enough information for the MySpace illiterate. Go online and see it for yourself.

The rest of you know that that’s the nice explanation. What actually results might be better described as something similar to MTV’s “Spring Break.” The fact of the matter is that I’m embarrassed to be looking at this Web site in public. Even now, I have to justify to myself that I am doing journalistic research.

I click to a random girl’s profile. She looks nice enough; I see that she’s a 27-year-old who lives in Berlin. So I click into her photo album and immediately see a picture of her showing off the polka dot panties underneath her skirt. Is that “hello” in German? I quickly backtrack and click to another link before somebody sees what I’m seeing. I’m now looking at some spiky-haired teenager giving me the middle finger. How wonderful.

This does not necessitate that every MySpace member is trying to direct my attention to their private parts, nor am I trying to argue in favor of my moral superiority. There are, in fact, plenty of profiles that don’t contain hard evidence of excessive (and/or underage) drinking. Nevertheless, what MySpace reveals to me is that, in one fashion or another, we are all voyeurs and exhibitionists. We all look at others, wanting a certain kind of attention for ourselves. Maybe I desire to be seen as one on the fringe, who watches and comments from the sidelines.

Certain trends and fads indicate that we are a rather self-absorbed generation, obsessed with our MySpaces, confined to our iPods (fitting product names). But we are also reaching out, obviously interested in connecting with other human beings, as this Web site demonstrates. While I worry that people are trying to forge their individuality from lists of their favorite music and movies, I must remember that I too take pride in my personal interests, as they are a reflection of my personality.

Perhaps the best thing that we can do is withhold judgment. So you like to watch “Stargate SG1,” huh? That’s um … cool.

I’m still not sure I want to join this bandwagon.

Jimmy's World

Jimmy sat constructing his virtual world. Day after day and long into the night, he moved his pale, bony hand this way and that across the red mouse pad, shaping a new creation of colorful polygons.

He was building a city on an island, and the island sat like a dinner plate balanced precariously on the pinnacle of a tall conical mountain, and underwater volcano.

The city was immense, a sprawling layout of streets and buildings, with an elevated train way that spiraled from the outskirts to the center. There were the slums, visible by the sections of gray, derelict buildings. There were the wealthy commercial districts as well, digitally painted in vibrant golden colors. All finished areas had been decorated in meticulous detail, but none so much as the grand palace, the nexus of the city.

There were antique rugs in each of the seventy-five bedrooms that were patterned individually. Every architectural decoration was smoothed to amazing virtual roundness, all thanks to the countless hours of Jimmy's laboring at the mouse and keyboard.

As he shaped new shops, new sewer passages, new train stations, his mind simmered with ideas pertaining to the history of his city, the struggles and triumphs of its generations of peoples. He flirted with notions of other islands beyond the one, of natural wonders beneath the surface of the virtual sea. Given time, perhaps he would expand his vision even more.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's mother stood unseen in the doorway behind him. Her vision scanned the material reality of a much neglected domestic space. She was alarmed at the number of empty pop cans that littered the desk, shelves and windowsills. How many gallons of soda had passed through his body in that room? She covered her mouth and cheek, her mind struggling to begin the process of solving the problem of such a mess. The stench in the room was unbearable. She walked away.

Jimmy awaited the day that he would finally populate his world with moving creatures. He longed to crawl through the rectangular portal of his computer screen and experience his handiwork without the hindrance of so many peripheral distractions.

He got up to go relieve himself. His mom stood outside the door and told him to remember to take out the garbage in the kitchen. Unresponsive, he left the bathroom, walked in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and retrieved a can of pop. He then returned to his bedroom and shut door behind him.

watching her

I have watched her many times, from many perspectives, with many reactionary feelings.

I once saw her enter a room where I was praying as she silently took a seat in the corner. I must have noticed her long brown hair, falling straight to each side of her face, the face to which I could not have been able to place a name, and which I would not have bothered to examine closely. I recognized her, but she was a stranger, there to pray in silent support.

I once watched her as I forcefully withdrew my company from an all-night party of three (a party to which I was more of an intrusion than I would have cared to know at the time). Her smile melted my fragile, yearning heart. I meditated on that smile as I prayed by a duck pond in the deserted, early-morning daylight, and later as I wrote to my journal about the night’s adventures.

I once watched her as she sat close between me and another boy on a crowded train rushing speedily through the Chinese countryside. Emotionally and physically exhausted, I sat in hopeful discomfort. With pressing tears I watched as she rested her tired head upon the shoulder of the other boy. It was the worst thing she could have done to me.

I once looked rapturously into her bright, brown eyes that were looking back upon me, as we lay parallel on my bed, our outstretched hands touching in a moment of simple, breathtaking intimacy. And the only thing that stole my joy in that moment was the conscious understanding that my desire to remain inert and alone with her until time immemorial tinged with the slightest sensation of danger, the recognition of a temptation likened to sin. Perhaps her beaming smile was eclipsing my view of God.

I sat a row behind her in a small auditorium and looked at the back of her head. I thought it profound to consider that that young woman was my girlfriend. I had waited so long before she came along. It was a pleasant thought that she was mine. That was all.

I have seen her cry. I have seen her turn away from me in hurt anger. From slanted angles I have seen her eyes search for my own when I was too ashamed to make direct contact. I have watched her turn a strange cold shoulder while cuddling together and pondered her intentions. Hurting and needy, I too have cried and watched her through my own watery, clouded orbs. How many times have I watched her, obsessed to know what she was thinking, or what was causing me to feel so certain that something was amiss? I have watched her as we approached each other, she moving toward me on the sidewalk or waiting at the doorway with that same lovely smile that I had come to take for granted. I have watched her watch me when I would leave her for the night. Sometimes she waited till I was nearly out of sight, while other times she did not linger.

I sat behind her in a very large stadium and watched her worship God, thinking that she was probably not nearly as distracted by our breakup as I was. For days straight I would sit in that same auditorium, meeting with little success to purge my mind of this distraction. I sat and stood in a room of 22,000 peers, not caring what any of them thought of me, all except for that same one. I have looked somewhat assertively at her face in an attempt to snare her back into loving me again. She looked back only to meet my devotion with sympathy, hardly what I wanted. She looked past me, through me. Am I so transparent? Is my aching heart so abandoned, so forgotten? I have wept for her, for me.

She was a stranger that became an intrigue, an intrigue that became a mystery. Somewhere early on she became a friend, a friend who became a romantic companion. But I think she will always be a mystery, one who, for a time, received my love. No longer. God bless her and keep her.