I despise MySpace

So Damon & Naomi have signed up with MySpace - it seems an intevitability of modern music that any (indie) band worth their salt (and a billion others not worth the time of day) have to have a page on the social networking nightmare. The site is built on false and forced friendships that would be better established in more apprpriate fora. Sign up and wait for the "girls" to invite you to look at their webcams. Enjoy the poorly laid out and ugly pages. Keep having complete strangers ask to be your "friend" without any introduction or relationship build-up.

Maybe it is a valuable tool for the struggling indie or a way to communicate with the fans for those feeling out-of-touch but I can't help feeling that this sort of fake social community built on imaginary relationships is a sad way for the Internet to be going.

I'm signed up, hypocrite that I am, because it means I can call The Clientele and The New Year and now Damon and Naomi my firends - maybe I'm the sort of shallow sad-sack that ought to really embrace MySpace.