The friending part of MySpace

I think there are about as many reasons and ways to use MySpace as there are MySpace users – to find new indie music or get "close" to a favorite band, to keep an online journal, to decorate one's "space," to play around with software code, to explore one's identity, or to win some sort of local or virtual popularity contest, to name a few (for some MySpacers it's probably two or three of those at one point, and then it changes as they change). In an in-depth, eye-opening article recently, USATODAY looked at one kind of MySpace use: "friending," leading with Brittnie in Columbus (17), who has 5,036 friends. Some – probably high school "queen bees" or wannabes – would see this as a sign of Brittnie's social status, others (including her peers) as ridiculous or even "creepy," as one of the article's teen sources puts it, given how many people on that list Brittnie actually knows. A lot of people see it as another kind of online game that doesn't necessarily represent anything in real life (and one that can turn sour if No. 7 in your Top 8 friends is in your real life and feels she should be No. 1). Because even this aspect of MySpace is very individual. For example, writer Janet Kornblum mentions one person with 1,327 friends who says she has "standards" for who's on her list - such as no bands or films (who can also be "friends") whose content you don't actually like, or no friends who post sexually suggestive photos or videos. But as involved as friending is, it would be simplistic to believe this is all there is to social networking.