Update: The video to which I originally linked was removed, so I’ve changed the link to another video, which ironically is a MySpace site!
Click the image to watch the video.
You know that blogging is entering the mainstream when Saturday Night Live does a skit on MySpace. Last Saturday’s skit played on MySpace’s reputation as a place that is — as a Dateline NBC report puts it — “one-stop shopping for predators”.
The setting for the skit is a Learning Annex introductory class on MySpace. The guest host, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, plays a mom who has a daughter who spends a lot of time on MySpace; she would like to learn more about it. The rest of the class is comprised of creepy, mostly-mustachioed forty-something men, a crowd that the instructor says is a little older than he expected.
When the instructor tells people to make screen names for themselves, he suggests one approach is to include the year of your birth as a good way to tell people more about yourself. He then walks through the class, checking out the students nicknames. The men come up with names like “Chadster1991”, “9thGradeSkr8Boi” and “NaughtyGirlHotStuff”. When he asks the guy with the Chadster1991 screen name about it, this exchange ensues:
“If you put 1991 in there, it might make people think you’re 15.”
“Well, that’s a risk I’m trying to take.”
My favourite character in the skit has to be the fat lisping guy (is it Horatio Sanz?). He reminds me of a creepy phone phreaker who kept trying to get me into a hotel room at the first Emerging Technologies Conference to do some “energy work”. I feel soiled just thinking about that sibilant little toad going “Pleeeeeath, Joey, you gotta give me thome thiathu mathage! My back ith killin’ meeeee!”
(And if you must know, yes, I maintained “anal sovereignty“. Strangely enough, it was the second time during that trip that my anal sovereignty was challenged — the first time was at U.S. Customs.)
It’s one of the few SNL skits in recent memory that made me laugh out loud, but I expect some response by Danah Boyd in three…two…one…
