2009-01-21

I'm obsessed, I know.

By now, pretty much everyone who knows me knows how I feel about the MySpace. If you don't - here's the capsule version: it's the online equivalent of middle school. It brings out the needy, solipsistic infant in people, myself included. For you see, I once had a MySpace page. And it brought ruin and woe unto me, yea, like locusts from the skies carrying pestilence and needless adolescent turmoil. So I killed it, and have largely been a happier person for it.

(Note that I do have a Facebook page, which I felt necessary to obtain after nearly 18 months in self-imposed no-social-network exile, and while it's still a bit on the juvenile side - I've had to block most of the "I've just sent you a BEER!"/"I just gave you a SEXY PANDA HUG!" applications - I've enjoyed having that extra presence on the web, and catching up with old classmates and such.)

But MySpace still haunts me now and then. If I want to learn more about some skank on the "Rock of Love Bus," for example, I invariably wind up on said skank's MySpace Page, which is so choc-a-bloc with shitty HTML and glittery icons and Photobucket slideshows that it actually crashes my browser (and I use a MAC, fer Chrissakes). And when perusing any number of "geek" message boards, I will on occasion find myself reading the plaintive cry of some unfortunate soul who reallyreallyreally needs help with something on MySpace.

"hi im wonderin if u can help i think my boyfrends ex is lookin at his myspace is there a way i can see who is lookin at his myspace without him knowing?"

The answer, evidently, is: Yes, Virginia - you insecure cow - there IS a way you can see who's looking at a MySpace page other than your OWN. Let's suppose that your boyfriend has one of those MYSPACE TRACKERS. Because if he's anything like YOU, Virginia, he is completely paranoid and wants to make sure that his ex isn't lookin at his frigging MySpace page...or perhaps he's a total narcissist and wants to make sure that she IS lookin. No matter. Now, if TRUST is the cornerstone of your relationship, you could ASK your boyfriend if he's noticed any hits on his tracker from anyone that might be his ex. Given, however, that you are asking a bunch of coding nerds how to do this on the down-low, Virginia, it's my guess that you have some ISSUES in that regard.

So here's what you do. You leave your boyfriend a seemingly innocuous comment on his page. Something like "im thinkin about u lol hehehe." But before you post this comment, you can embed a TRACKER CODE, which won't actually be SEEN by your boyfriend (or anyone who doesn't have Firefox and AdBlock Plus). As long as your comment remains on the front page, you can scurry all rat-like into your tracker account and see if his ex is lookin. Neato, huh?

I was APPALLED (yet fascinated) to discover this. Curiosity piqued, I went to the website of one of the more popular MySpace Trackers (which I won't name other than to say it rhymes vaguely with "bitchslap") and checked out their Terms of Service. Finding nothing more specific than "fraudulent use" as justification for the termination of one's account, I went a step further and sent an email to their "support" staff, describing the above scenario and asking them if this sort of thing violated their TOS. Because in MY book (and it's admittedly a slim volume, indeed), dropping a tracker code into a comment on someone else's page is, I dunno, FRAUDULENT. It's misrepresentation to say, "Hi! I'm leaving you a comment!" when you're really saying, "Hi! I want to make sure ur ex isn't lookin at ur page!" I mean, at the very LEAST, it's a pretty shitty thing to do, right?

The response I got from the company was somewhat unnerving. Not only is being a sneaky psycho hosebeast NOT a violation of terms, the chipper tech support representative even gave me a few pointers, and asked me to "let (him) know how it works out!" I'm dead serious.

Such is life, apparently, in the no-holds-barred, hair-pulling, sissyfight environment of MySpace. Eat, or be eaten. Track, or be tracked. All's fair in love and war. OMG. WTF. y r u on my boyfrends myspace u hore?!?!11!

So let this be a lesson to you, MySpace users. If you have any semi-unstable people in your life (and who among us doesn't, really?), they may be checking to see who's lookin at ur page. Just saying.

lisamcc at 6:48 p.m.

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