MySpace: The Skank Archives

I feel sorry for the MySpace generation. They live as if they’ll never have children. Or grandchildren for that matter.

My introduction to MySpace, which I refer to as “The Skank Archives,” came when I visited my sister-in-law’s home and saw my nephew and his friends huddled around his computer, staring at a MySpace page much the way our people probably huddled around a hearth telling stories in the 1800’s.

If the photo they were oogling had been a story, it would have been rated “R” for mature audiences.

Some young lady had posted a photo of herself in a bikini top that barely contained her “assets” and a bottom that pretty much showed off her bottom. She looked as if she were auditioning for a “Girls Gone Wild” video. The boys were smiling, snickering, and laughing. She was one of my nephew’s MySpace friends, or whatever you call them.

“Nephew, that girl’s a skank,” I told him in no uncertain terms. “No woman who respects herself puts that kind of photo on the Internet for the world to see. She is NOT dating material. Don’t bring her home,” I told him, my threat trailing off as my husband pulled me out the door.

And I meant every word.

I hate to say it this way, but here goes: Back in the day, one’s youthful indiscretions remained pretty much secret, except for the occasional slip-up of a drunken aunt or uncle. Save a Polaroid taken without one’s knowledge, most of the errors of our youth weren’t archived for the world, or our children, to see down the line.

Not this generation. Not only do they chronicle their youthful indiscretions, but they archive them on MySpace, Facebook, etc. Don’t they know that these web pages are archived, ostensibly forever? For their children and maybe their grandchildren to see one day?

Ah, children and grandchildren. No one will judge you more harshly than the fruit of your loins. That’s why, as you grow older, you close ranks with your friends who do know of your youthful indiscretions in a silent, “If your kids ask, I won’t tell if you don’t” pact. The things I know about my friends’ youthful indiscretions in high school and college remain archived in my brain, to the extent that I still remember them, only to be retrieved upon pain of torture by the Taliban (I have a low pain threshold.), precisely because they know of mine, too.

But the MySpace generation? They’ve archived their youthful indiscretions for easy access. A Google search by their grandchildren will retrieve evidence such as that young woman’s (skank’s) photo. Try having THAT conversation with your grandkids:

“Grandma, what’s a skank and why did they call you that?”

Oooh wee boy, wouldn’t want to have THAT conversation with the grands. But there’s a whole generation who is going to have to have that conversation in, say, 2040.

My advice: Live like you’ll have to explain your life to your grandkids. And if you don’t want to explain something, don’t do it. Or at least have the good sense not to post what you did on MySpace.