Yes, it is really mean to call them all loser kids, but you remember high school, right? High schoolers are mean.
Anyway, the more appropriate and accurate description from my current older, more dignified perspective would be to say they were the lower income, underprivileged, possibly dysfunctional family kids. And the cool kids were likely the white, middle class kids--also likely dysfunctional, just better at hiding it.
So jump to the digital age. Kids hang out online now. They pick favorite social networking sites and they text and they Tweet.
Is MySpace the new SuperPumper? According to a report on NPR yesterday, it might very well be.
According to the report, MySpace is out and Facebook is in. The reason? As one teen interviewed stated, "It seems trashy to me. The only people who use it are trashy people."And as the reporter went on to find, the 65 million "trashy" people on MySpace have their own theories about who uses which medium.
(Quoting directly from the article)
"I have friends who are white," says 19-year-old Diego Luna. "They are my white people friends and they are mostly on Facebook. That's why I use Facebook. My brown people are on MySpace.".....Benito Rodriguez, 16, adds, "Not to be racist or anything, but there's more white kids on Facebook."
Are MySpace and Facebook the modern version of the Sharks and the Jets?
And if so, where do we sign up to learn the dance moves?
I think I would have to identify myself with the Jets/Facebookers.
Not because I'm white--I am very white. Unfortunately exceptionally pasty white.
But more because all my friends/gang members are part of the Facebook crew. And once you're a Facebooker, you're a Facebooker all the way, from you're first wall post to your last status updaaaaaaaaaay--te.
But according to the article, the artsy-types hang with the Sharks/MySpacers. I love artsy types. I want to be an artsy type. I'm going to have to start creeping around behind my Facebooker friend's profiles to see what the MySpacers are up to, maybe pick up some great design tips or new hip band suggestions. At least most MySpace profiles are viewable without doing a friend request. I would for sure be blacklisted if my Facebook friends found out I'd been friending MySpacers.
It's going to be a difficult life trying to bridge these two worlds, but I guess I (along with all those salivating advertisers out there) will have to try. It's just too morally rupugnant to me to live in such a digitally divided world!
