The End of MySpace

A couple of people have asked if my disappearance from MySpace is because of my new outlook on life post-turning 40. I have to say it was percolating before that. At one time it seemed to be a good networking place for my far-flung b-movie people, before the teenagers glommed on to it; now, I'm not so sure.

My wariness started when my daughter's high school friends found me on there. As has previously been documented in this humble blog, my rumored status as a porn king has been circulating around the high school for a while--and having a MySpace page with friends called Assmonkey and Frenchkitty and SexMachine had my protests falling on deaf ears.

Thus came the swell of Friends requests from my daughter's potential suitors. I had to reject them all, because there has to be a wall built between my daughter and the sordid world of bigfoot monsters, pirahna, and metrosexual frankensteins. I think working on a movie called Sex Machine tipped me over the edge. I was at one of my daughter's sports events and some of her guy friends were yelling out, "Hey, Sex Machine!" My heart almost stopped. I cannot have high school boys yelling out "Sex Machine!" to me in a crowded place.

Thus came down the MySpace page.

A better story circulating now, based on cold fact, is that I told several parents that if a boy wanted to take my daughter out they would have to first come and beat me in the board game Axis and Allies, much as the target-shooting contest in The Odyssey sorted out the suitors during those days of old. No takers yet, but I told my daughter to watch who is practicing in the lunchroom.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

The MySpace Chronicles

Loyal readers know of me discovering my teenaged daughter on MySpace and secretly reading her blog there. One nice side benefit is I can read all of her friend's blogs too. It's like looking under your kid's bed and finding their diary, and the diaries of all of their friends. Young readers, let me tell you, there's not a parent on Earth who sees anything wrong with this. Let this be a warning. Once I was young and shaggy-haired and wearing my "The Who Maximum R&B" t-shirt with pride, thinking I would never be buzz-haired and wearing a tie; but guess, what, here I am, and one day you will be too.

At any rate, I was outed the other day when I got an email on MySpace from my own daughter, and the heading said, and I am not making this up: "UMMMM OMG." I had found her, thinking she would never find me. I have what I consider a professional MySpace page that basically just has a link back to here. I didn't think of it in the same category as a teenager's MySpace account, but there you go. We had a nice Afterschool Special talk about the dangers of giving out too much info on the 'net and then all was right with the world. She even asked me to be her "friend."

But naturally I had to say no, as I can't have people who like movies like "Peter Rottentail" and "Sex Machine" and "Black Mass" around my teenaged daughter. These worlds must forever be apart. Even in my own house, when my daughter saw me wearing my mint-new "Sex Machine" t-shirt courtesty of Christopher Sharpe and said "Ohmigod, that is soooo wrong."

But a bad byproduct of all of this family openness is that my status as Porn King is revived anew at my daughter's high school (though perhaps has never truly died out, as the Black Mass/Black Ass controversy recently showed). I got a sudden influx of friends requests from my daughter's teenaged guy friends, which surprised me until I looked a little closer at my own Friends list and saw a few b-movie people with handles like French Kitty and SuperHeidi and AssMonkey that probably sparked the imaginations of a few tender teenaged minds. Again I had to say no; it's just a good rule of thumb that adult men should not be friends with teenaged boys over the Internet. Even if they know people who call themselves Assmonkey.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.