MySpace-ing

I confess: I joined MySpace. It was something I did on impulse but which ended up proving to be worthwhile. The story goes like this...

I was looking for some David Cook's songs to listen to while working at the computer - you all know I spend waaaaaay too much time in front of the monitor working on my thesis - and his page on that site came up when I "googled" for them. I checked it out and unlike myself I did something very fan-like: I decided to leave a message for the guy (not that he needed it, he must get MILLIONS of messages a day). The thing is that I thought, "What the hell, I'll just say something like 'All the best and lots of success' to show I've been here as I'd like people to do when they read my blog"" (and, YES, it's a complaint! :P ) and so I did it. However, to do so you have to register and get your own page, something like that. All right then, register, here we go... done. I made my profile page a bit later and that was when, out of the blue, requests to be my friend started to pop up (?!?!?!).

I went to verify who all those strangers who wanted to be my friends (how odd is that???) were and saw that most of them were musicians trying to make their work known to the highest number of people available. Nothing wrong with that, but I felt caught in the online version of the baseball card collectors competition, you know, "See, I've got more friends/fans than you... :P " , like a MySpace version of the saying "The more the merrier" (and, NO, David Cook doesn't fall into this category). I know it's something they HAVE to do in order to promote their music and get out of obscurity, but... I don't know, it bothered me somehow that they weren't inviting ME to be their friend, they were inviting just "someone".

Moreover, I hadn't joined the thing to ostentatiosly go around "Hey, I'm friends with (fill a famous name in here)" or to break records in friend-making, so I took a look at all those requests and accepted the ones I felt I did have something in common with, whether it was because I liked their music (the case of John Nathaniel, whom I've mentioned in a previous post, or Adam McInnis) or because besides that they were Brazilian (like Apoena or Necessidade Humana). To all of them I sent a short message to say "Hi", give my views on and opinion about their songs and wish them success. That was when a surprise came into the picture - and, ladies and gentlemen, the surprise was good... :)

All of thse artists surfaced from the flood of messages they receive every day (John I know for sure spends HOURS reading and answering his) and replied mine. And it wasn't simply a polite answer, they were personal replies, some even with questions for me, showing that beneath the image we see of them in YouTube videos and all there's a real person - and that realization was like a breath of fresh air in a world where image is everything and everybody fights for their 15 minutes of fame so desperately that they forget to be human. I can say now that I accepted those guys as friends expecting nothing, and they've given me a lot in return: they've restored my faith in people. I accepted them as friends not believing in the word being applied to describe them, but now I can unequivocally use it as I say their names, for that's what we've become after exchanging messages for some time. We've surpassed the stage of being mere aquaintances to reach that level.

No, I'm not boasting - this is not about whom I'm friends with. It's about what kind of friends I've met, and for me they are absolutely nonparell, peerless, really unique indeed, because they've turned MySpace into a place I long to visit every day, to see, listen and to talk to my friends.

PS: This post was written from top to toe in English in a homage to them and just in case they decide to stop by and pay me a visit here (the Brazilian ones have an upper hand because they know English too - and even some Spanish, no es asi, Apoena? ;) )