if you missed the coming and going of friendster, you might want to just skip this post

On MySpace, many bands have taken up the annoying marketing practice of sending friend requests to anyone and everyone; if you approve a request, your new "friend" can then post comments to your page.

The intended purpose of this process is that someone you actually know will request to be your friend, you will approve them, and then they will post a message that says something like "I saw Jen perform and she was sooo funny," or "Jen and I tried to lose our virginity together in junior high school but couldn't figure out how."

But when you approve the band "Supercilious Douchebags" from, say, Vancouver, Washington, instead they use their newfound "friend" privileges to spam your "comments" area with ads for their latest show. (In, of course, Vancouver, Washington. Because so many people on my page like to see bands there. Yes).

Jerkoffs.

In contrast to this, Dr. D. Inosaur of the band Defiant Dinos wrote to say he thought I waas funny and that their band would come see me if I perform in London. See, now that's nice! I will be their MySpace friend! It's just like the real world; you scratch other people's backs if you want your back scratched.

If you just run around the streets asking to get your back scratched, people look at you funny.

Notably, the Defiant Dinos ("a great band who write songs about dinosaurs, robots, pirates, and robot bears") have recorded but one song, yet they have 1209 MySpace friends. I love how the internet allows us to market things that barely exist. The cart before the horse, the press kit before the band.