Acting Up in Public

Believe it or not, something MySpace reminds us of (and we're dating ourselves here) is Arnold'severybody's favorite burger joint in the TV show "Happy Days."

As we aged viewers might remember, Arnold's is where Richie, Joanie, the Fonz, and everyone else who mattered ate, chatted, flirted, and exhibited plenty of youthful sexualitytempered, of course, by the mores of a sitcom set in the '50s. Although some adults were usually in the restaurant, they were back in a corner minding their own business (and maybe rolling their eyeballs). No one else existed when the teen "owners" of that space occupied it.

This naturally egocentric, nothing-else-exists teenage approach lives on in the 21st centurythe age of exposure. But now, many people are watching teens behave as though nothing else exists. It's a contradiction, and a very interesting one: Consciously, today's teenagers seem to think that no one is out there watching, but at the subconscious level, they put on a lot of performances for that nonaudience.

The explanation might be the media environment they've grown up in. Consider the amazing time we live in. "Paris Hilton is famous because she's famous," Boyd points out. The idols of "American Idol" are instantly famous, and the show's ratings suggest that everybody else should want to be famous, too. There are plenty more reality TV shows that are all about exposing the intimate details of people's livesincluding "real" celebrities of all sorts.

"Kids are getting all these messages saying, 'Expose, expose, expose,' " Boyd says. "If you don't, your friends will expose you. We're all living in a superpublic environment, getting the message that you have more power if you expose yourself than if someone else exposes you."

You can make a fairly direct correspondence between "American Idol" and MySpace when you consider photo rankings and how important the number of comments and the length of friends lists can be. MySpace is just a reflection of the everyday media environment.

That's not to say every teenager likes that environment. A teen posted in our forum, BlogSafety.com, that she found MySpace "really boringjust a big popularity contest." She was referring to the vying to be among friends' "Top 8," the photo rankings, the cachet of having long friends lists and lots of comments, and so on (Figure 2.6). She left MySpace. Other dissenters, such as Cameron, just ignore this aspect of the site and get on with keeping up with the busy lives of their friends.

Figure 2.6. Another exhaustive friends' list on MySpace.

Our point is that MySpace is the new burger joint, only infinitely bigger and more diverse. The same stuff is going on. But instead of one or two social groups, there are thousands upon thousands, and instead of an ignored group of adults in the back corner, there are tens of millions, both on MySpace and looking in on it.

Key Parenting Point

We welcome a discussion on teen social networking and related issueswith teens and parentsat BlogSafety.com, our new forum about Web 2.0 and teens. We're all pioneers on the social Web, where privacy, safety, and parenting are concerned. If teens disagree with us, we'd welcome their reactions in the forum! If parents have questions, fellow parents (and teenagers and safety advocates) are there to answer them. BlogSafety is social networking about social networkinga Web 2.0-style solution.