5 Features MySpace Desperately Needs

We're thinking this is just the kind of subtle helping hand confused or lonely MySpace users need to take them to the next level in their online fantasies, the first of which, of course, being the idea of them having friends that number in the hundreds.

How many times have we experienced the disappointment of a desolate MySpace inbox, even though we posted that totally unique self-interviewing questionnaire in a bulletin right before we last signed off? I mean, for god's sake, we told people they had to answer now that they had opened it!

Hold tight, lonely people. We're driving this MySpace train. Next stop: Awesome.

The solution:
By activating and customizing your Activity Simulation Toggle, your account can be flooded with obscene amounts of MySpace happenings, designed to make you feel included and connected even in the most obscure and convoluted of ways. You can also control the amount of activity to large, Costco-like quantities, even to a number that Harvard statisticians would call "fucking silly."

Of course, none of these things would actually be coming from your friends in any, you know, real way. They would be 100 percent computer-generated. But, any thin sliver of self-confidence can be effortlessly and superficially restored when you bear witness to how much you are being thought about and messaged, even if it is from a cold, lifeless computer program that's sole job is to do such things.

Think of this as a spamming robot that you actually want in your life. Instead of encouraging you to increase your breast size by six cup sizes through herbal supplements, this friend-bot will instead send you a comment from a friend stating, with calculated enthusiasm, that "u r the kewlest lol!"

And for that single glorious moment, you certainly will feel deep down like you truly are, in fact, the kewlest ... lol.

The problem:
The Tom problem lies at the opposite end of the spectrum. Some of us may be lonely, but we're not this lonely.

As of the writing of this article, supposed head of MySpace Tom Anderson has about 215 Million friends. This includes you, if you have a MySpace account. On MySpace, Tom is like Windows Vista: He comes pre-installed. He automatically declares himself your MySpace friend upon sign up, presumably to avoid the sad, "You have 0 friends" situation.

Though, if you want a good illustration of just how little it means to be a MySpace "friend," give Tom a call and ask if you can borrow some money. Of course, there is some dispute over whether Tom even works there any more, or if he is just a corporate mascot like Ronald McDonald.

We could ignore all of this, if Tom would let us. Instead he bombards us with mass announcements, usually explaining the most recent outage or glitch. Add this to the irritation that Tom, who supposedly holds a bachelor's in English and Rhetoric and a master's degree in film, demeans himself by using lame Internet lingo.

The solution:
The Tom Filter (patent pending) takes care of problems on multiple fronts. First, any online friend of yours who has unwittingly kept Tom as a friend or, even worse, who thinks it's somehow cool to be his friend will be automatically removed permanently from your friends list. This is a full-on boycott, here, and we have to take a hard line.

Second, the Tom Filter would eliminate, or at least modify and make readable, all of his little announcements where he's been known to use extremely poor grammar, spelling and blatant use of "lol" to tell you about problems with the website or to advertise upcoming movies that are at the moment paying for his fourth party yacht.

The problem:
Last summer MySpace found 29,000 freaking convicted sex offenders among its members. Holy shit. That's almost enough sex offenders to fill up Wrigley Field, as if they had some kind of special promotion or something that day.

It's no wonder; you have an open environment where predators can browse around profiles of, say, 13- year-olds claiming to be 18 and them narrow down which ones are in driving range. It got so bad that you couldn't go down a single school bus stop without seeing hordes of concerned parents look side-to-side suspiciously while simultaneously checking their children's Internet Explorer history.

The solution:
The solution provides a simple clickable button that would alert Tom (yes, actually wake him from sleep) that a friend request is from a very shady person, based on the premise that child molesters are often not all that hard to spot.

With one click of the mouse, the person in question can be monitored online to see what kind of friends he's been requesting, what the contents of his inbox look like, and how many tickets the sleaze bag bought to see Daniel Radcliffe get naked with that horse. Then, once those tendencies were established, a simple Javascript applet would cause the man's PC to fire a bolt of electricity that would make his scrotum burst into flames. Simple.

At the heart of these hipster and artistic emo angles are women who believe their faces and bodies are in themselves sins against God, and must be shielded from the world through several fuzzy layers of deception. Unfortunately, these days most MySpace surfers have learned to assume the worst.

Come on, ladies. It's like refusing to leave the house without a veil. Who made you so ashamed that you felt like you had to hide how you look? Tell us, we'll kick his ass. It shouldn't be this way.

This ain't Hollywood, nobody's expecting you to look like Scarlett Johansson. It's the freaking Internet.

Above: Cracked Editorial Team

The solution:
We propose a sort of photo element recognition engine that will scan photos to ensure that this type of dishonesty is eliminated, for everyone's good. Using some sort of advanced JavaScript or Flash application, it would require a potential user to upload a picture of themselves that has:

• Adequate lighting;
• No Photoshopped poetry or otherwise unnecessary type covering any area of their body;
• A straight, head-on angle

The picture will be electronically dated and kept on the person's MySpace picture album forever. It will force all of us to be more honest about ourselves, and will avoid the ever-present danger that the girl we fell in love with online will turn out to be a dude.

Ultimately, it will be to everyone's benefit. Remember, it will be a level playing field. You don't have to worry about this policy hurting your chances of meeting your soulmate, because everyone will be doing it. And, who knows, if the technology advances enough maybe some day we'll have it automatically post everyone's income, education level and penis size. Total disclosure here.

Cale and Zach are the two-man team behind the webcomic Abomb Nation.

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