3

Tom Filter

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.

2

Pedophile identification

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.

1

Straight-on picture requirement

The problem:

Many MySpace users are convinced that it is acceptable--nay, mandatory--to take a picture of themselves by holding a camera extremely high and 2 feet away from their face. Pursing lips, wearing only underwear and/or looking away from the lens ... they're all meant to add intrigue to the picture, but instead add a sense of sad desperation.

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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