Page 4 of 4

Fuck MySpace and those who espouse its alleged greatness. I may have made 24 "friends" in one week, but I still hate the damn site. Sharing it with countless pedophiles made me feel dirty, and I have this unwavering paranoia that something I post on the site will come back to haunt me. Of course, that is the least of my worries.

In a rare interview with a PBS journalist last month, Murdoch admitted he will introduce the site to 11 more countries, specifically targeting heavily populated India and China. He suggested the site could inject democracy into the latter's communist regime. I think he has much bigger plans.

After Indians and Chinese join the MySpace network, the site could easily boast more than a billion users. With the entire world connected, News Corp. will enter into government contracts to collect taxes, issue passports and perform online surveillance. Halliburton will merge with News Corp. to launch cyber-attacks on stubborn world leaders, deleting their friends lists and forcing them to fill out mind-numbing "How hot is he?" surveys. All news and opinion will come straight to MySpace pages, available in a microchip inserted into our wrists for convenience. Then, while laughing maniacally and folding his ironclad hands together, Murdoch will unleash his most devious plot -- the MySpace digital re-education camp. It will brainwash friends and family and turn them into mindless, flag-waving drones.

My advice to all you MySpacers: Get out now, while you can.

This story originally appeared in Weekly Planet, CL's sister paper in Tampa. Alex Pickett's MySpace page is at www.myspace.com/tampaurbanexplorer.