If Al Gore was alive to see what has become of his precious invention, the Internet, I believe he would weep. Well, he wouldn’t actually cry (robots cannot cry), but he’d be sad. Why, because MySpace is using the Internet to destroy civilization as we know it.

MySpace is a disease. People get on MySpace because their friends are on MySpace. Their friends are on MySpace because their other friends are on MySpace. And so on and so on. Eventually, you can trace it back to Nicole Ritchie getting a MySpace because Paris Hilton had one. If those origins do not scream “disease” I’m not sure what does.

With its customized layout capabilities and a majority of its users having zero web design experience, MySpace is creating a generation who will think this is a normal looking web page. In the future, all sites will look like MySpace pages. Light colored text will be placed over bright, multi-colored images. All text will be in capital letters. It will be mandatory. Annoying music will begin to play as soon as you enter a site. It, too, will be mandatory.

Moderation and mystery have become things of the past thanks to MySpace. Why have one or two pictures of your favorite celebrity when you can have dozens? Why give a brief overview of yourself and your life when you can instead tell the world all of your personal secrets? Rule of thumb when it comes to moderation and mystery: If you have more than three videos on one page, scale back. Try to keep a little mystery about yourself. We can already tell you are a Jessica Simpson fan by the 73 photos you have of her on your page. If you also throw in 17 videos of her, where’s the mystery? We immediately make a snap judgment (*cough* stalker) about you, and that’s just not fair. There’s no need to be an open book, my friend.

Fifty years from now, when “words” like OMG and LOL make up 95% of the English language, historians will point to America Online and MySpace as the causes. Well, they won’t actually point. They, too, will be morons, and their fingers will likely be in their noses. But the scribble drawings in crayon they will write on their bedroom walls will tell the story in colorful detail.

In short, I do not “get” MySpace.

While it originally debuted on my blog, this article was later published at Associated Content on July 13, 2007. You can go read it here.