Susan Clarke Announces She Is Totally Over MySpace

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUSAN CLARKE ANNOUNCES THAT SHE IS “TOTALLY OVER” MYSPACE

LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke, who could formerly be found on Rupert Murdoch’s social networking site MySpace.com under an undisclosed profile name, has retired her profile and announced that she is officially “over” MySpace. Her growing laundry list of grievances against the site and its social standards includes the intrusiveness of messages from strangers, actual friends substituting MySpace messaging in favor of regular email, thereby necessitating checking an additional mail source regularly, and the fact that MySpace reduces 30 and 40-year olds to teenaged ignoramuses. “I admit, if I were 14, this would have been my dream,“ Clarke explains “but 42-year olds asking you to comment on their new pictures and forward a quiz about the person you have a crush on is embarrassingly juvenile.” To be fair, Clarke concedes that this is not the fault of MySpace, they have merely provided the forum.

Clarke’s decision to free herself from the MySpace deathgrip also has a political component to it, namely, her distaste for the increasing corporate presence of feature films, major label music acts, and even a Burger King profile advertisement on the home page. “The ad campaign for that FX show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was the nail in the coffin in that regard,” fumes Clarke. “It was so blatant how they were trying to snag the oh-so-valuable alternative youth market by setting up a MySpace profile for the show and putting the address on billboards. When they pulled that stunt, the transformation of MySpace from a social networking site into a corporate marketing tool was complete. I want no part of it. Are you getting this Murdoch, you clown?”

Clarke says she will miss certain aspects of the MySpace experience, mainly the fact that she never tired of coming up with new songs to use as the background music for her profile.

Overall, though, Clarke found the MySpace browsing experience increasingly depressing, and indicative of a widespread epidemic of identity crises. “Photos of kitschy pop culture icons, a carefully handpicked list of just the right art films and edgy literature, and the perfect Top 8 roster of unknown bands and friends who look like they live in Silver Lake are no substitute for having an actual personality,” Clarke states. “My lack of a MySpace profile is the ultimate statement of my own personality.”

She encourages friends to stay in touch with her the old fashioned way, by email.

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