So, the other day I wrote about getting my first MySpace friend, whom I decided to approve even though they were obviously a spammer. Today I went to my MySpace dashboard and noticed “she” was gone.

I originally wondered if spam-ella had put in the request hoping I would give a shout out to her web page the way I had to my first Twitter follower. (It’s possible spam-ella had somehow seen that, either through some blog watching service or Twitter itself.) When she (assuming it really was a she, a dubious assumption) disappeared, I wondered if she got miffed at me not only not giving her a shout out and a link, but calling her out as a probable spammer.

I didn’t have the address of spam-ella’s profile page to go look at. After a brief tiptoe through the browser history, though, I found it. Lo and behold, the MySpace equivalent of the blue screen of death — the user account has been deleted.

Looks like spam-ella’s spamming ways caught up to her. Which leaves me back with only old “default-Tom” as a “friend.” Sheesh. Next thing you know I’ll be paying for it. “Hey, baby, wanna make $5? Got MySpace? Wanna be my friend?”

Posted: April 15th, 2008 under Life Journals, Websites.
Comments: none

Hot on the heels of getting my first Twitter “follower,” I just got my first MySpace “friend,” a (supposedly) 21 year old female from San Diego.

Unlike the Twitter follower, though, I won’t be giving a shout out, mainly because I believe it is a spam type situation. The profile has no picture and the only information entered is a text graphic which talks about how shy she is, but her friends encourage her to post nude pictures, which, of course, MySpace won’t allow, but if you’ll just click through to this dating site and search on her name….

Yeah, right. SPAM! So why’d I allow the friend request? Eh, no-one else has requested, I’m tired of seeing only the one default friend (the mythical “Tom”), and I’m “seeding the tip jar,” under the theory that maybe this will help bring in more, hopefully legit, “friends.” MySpace is a numbers game, and my score is too low to be picky.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give said spammer any links from here — though, of course, you can go to my MySpace page and follow the trail down the rabbit’s hole if you like. (I almost wrote “down the spammer’s hole” but given the nature of the spam, that just sounded way inappropriate. :/ )

Coincidentally (or not), the only other communication I’ve so far received on MySpace was also spammish in nature. Someone (again, supposedly female) sent me an email saying she hoped I was single and would write her. Oh, but don’t respond here, she’s using a friend’s account, write her at this completely separate and untraceable Yahoo account….

Yeah, right. SPAM! Ah, if only it were true, but it has all the earmarks: generic in nature, “I’m using a friend’s account,” trying to take things to another location (outside MySpace’s reach), no truly personal information available about the sender (or the friend, for that matter), and most of the “friend’s comments” on the “friend’s” page were spammish in nature, as well (”Wow, this really makes you $90 gazillion in 3 days! Check it out!”). And, really, why would a 20-something girl be emailing hoping to date a nearly 40 year old man when there is so little information about me on the MySpace page? It’s ridiculous.

They can sometimes (not in this case, but still…) make these things very convincing, but I’m not biting, sorry.

Posted: April 12th, 2008 under Blogging, Websites.
Comments: 1