MSN: It Really Stands for My Screen Name...Sucks

I remember way back when I first got MSN. Most of the time, a person's name would either be their own real name, or an everyday song lyric. If they really wanted to spice things up, they'd cram some emoticons around it.

But nowadays, everyone is so busy fitting into creepy little stereotypes. You know what I mean: prep, jock, punk, emo, etc. And as if their choice of friends and attire wasn't enough to reflect that, it has to show up in their MSN names too.

First, you have the punk kids. You know who I mean. They glare at everything, act like they're better than you, and pretend to be politically enlightened. Their MSN names are always written in lower-case. I mean, it has to be. It makes you hardcore and deep. And their name can't be just any lower-case message; it has to be a vague political statement - probably ripped off some equally uninformed band's lyrics. So it'll be something like:

we rise up against the system that has oppressed us for so long

Of course, there's also the emo whiners. Every other second, they have some sort of life crisis. They probably cut themselves and do all kinds of drugs to "drown out the pain" of that last person who dumped them after only one date. They also love lower-case writing, but instead of being political, their name reflects their broken, scarred heart:

although i try to climb, my reward is just out of reach

What's hilarious about this is that the political kids generally come from middle-class families and have never had to struggle in their lives, and the depressed kids have absolutely nothing wrong with their lives...except maybe that the cute boy in math class won't reply to their stalking notes.

Then you have the mainstream suburban brats. They spend all their time in malls, making bland comments about who's hot. For some reason, they have to put their names in alternating upper-case and lower-case, and sporadically cram in weird symbols. You'd think this would be too much work for their small brains, but no. As if that wasn't gag-enducing enough, they put in their boy/girlfriend's name with hearts around it or a message to show their eternal love. So it'll be:

Şãû|: I lOvE u JeSsiCa!!!!!!

Why do people insist upon putting the name of who they're dating in their MSN name? Is this social status really so much in balance that not hanging off someone will result in eternal shun-itude? But then, as soon as they break up, they take it out and replace it with a sad message, like:

Though I tried, I fell so far from glory...

That's just like asking, "Please, make fun of me." I mean, we don't care about your personal life, except to mock you when the inevitable break-up occurs. And if your boy/girlfriend is so insecure that they need you to put their name in your MSN name, I sincerly hope you're using them for their good looks or possibly money, and will spare us the break-up name. For some reason, though, guys seem more prone to the obsessive name thing than girls. You'd think girls would be more clingy, but hey, there goes another gender stereotype out the window. Oh well, at least they don't fall into all lower-case.

However, the entire reason I'm making this rant is a bizarre phenomenon that transcends stereotypes: putting what the hell you're doing in your MSN name, then putting your status as away. What in god's name?! You know what I mean. You have something like:

Glenn - At movies with Joe and Eric, back at 4. (Away)

I can see putting your status as away if you're doing homework or playing a computer game, but when you aren't even in the house and won't be back for hours? Why don't you just shut the damn computer off? And why do they ALWAYS have to put useless details, like what friends they're with? Anyway, I have several theories for why this occurs.

Status Attack. Remember the kids who need to put their boy/girlfriend's name in their MSN name? This is probably less being whipped, and more having to tell everyone, "Yes, I have touched someone of the opposite gender." These brats are probably fairly insecure, and need to feel confident by telling everyone that they are competent enough to get laid. It's the same thing with the "tell everyone what I'm doing" kids. They need to inform everyone on their contact list that they are capable of making outside friends, and that they occasionally do remove themselves from the glowing warmth of their computer and enter the outside world. They might even just want to show off that their parents are so rich that they have their very own computer, and never have to turn it off. Either way, these kids are obsessed with their own social status.

Attention Whoring. "Everyone cares about me! If they don't know exactly where I am and when I'll be back, the entire civilized world as we know it will crumble into an unrecognizable sludge!"

Stereotype Madness! What better way to reinforce your stereotype, than to put something like "At the local punk show" or "Goin' to the football game?"

Either way, it all boils down to the fact that anyone who puts where they are in their name on a regular basis is a narcissistic loser.

But wait, you say. What if they are just neurotic, and don't really have ulterior motives for putting where they are in their MSN name? Well, my friend, there's a very fast way to check. Look at their user picture. You know, that little box containing their choice of image to the right of the text field. If it is a picture of themselves, yes indeed, they are an attention whore. (If it's a picture of like their eye or something, then they're an emo attention whore.) Trust me on this - putting your own picture there, coupled with always having what you're doing in your MSN name, is like saying "Everyone loves me!"

How do I know this? Simple. When you deal with whiny emo brats on music message boards as much as I do, you come to recognize who's an attention whore and who's not. And believe you me, if I have this much to say about my own friends on MSN, wait until you see what I think of Livejournal.

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