I find it really interesting that people are willing to essentially recreate themselves online. There is something inherently freeing (and depressing) about the ability to become a new person, identical in name only to the person one is in their day-to-day life. But many people, a disturbing number of them Cubs fans, would rather abandon all aspects of themselves and simply adopt the persona of someone they wish they were. And the internet is the means by which they pull it off.
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To explain-
In one of my other jobs that I put way too much effort into for no money, I am a local musician (see “bullshit wannabe” in the dictionary or just look at a picture of this guy for a reference). Unfortunately, in order to get gigs(or, for some, 12 year old boys) these days, you need a Myspace page. Granted, Myspace is the Betamax to Facebook’s VHS (or HD DVD to Facebook’s Blu-ray, if you want a reference that doesn’t date back to the days when people wore mustaches unironically), but for some reason, a lot of bookers use Myspace to listen to bands' demos. But enough of my sad attempts at rationalization.
I got a friend request from “Ryan Theriot” the other day. Given the undying love for him that I’ve expressed on this blog, I was a little surprised. More surprising was the fact that a major league baseball player with two children would actually spend time on a site that regularly sends you random emails from people you’ve never met asking you if you want a date tonight. But alas, my excitement at being Mr. Theriot’s online BFF was not to be, as it was a site made by someone who was not Ryan Theriot, but felt the need to create a myspace page as if he was Ryan Theriot. Only in the description does the author reluctantly mention “by the way, I’m not actually Ryan Theriot.” This is actually someone who spent the time to create a fictional website for a baseball player they’ve never met, and who probably won’t even be on the team in three years.
This Ryan Theriot doppelganger has a unique view both on the player himself as well as Theriot’s views on life. So let’s take a look at Ryan, shall we?
His slogan is “y’all can’t deny it,” although I’m unaware of what y’all are attempting to deny.
His favorite movie is “The French Connection,” and his favorite musician is “Jerry Reed.” I am utterly perplexed by this. There are three options for why these things are on the page, either (a.) Doppelganger just chose randomly (which makes one wonder why these two were chosen), (b.) Doppelganger decided to superimpose his own musical and cinematic interests onto Ryan Theriot, or (c.) Doppelganger researched Ryan Theriot’s interviews, magazine articles, etc. to find a hint of the movie and/or artist that rocks Theriot’s world (which is just plain creepy). Although I guess the first option poses the least of the indictments of him, none of these three options paint a very pretty picture of Doppelganger.
Even more disturbing than anything written by Doppelganger is the comments written by people on the site. Below is a sampling:
Apr 10 2008 9:10 PM
Great game! Whenever the Bayou Boys are in the line up great things seem to happen!
Apr 6 2008 2:37 PM
GO CUBBIES... GREAT JOB RYAN
Mar 27 2008 7:47 PM
My last name is also theriot (don't you hate it when they say it wrong!?) and the Cubs are my favorite team! So of course your my favorite player.
enjoyed watching you at the cactus and make us theriot's proud! Go Cubs!
Mar 26 2008 5:58 PM
Glad to hear you are batting leadoff this year, Ryan! I always wondered how the post-season might have been different last year if you were our leadoff man.
Do these people really think Ryan Theriot is maintaining a Myspace page? Are they the “y’all” who apparently can’t deny it, whatever it is? Is functional mental illness more prominent on Myspace than I had already assumed it was?
More importantly, this whole virtual world in which people act as if they are (even local) celebrities AND others interact with that person as if he were, in fact, that person takes this obsession with celebrity even further than Klosterman suggested in his piece. It seems as if these people are so starved for a connection to a second-tier baseball player that they’ll settle for a connection to a person sort of pretending to be him.
The society embodied by myspace is so obsessed with celebrity that, in lieu of prostituting yourself out as either a YouTube goon or a “hot amateur couple interested in sharing their lives through their webcam” in order to get your fifteen minutes of cyberfame, people are willing to simply create a virtual world where they are the celebrity they’ve always wanted to be. And others, through either delusion or desperation, are willing to gleefully participate in the farce. Its almost as if there's a group stalking going on and the object of that collective obsession doesn't even have to be present. While probably much less dangerous than, say, that psycho who killed the chick from My Sister Sam, its still one of the billion things that I've seen online that makes me wonder what makes people so odd. Here’s to the internet.
Ed. Note: I found a bunch more "Cubs Player" myspace sites. We'll try to feature one, in all its weirdness, each week. They're waaaay too good individually to all put in one post.
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