Yeah, I doubt anyone will read this all the way through, but anyone who has gotten this far is already on the right track.

MySpace has the potential to be a great thing, but it is horribly abused and has cheapened the word "friend." I like having friends and I like using MySpace to stay in touch with my friends. I'm also honored that so many people I don't even know want to be my friend. However, it amazes me that I can have 150+ friends on MySpace, yet less than 5 of them are likely to come see any of my bands play. There's a saying: "You can never have too many friends," or something along those lines. I agree with that saying, but it depends on the definition of "friend" you subscribe to. I don't want my number of MySpace friends to get so big that I don't know most of them, because at that point MySpace becomes useless to me and I'll have to either abandon it or clean out some "friends."

I know who my real friends are – I have more real friends than I can fit in the "Top Friends" portion of my profile. They're the people who I celebrate birthdays with. They contact me mostly through email, phone calls, or in person – not just through MySpace. I have fond memories of time spent with them. I also have a lot of friends who are mostly acquaintances whose company I have enjoyed at some point. We've met each other; maybe hung out together at a party or a film festival; maybe we have a bunch of mutual friends; maybe I've done some business with them. I'm glad I can use MySpace to stay in touch with those people.

Sure, like just about everybody else on MySpace, I've requested "friendships" from some people I respect but have never met in person – they don't know me and have no reason to accept my request. If I don't know you, and you're requesting a "friendship" from me, could you please send me a message letting me know that you're a real person, and not a P.R. firm or internet robot. If you want to be my friend, please treat me like a friend, and not a statistic.

If you request a friendship from me, and it's not obvious to me who you are, I'm going to look at your profile (when I get around to it), and if I don't recognize any names or faces, and you're in a city I've never been to, or you already have 1,000+ friends, I'm going to assume you're just trying to have as many friends as possible and aren't really interested in me personally, and I'm going to therefore deny your friendship… unless you send me a message telling me who you are and letting me know why you want to be friends with me.

I get swamped with friendship requests from films, film festivals, bands, and companies, all just trying to promote themselves I guess. I'd rather be friends with PEOPLE. In fact, I'd prefer to have only one friendship per person. One day I got 5 friendship requests from the same person – one from his personal profile; one from his production company profile; and three from profiles for films he has made. I've never heard of the guy, his company, or his films. I denied all 5 friendship requests. I don't mind accepting friendship requests from bands I actually know people in, or have heard of, and hopefully like, but when I get a request from a band in Texas/England/etc., and I've never heard of them, and I don't like their music, and they already have 1000+ "friends," it just seems kind of pathetic that they have to approach complete strangers like me for friendships.

If you're just trying to add another number to that "____ has (so many) friends" part of your profile, send a friendship request to my bands, The Go-Pills, The Awkward Sounds of Scott & Skizz, and The Jennifers and we'll be even. I'm a real person, here to stay in touch with other real people. My bands are on MySpace for promotion. (On a similar note, some of the film festivals I work for also have MySpace pages for promotion – if your film needs friends, send a request to the Maryland Film Festival).

Thanks,
-Skizz