I was mulling over something today while standing by the side of my car (it was the Mull of Ken’s Tyre... no, don’t go, it gets better, honest!!).
‘Why’, I mulled, ‘do people like Bebo?’
I had lots of answers for this – it’s great social interaction – it’s someone to talk to when there’s nobody real around, it’s a laugh…
But the one that interested me most was the thought that Bebo is attractive to us because we can be who we want to be on it.
Say there's a ganky lanky fifteen year old lad who sweats excessively, does little about it, has greasy hair and pimples, (or greasy pimples and hair) stumbles whenever he speaks and hates himself thoroughly.
On Bebo, he can post up a nice piccie of himself, assign himself some erudite interests and carefully edit his comments and replies.
The result? A clever, no-too-bad-looking young fella with a bit of a personality about him.
Bebo, you see, allows us to iron out those wrinkles that hamper us along the streets and in work and in school. We can be who we think we are rather than who we sadly are.
Let’s personalise it a bit. Look at me, 44 year old, increasingly needs glasses, tending towards over-weight, hauling around the scars of a lengthy adolescent dalliance with terminal acne. And what do I have on my Bebo-page? A photo of me – all eight-and-a-half stone of me, perched on a rock in deepest Australia.
It’s me all right but, wake up Kenny-boy, that was eighteen years ago!!!
If I were to perch on a rock now, I would probably topple slowly off it and lie helplessly on my back, kicking gently while crushing something small beneath me.
I like Bebo ‘cos it lets me be who I think I am.
Yes, I know that I said this two paragraphs up but it’s my page and I’ll repeat myself if I want.
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