Social (Network) Suicide

My internet personalities have gotten out of control. Fractured, neglected selves float along the internet tides: debris of interests, activities, and preferences cataloged in late-night bursts of solipsism. Out-dated dating profiles, reading lists, musical libraries... Do all of these casualties of waning self-interest really deserve internet half-life?

No.

It's time I performed some social network suicide.


And because no one wants to die alone, I'm providing you with all the gruesome details. Though it would be irresponsible for me to advocate that you take similar drastic actions against your virtual self, I won't lie: all the cool kids are doing it.

Site: Friendster
Purpose: The social network that separates those who went to college B.FB. (Before Facebook) from those in their earlier, more social network-savvy 20s.
Reason I Joined: It was my induction into the big bad social networking world.
Reason I'm Leaving: The fact that it took me 5 tries to even figure out what ancient email address and password combination I used to log in shows you how often I'm on the site these days.
Ease of Deletion (on a 1-10 scale where 1 is ridiculously impossible and 10 is instant, painless): 7. Once I finally made it in, I found the death option relatively quickly in the account settings.

Site: Intellect Connect
Purpose: A pro-geeks dating site
Reason I Joined: Friend coercion and mild curiosity to see if I'd go over big in the geek market
Reason I'm Leaving: Internet dating creeps me out; I apparently am not big in the geek market
Ease of Deletion: 9.5, an easy to locate "Cancel this Account" button is all it took.

Site: XuQa
Purpose: No clue what the hell this is for until I found the FAQ page: "XuQa is a giant online reality game played for fame and fortune between you, your friends, and 1,000,000 other players. May the best XuQan win!" I smell spam.
Reason I Joined: Who the hell knows. Probably a friend invite. I might have been drunk.
Reason I'm Leaving: Thank God I gave it an email address I barely use. This is some serious back alley social (disease-spreading) networking going on here.
Ease of Deletion: -1! After a lengthy search for a "delete this account" button on my profile editing page, I located the FAQ page which instructed me to locate an oddly placed "Settings" link which then provided me with a "Deactivate" tab which then gave me the message (I kid you not):

"Deactivation is temporarily disabled."

Um, what? That's like me telling a guy I want to break up and him saying: "Nah, I think I'll pass on that offer and be your boyfriend indefinitely." Fine XuQa! Have it your way. You wont let me leave on my own accord--I'll freeze you out with the harshest kind of emotional rejection. My profile picture? Gone! My name? Changed to ". ." The language settings on my profile? Changed to Turkish! How do you like me now?

Site: Spock
Purpose: A search engine type deal where you get to tailor what information people can find while searching for you.
Reason I Joined: Peer pressure.
Reason I'm Leaving: I can't be trusted to put up appropriate information about myself.
Ease of Deletion: 2--possible, but involves a multi-step process. According to their FAQ page:

"If the information on your Spock search result was created by yourself or when you signed up for Spock, you need to go onto your search result, and vote down all the information using the voting function (for more on voting, see the section entitled removing tags from Spock.) After you have completed the above steps, please email info@corp.spock.com and we will delete your account."

I've never had to vote "no" against aspects of my personality before: no, I am not a writer; no, I do not provide emotional support; or chocolate; or blog; or exist on any plane as a "Badass Mofo"--I even voted against my own name. Since the site is more of a search engine than a social network profile page, there is a high likelihood their "spiders" will catch my other blogs and profiles in their webs eventually and recreate my profile--but at least it will be based on more "credible" sources than my self-tagging.

Site: Virb
Purpose: To be the next MySpace. But actually look good.
Reason I Joined: This site does show potential--some people's personal pages look totally bitchin'--but you either need web design skills or the $ to hire someone to do it for you. No nasty html "skins" to paste in here.
Reason I'm Leaving: No one I actually know is on Virb and I got tired of accepting "friendship" from bands looking to have someone listen to their "sweet trackz!"
Ease of Deletion: 9 -- In the account settings, with a charming warning note:

This is very permanent and by committing account suicide, there is no guarantee you will go to social networking heaven. However, if you must: Delete Account.

Site: I'm in Like With You (IILWY)
Purpose: "hello.
we think people are kinda fun.
so we made this site.
its not perfect. but we hope you like it.
go ahead and peoplewatch. people are kinda fun.
be careful. people are hotter on the internet. so its a good thing you're on the internet."
Reason I Joined: An invite from a friend.
Reason I'm Leaving: Um, I'm not. But aside from the evening I spent setting this thing up, I've never used it.
Ease of Deletion: 0--the insane beta test Web 2.0-ness began to make my brain implode with its cheery gradients and bouncing pictures and I finally gave up.

Site: Mog
Purpose: A social network for music fans. Download software that analyzes your iTunes library and your friends can see what you're listening to now.
Reason I Joined: I like music! And now my friends can easily browse my music library for things to "borrow."
Reason I'm Leaving: Maybe people don't need to know how often I'm listening to Fall Out Boy. I also only had 1 friend. And I haven't logged on since I created it.
Ease of Deletion: 10, like most well-designed sites, my reprieve was in the account settings with this guilt-inducing pop-up note:

"Are you sincerely, absolutely, genuinely, honestly, really, truly, truthfully, wholeheartedly, earnestly and fervently sure that you want to leave MOG? There is no turning back once you hit that button."

Site: Good Reads
Purpose: Social network for people who read books. You list the ones you've read, write reviews, make friends.
Reason I Joined: I always had a fantasy about cataloging ever book I ever read.
Reason I'm Leaving: I read a lot of trash and am never motivated to update my list, let alone write reviews of books.
Ease of Deletion: 8, for the fact that it took some serious waffling before I finally decided to be honest with myself. I will never find the time to keep that thing updated.

The social ties that still bind: Facebook (how else can I stalk my favorite reality tv stars?), MySpace (under duress, because everyone is doing it), OkCupid (strictly for research purposes, I swear!)