Tila Tequila

So I was reading Rolling Stone instead of doing my homework and I came across an article that I thought might be interesting slash relevant to the class so I am posting about it in hopes that I will absolve the guilt I feel for not doing what I should be doing. Anyhow, I was reading about a girl who goes by the name of Tila Tequila who has recently been anointed the "first star of MySpace." At last count she had of 1.4 million friends and a total of 45 million views making her the most popular person on MySpace. For these oh-so fine accomplishments she has earned herself an interview on MSNBC, graced the cover of Stuff magazine, launched a clothing line, been offered a book proposal and she is now a rising hip-hop star with several of her songs topping the unsigned acts charts on MySpace. This 25 year old Vietnamese-American girl claims to be "one of the realest girls out there."
I am not sure how many of you are on Myspace, though I have a feeling it is a rather high percentage since everyone and their dog has an account these days, maybe we even have some friends of Tila Tequila in the class, but what I found most interesting was Rolling Stone's take on the matter. The author of the article Rob Sheffield made the argument that in the MySpace and social networking era which is supposed to be bringing people together is actually helping us to lose touch with reality. "Realness is no longer measured by how well you know anybody but by how many people know you...we constantly get our human-interaction brain cells stimulated with no human interaction at all... we spend Saturday nights with our keyboards, desperately clicking to keep up with friends we don't have...The American brain responds to all these crazy-paced social networking options by losing touch with reality, adding contacts with the attention span of a bumble bee after snorting a buttercup full of crystal meth." He argues we are suffering from the dillusions of of social-networking anxieties: Top-8 paranoia etc. and I think I might have to agree. As someone who is not on MySpace I can only speak for myself but the sheer number of articles, conversation, and discourse generated in recent months about these social networks I think is indicative of their effect on the American society.