Myspace Smackdown
A lot of you have probably noticed that my site has been down lately. This happens at the end of the month when I use up my alloted bandwidth. Don’t ask me to explain how that works, ’cause I don’t really know. I just know it works, and then sometimes it doesn’t. And usually it doesn’t work at the end of the month, after I’ve uploaded my monthly Baby Bug movie.
Thankfully, the really super nice and friendly people who host this site (for free!) have looked into it my little problem and added another TWENTY GIGS to my bandwidth! Yay Stranahans! They love me so much. Twenty gigs is a LOT. Like more than I could ever ever use up. Toby only uses four gigs on his site and he has galleries upon galleries of photography! So I’m pretty happy. I thought I would have to stop making my bandwidth sucking slideshows, but I don’t. I will probably try to keep their size down though, and direct you to flickr more often.
While we were looking into the problem, I noticed that some of the bandwidth suckage was due to myspacers. I’ve noticed this before but it only mildly annoyed me. I put a lot of artwork on my site, so I figure it just comes with the territory that people will steal it. BUT now that my site is going down because of bandwidth suckage, I decided I was going to track down those myspacers and make them pay.
I detest myspace. Myspace.com is like junior high all over again except on the internet. The meat market hook-ups, the cliche yearbook signings, writing “ur” for “you are”, the bad acne… everything! It’s all there in it’s hideousness. Every site I look at blasts me with a song I hate and their design skills make me want to chop off my own head. Clip art and stolen jpegs are plastered all over the place like the inside of your locker. Except it looks worse because it’s all microsoft based and goes completely haywire when I open it with safari. Tables and columns rearrange themselves in such a way that I have to mouse scroll sideways for days to find anything worth reading. It all just gives me a headache. I know there are lots of people out there who use it wisely and have very nice sites, there just aren’t very many of them.
For kicks I decided I would mess with the myspacers. They deserve it. They have been stealing one of the pictures of the beach near my house for ages. The average myspacer probably knows less about html than I do, which isn’t much. Probably somebody somewhere made a template and pasted my code into their html so my picture shows up in the background of their site. Then they passed it on from friend to friend, until there were a bazillion of them (or maybe just twenty, but a bazillion sounds better) who were all hotlinking my image off my server. Well, you know what that means. All I have to do to get them back is just change the image on my server. Piece o cake!
At first I thought I would just write “I wet the bed” or “I eat my boogers” across my image but then I found the most awful embarrassing photo from google images (yeah, I’m stealing too but at least I’m using my own bandwidth) and I copied and pasted it on top of my image and sent it off to my server with same name.
Oh my goodness the results are so funny! I’ve been checking the theiving myspace sites all weekend and reading the comments their friends write to them. Let’s just say I ruined the social life of some budding young youths. I’d love to explain even more but this site is a family site (as in my whole family reads) and the image I posted would be offensive to most of them. But if you’re really curious, email me and I’ll let you in on the fun. It’s been hours and hours of amusement for me. I couldn’t even put the baby to sleep last night because I kept cracking myself up and consequently waking her up.
I almost wish there were more hotlinkers because I don’t want the fun to end.
53 Comments
Dana
Hee! I would love to see that!. I have a myspace, mainly because it allows me to keep up with all my far-flung friends from HS and beyond. We grumble at the hideousness of it all the time.
Here is the link to mine if you want to see it.
http://www.myspace.com/crucifiedsmile
Cheers!
Daisy Mae
Oh I have so GOT to know. My email is on the way. I love the way you took action on that. I run into that problem occasionaly too and it sucks!
Jennifer
I have to see it. Emailing ASAP. Good for you! Sweet Revenge, muahahahaha.
josephine
ooooooh, good link from someone who emailed me:
http://www.idmonsters.com/archives/2004/08/sucks_to_be_you.php
Liane
Oh, that is soooo funny…good for you! I hate myspace too!
Carmen
Email it to me, pretty please??
Susan
Hi – its me the lactation consultant Susan; we corresponded earlier this year. I bet you are happy you stuck out the bfeeding, no?
Anyway, email me too??
thanks!
erika
Oh yes, I must know too! Sending email now. :)
margalit
Oh, I must know. MUST KNOW. Email me, pleeeeese.
Laura
MUST KNOW! email me!
and you sound like me.. I do stuff like that all the time!
Ellen
I must see it. Now.
Beckik
hey, I have got to see this! please pass along.
Lola
Oh yes. Email me too please. Thanks!
Keely
I love that you did this! Please send me an email with some links. :)
Polichick
I am so curious! Please e-mail me too. :-)
Diana
I want to see, I want to see!
Laurie
Awesome work!! I love that you did that! :)
Keely
Wow! The moral of this story is, don’t mess with SAJ! The comments from all their friends made me laugh out loud. Thanks for adding a kick to my morning.
Lindsay
Ok, I have to admit, I have a myspace page. Mainly it’s to keep up with people I’ve lost touch with over the years, but I find 99% of the pages trashy and obnoxious. I’d love to see your changes! Please email me!
Tim
You must send me the links. I hate myspace too. It’s the scourge of the Internet.
Debbie
Me too! Please send me the link!
Xangelle
Way too funny! Can I have the link as well?
Kara
MUST SEE NOW!!!!!
:)
Christina
add me to the list.. curiosity killing the cat and all…
Daisy Mae
My email came back today saying it failed but I emailed it yesterday. Have they loaded your new bandwidth yet? Could you pah-leese email me and let me know what pic you put up? I am dying to know. daisy8972(AT)gmail(DOT)com. Thanks!!!
Clownfish
I’m cracking up and I haven’t even seen the image! Please pop me an email.
samantha
I’m cackling evil-ly over here – even though I honestly believe they have NO idea what they’re doing, I was once ignorant myself –
Please send me an email and let me in on the joke, too!
Rose
ME THREE!!!
Gretchen
Me a bazillion… I’d love to see it!
pinky
oh brenda. you gave me the best laugh I’ve had in forever. forever!!!!!!!!
(the comments…sniff – i am crying from laughing)
kat
“scourge of the internet”? ouch. :sniff: all the myspace hate makes me sad. not all of us are blessed with the skills and know-how to have our very own site & admittedly, many of us fall short, when it comes to the dooce’s and saj’s of the web. but i tend to think the differences make it fun. and regardless, we’re all here for the same purpose: to keep in touch. to be validated. to express ourselves in perhaps the only outlet we feel we have. while i agree that a vast majority using the service are silly-heads, and certainly you’ve a right to protect your photos and images, there are also those of us that like the idea of an easy-to-use journal and keep a genuinely nice page. if we *decorate our lockers*, we ask permission from the artist. i’ve been an avid fan of saj for such a long time and have to admit to a mild case of the *hurt feelings* on this one.
tina
Me too, me too!! Pretty Please?
Ninotchka
You are a genius! You must email it to me. lol
Abbey
Weeeeelllllll…sadly, I have a myspace account…and like Lindsay…I have it to keep in touch with friends from high school. It did help me get back in touch with people that I haven’t seen in over 10 years…got to see them all this summer on a trip back to KY.
BUT! I, in general, HATE HATE HATE MySpace. So Please Please Please email me and show me what you did. I LOVE IT!!
Daisy Mae
That has to be the funniest thing I have seen in a long long time. I showed it to the hubby and we had a blast reading the comments on the myspace pages – especially the one with Hello Kitty. We were laughing so hard that tears were coming out of our eyes. Then we went out shopping and we weren’t able to stop laughing ALL NIGHT! Greg will just look over at me and say “dude are u gay?” and then we both crack up all over again.
SAJ thank you for the best laugh I think I have ever had. I promise I will never hotlink you! ;-)
comfortablycrazy
It was definately hilarious. Maybe it’ll get up the chain and they’ll realize what happened.
josephine
Your comment is well made, kat, and I’m sorry I hurt your feelings with the brass insults. I”m on a tear lately it seems. But just so you konw, I know none of my readers would EVER have crapily designed myspaces. Right? Right.
Abbey
OH DEAR LORD!!!!!!!! I just laughed my butt off! (Don’t I wish. hahaha)
Okay, my husband and I LOVED that!!! But you’re right…the best part was the comments. I LOVED when they comments said stuff like, “I didn’t change it! I don’t have your password!” Oh…’bout fell off the couch. : )
Thanks! I really needed that…I was having kind of a crappy day. This made it MORE than better…
Meghan
Please, please, please, send me the link! The curiosity is getting to be too much!
Tara
Oh, please send the link to me, too! I can’t resist any longer!
Emmy
Ok, I have to see what you did! Great idea by the way! Payback isn’t always pretty but it can be really fun!
AngelaM
Me too please!
tina
1. i’d like to know why all gEHy p0rn stars are so hot.
2. i’d like to see your top search terms for this month’s stats… lol.
Christina
that was hilarious!!
after all that has been going on with me.. I so very much needed that!
Jen - Lance's Wife
I know I’m late, but I would love to see it!
Kimberly
Ooh, will you email me the link please? I’d love to check it out. I know, I’m late too, but we’re in the same boat, trying to be on the computer with a baby in one hand. :)
ash pdx
Hi SAJ,
Am I too late to see the pic? I can’t stand myspace but I thought it was because of my age (37). A younger friend of mine has an account and told me I should do one. I thought, if I have a myspace account- it is SO over as far as being cool.
The design is so awful, and the comments are so stupid (in general of course).
They deserve what they get for stealing your images and your bandwidth.
Thanks!
Amy in PDX (artsypugsy girl-um… woman)
Brittany
I would love to see the pic.
Thanks!
Blancapdx
I just found this site. Now I too am dying to know what the results were. Please add me to that list of myspace links to laugh at. cheers
BeachMama
Good for you SAJ! I would love the link, but since I have been away I am sure they are all changed now. It is pretty cool to see you and others taking charge over their stolen stuff. Just because the internet is there, doesn’t mean you can go around grabbing anything you want.
Cheers.