a new phenomanon that's really just a regression

so I recently found out about this silly thing called .formspring that a lot of girls (not boys, of course) are doing. pretty much this is where people will ask you questions (publicly) and you answer them (publicly). essentially, this is high school bullying. no, I wouldn't even take it that far. this is middle school bullying.

I would expect that by the time you get to high school pretty much all of your middle school drama tactics have been cleared up or just taken to the graveyard and buried already. apparently not. seriously if you look at anyone's .formspring it's just a list of questions comprised of these types:
1. mindless "you're hot" questions -- that aren't really questions, just comments.
2. your classic "why are you such a [insert negative attribute and/or curse word here]" questions.
3. silly "you're awesome I love you what would I do without you in my life" questions.
4. absurd "what size are your tits" questions.

really, everything that is written to the person answering questions on a .formspring falls into one of these 3 categories. please, correct me if I'm wrong. I dare you.

this is the quintessential website of high school bullying. you don't need to put down your name, you don't need to make it clear who you are. you are a faceless, nameless person who can ask anything of anyone and make them feel as uncomfortable, attacked, targeted, loved, admired, you name it, and YOU don't have to suffer any consequences. while someone else has the potential to be humiliated in public, you don't have to suffer in any way. where then, does remorse come in? where is the being-a-good-person? where is the maturity that is expected of you once you get to high school?

I was appalled by this website. that such a website would endorse and condone such behavior is absolutely amazing. the internet was supposed to be this incredible technological resource that would help us in our every day lives and all I see it doing, according to this website, is giving people an outlet to say everything they want to say to someone but are too scared to because confrontation is a scary thing. if you can't man up and deal with your problems with someone in person, maybe you aren't ready for high school. maybe you aren't ready to make it in the real world.

and if you're the one spending your time defending yourself on a .formspring? I pity you. I honestly feel sorry for the fact that you will, at one point, be attacked by someone who is too scared to face you. that you have to spend the hours in your day answering questions that are, for all intensive purposes, worthless.

when writing this post I thought about blogging vs. .formspringing and here's the difference. when I blog, I write about my thoughts, my internal crises that I have on a daily basis, the things that really bother me about myself, about the world I live in, about the values that are in society, about the things that I see on a daily basis. that is introspection. that is pushing yourself. I don't spend my time on this blog defending who I am -- if someone had a problem with me, I would expect them to ask me personally -- I spend this time questioning myself and my beliefs and values. if anything, pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and being alright with exposing myself and very intimate thoughts to the general public is a good use of time because I am growing. I am being stronger. I am being my own bully.

I was initially scared when I heard people were reading this. not scared as much as self-conscious. that people would see the things that I criticize about myself instead of covering up all my personally-perceived flaws? it seemed like I was asking for trouble. the fact is, I get to use this space to, if anything, let people see that they should also be questioning themselves and the things they see, to give them a different perspective on things they might not have questioned before. and hey, I'm not always funny, I don't always give music homework, I don't always give shoutouts, I don't always make sense, and I might not always be original but in the end, I'm still pressuring myself, my own self, to think about and call into question who I am. no one else is doing it for me.

so if you're reading this and you do have a .formspring, don't take offense. seriously. I mean it. but think about this: if you have to spend your time defending who you are, are you ever going to question yourself without being self-conscious and worried about it? take your time and figure out who you are -- it's totally okay to be full of contradictions and to be unsure (I AM TOO!) -- but you shouldn't ever have to defend yourself to a faceless bully. that just isn't fair.