Geeky Chic

It really irks me when I can tell that a reporter entirely bases
his/her story on a Myspace or Friendster profile.  For instance,
the reporter who drafted this piece on a young man who died in a surfing accident this weekend relied a little too much on his myspace page. 
With the exception of how he died, it appears that the reporter looked
up the dead guy’s name on myspace, called up the current employer that
he listed on his page,  and asked the company’s VP a few questions
based on the profile.  For instance, the dead surfer mentioned on
his page that he lives in “in Mission Bay (south of SOMA), so how does
this article conclude?  With the all important fact, “In October, he moved
from Dolores
Street
to a loft he bought in a brand-new condominium building on Bluxome Street in the South of Market neighborhood.” 
Information about the length of his employment at time of death and the
photo that accompanied the article also came from his profile. 
So, I’m not sure what this reporter did, other than run the search, and
make a couple of phone calls.

The other sad thing about this is the distorted view the world would
get of any of us based on our web trails if we were to vanish
today.  I can imagine a reporter reading my profile, then emailing
one of my law school friends to ask, “She really liked foie gras, huh?”
and then punching out a few lines about me being a foodie.