Myspace Smut

Do you have teenage kids? If so are you aware of MySpace? If you are not sure what MySpace is, it is a personal website where kids can chat with their friends, post information about themselves with animated graphics, quizzes, profiles with the ability to customize their information with just about any graphic they want...and I mean just about ANY.

Just by perusing through Myspace of random christian kids I happen to know, I was astonished at the content of some of the material I saw. Granted, some kids do not have foul language or soft porn pictures on their myspace site, for which I am very thankful, however the amount of profanity, explicit graphics, and semi-pornographic content I saw on many of the kids' sites kind of shocked me. Some of this content was on the Myspace sites of "friends" who have been invited to be on their list, enabling them to contact each other but some of the profanity and explicit content was also on sites of some of these "christian" church kids. I cannot count how many times I saw the "F" word "B" word, the "N" word, the "SH" word, and the "A" word as though for many of these kids it's just the normal way of speaking, which I guess it is. Or how many kids decide to post pictures of themselves flipping a bird or seductively dressed, this also includes shirtless boys with their pants hanging off their hips, I guess they think they're sexy.

One site had a nice little greeting of "He is Risen-Happy Easter" which I thought was really nice then I scrolled down only to find a cartoon showing a series of pictures of a man's private parts with "funny" little sayings about the sexual activities it engages in...if you know what I mean. Then there was the illustrated picture of a naked body-builder, with exaggerated externals, showing off everything-with the caption: "This is what happens when you mix steroids with Viagra". I'm sure you can figure out what the graphics looked like. Or how about the animated cartoon graphic of a woman stripping and when she becomes totally naked you discover it's actually a man in the lower regions. I felt uncomfortable looking at these sites and thought (if my wife walked in the room right now she would think I'm looking at internet porn) but the truth of the matter is I was simply seeing what was on some of these kid's Myspace.

One of the features is a section where kids can take quizzes–––Blogthings Quizzes. This helps identify things about them, their personalities, likes and dislikes. Below is an example of the quizzes kids can take. By the way this doesn't really have any age restrictions.

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

What Song Should You Strip To?

What's Your Porn Star Name?

I realize a lot of kids have a Myspace account. Many of these kids also have no desire to be raunchy or filthy when posting information about themselves or selecting graphics to decorate their site with but what happens is that they are consistently taking a ride through the streets and avenues of a city called Sodom. You're basically just a couple of clicks away from some very raunchy sites. I know there are many christian kids with a Myspace account who are not comfortable with the surrounding content contained in some of the free-graphics sites or the subject matter on the sites of some of their invited friends. However, it's like you say to your friend "hey let's meet for lunch...OK where do you want to go?...um... there's this really nice little cafe in middle of the red-light district in Amsterdam." I know, "we won't stop at any of the porn shops or anything" but every day you'll have to pass by them on your way to the cafe. Or it's like the guy who goes surfing at South Beach (Miami Beach) where all the topless sunbathers are. He isn't going there to see the topless women (of which there are a lot) he's just going there for the waves (of which there are little). Why put youself in a position to be tempted so?

I've got a bad hunch that in many cases these Myspace sites actually expose what is in the hearts and minds of some of these kids. Why else would they deliberately decide to place certain graphics on their site or use explicit language?

What I would really like to know is, if you're a christian kid who has a Myspace, why wouldn't you use your Myspace site to proclaim God's good news of forgiveness of sins? Why wouldn't a christian kid be the light set on a hill in the midst of total darkness?

What about having nothing to do with deeds of darkness but rather expose them to the light of God's righteousness, since the days are evil and we should be wise and careful how we live?

What about kids living by the Spirit so as not to gratify sinful desires which include sexual immorality and impurity among other things?

Kids, like all christians we need to be separate from the world.

The bible says to not love the world or the things in it and if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Does that mean if you love the world maybe you're not a christian?--Yes.

Kids need to think on good things as it says in Philippians.

There's enough garbage out there without christian kids contributing to it. Worldliness seems like a tsunami in the world of teenagers.

That internet is like this surreal subculture universe full of temptations and snares just waiting to pounce upon any young unsuspecting sheep but it also can be used as a tool to spread a message of hope through Jesus Christ to a world in darkness and on it's way to hell.

-KTO