Last week I was deleted from MySpace for the second time. I've decided that I probably won't be going back.
Before my angry rant, let me try to list a few of the positive things that MySpace did for my site in the brief time I had a page there. It's a totally free resource for posting info, pictures etc. about yourself in order to connect with other people who share your interests. It was an excellent way for me to get the word about my website out to guys who have a tickling fetish.
And now, the bad:
The people at MySpace (or the evil machines who send out automated form letters in response to any inquiries) seem to have a completely arbitrary and hypocritical system for deciding what content is appropriate, and what is not. In my travels through their membership roster, I encountered hundreds of websites with content much more explicit than anything I ever posted. There are also plenty of sites that exist to promote another business or website. They hide behind the blanket policy of being able to remove "anything we deem inappropriate" which is vague and subjective enough to include anything at all.
The most distressing part about being deleted from their system is that it happens without a single warning or explanation. One day, you simply cannot log in and you realize that all the work you put into the page, all the photos you uploaded and, most importantly, all the contacts you made are gone in an instant. The first time my page was deleted I was up to nearly 4,000 contacts. That may seem like a modest number in comparison to the millions of connections that celebrities get, but for a small-time tickle artist like myself that was a huge number.
The bots at MySpace tell you that there is no way to retrieve your profile or any photos that were uploaded to your page-it's gone forever. I call "total bullshit" on that one. Suppose someone's page contained information that was important for some criminal investigation? They would be legally required to maintain some sort of record of a deleted page.
I decided to try again, and not put as much effort into the page this time. Within a few months I was back up to 600 members. Then, once again, my page was gone.
This time I fired off several e-mails to them that were decidedly nastier, demanding at least an explanation for what specific content on my page was the deciding factor in deleting me. Of course, all I got in return was form response after form response, no matter how many times I wrote back. I would have been satisfied if a single person had written back to me and said "This was the photo that got you deleted" or "You can't promote your website in this way on your page".
I'm writing this post to warn anyone who has gay fetish content on their MySpace page to count on being eventually booted off their site. I would strongly encourage anyone with a male foot or tickling fetish to join www.feet.tv (link in the sidebar) which is a wonderful MySpace-like page specifically for foot lovers.
My only regret is that I can't buddy list Matthew McConaughey on feet.tv...sigh.
