English, baby!

Spaced Out

Date: Jun 26 2007

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Do you know what the most popular website on the Internet is? Nope, it’s not mulletsgalore.com or cuteoverload.com. It’s MySpace.com, a site where you can blog and add friends. It’s sort of like English, baby! except MySpace is more for communicating with people you already know and listening to music rather than practicing your English with people from around the world.

Some people get really addicted to MySpace and spend hours on it every day looking at other people’s profiles and designing their own. Some people say that MySpace promotes narcissism, but others think it’s a good way to express yourself and keep in contact with friends.

Marni tells Mason that she’s not on MySpace, which is amazing since it seems like everyone has a MySpace page these days.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Mason

Marni

Mason: Uh, I was at work today and I was just checking my Myspace page a little bit.

Marni: Oh, MySpace.

Mason: I got a few new comments, a couple of messages, a couple of concerts coming up. I mean, you know…

Marni: So is that what you use it for? Because I don’t have a MySpace page.

Mason: Oh yeah?

Marni: Yeah, frankly, I’m kind of a private person in that respect. I don’t really understand the whole youth culture wanting to broadcast their lives and make it a public spectacle.

Mason: I think it’s an ego thing. I mean you can’t deny the ego element. Look at reality TV, right? That’s predicated on the idea that all these nobodies want to be stars, want to be on TV, and the Internet is like providing…

Marni: It’s kind of nauseating...in the reality TV spectrum.

Mason: The reality TV thing is because you have these producers manipulating it, but in this online life, you can kind of be your own producer and you can manipulate how you want to put yourself out there.

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Discussion

Believe it or not, Marni doesn’t have a MySpace page. She says she doesn’t understand why young people are obsessed with broadcasting their lives.

Mason thinks that MySpace, like reality TV, popular because a lot of people have big egos. The difference is that reality TV has producers who edit the characters into whoever they want them to be, while on a site like MySpace, you control what image you present.

Do you have a MySpace page? Is there a different social networking site that’s popular in your country?

Comments

Joy4short

Japan

facebook and twitter are famous social networking nowadays.and im some kinda public person who loves social networking and communicate different people and l am very eager to study different kinds of culture from different countries.

Ahshan

China

coming up !

Ahshan

China

ego is really come up !

Dafi

Malaysia

i used to have Myspace but it's have been cancelled cause i don't like to use it so complicated and bored but in my country the popular social networking is www.friendster.com,i like to use it cause it easy to use and you never get bored because you can chatting with your new friends,share opinions,gain the members,and so on.there have pros and cons while using social networking like you can get such friends that only want to talk about sex,your pictures can be copy by other members that admire or hate with you maybe who know he/she use that for personal purposes like revenge purposes ,the different of the opinion that can be quarrel and much more. that's just me

Lidia_partner

Brazil

Anyways… the video ain’t funny

seleh

Iraq

I think like Marni too.

shuilanmumu

China

slowly!

Zofloya

Taiwan

i don't have my own Myspace either, though i enjoy checking others' from time to time. I think i am just too lazy to organize and design the page. Well~ but i have to admit that using Myspace page through internet to communicate with and exchange information with others is a good way to broaden your view and make more friends all over the world. Maybe i would give it a try someday.

yunah

Germany

People seem to more enjoy facebook.com though, I'm not advertising or anything but I don't think I'm one of those who fell in love with themselves too much.

barbie the one and only

United States

I love MySpace! I love it because I only add people that I actually know in real life to my friends. I use it to keep in touch with friends who have moved away and I don't get to see often. I don't add anyone I don't know. It's more fun than boring e-mail. I like the music and the photo gallery. The best thing is the MySpace "pimper." I can change the backgrounds, etc. I spend about an hour and a half on it each day. Do you think that is obsessive?

carlosbertholdi

Brazil

hey Tamylin, you are wrong not everybody in Brazil has an orkut page, I don't have this shitty thing, then ALMOST everybody has an orkut=shit in Brazil. Got it??