COLUMN: Blogs

You will absolutely NOT believe what I just heard.

You know how Amanda likes Justin, right? Well, it turns out that they saw each other at Village Inn last night and Justin completely blew her off! I KNOW! But Rico thinks that Justin really DOES like Amanda, but the problem is that Justin hasn't entirely called it off with Emily. And Emily and Kirsten ... well, we ALL know what they're like together, right? It's all going to get CRAZY at Mike Ford's party this weekend!

The Internet is the greatest invention in the world ever, I swear it. I have NO idea who Mike Ford is. I don't know where he lives, what time his party starts, or if I'm supposed to bring a gift. But Mike Ford appears to be a pretty popular guy. I've just spent two hours randomly surfing the Quad-Cities blogosphere, and I've found no more than four references to his party next weekend. Mr. or Mrs. Ford, if you're reading this, you might want to re-think going away for the weekend.

When I was a kid, every girl I knew had a diary. Heck, even a lot of the nerdy guys did, too (but we called them "journals," as though a small rephrasing would be enough to stop us from being picked last in gym class). But why keep a secret diary these days when you can just take your deepest, most horrifying secrets and put them online for hundreds of strangers to peruse at their leisure?

Blogs amuse me to no end. Everybody has one these days. If you're breathing and have an opinion on anything that ever goes on in the world (or, if you just want to rag on your friends) there's a corner of cyberspace just waiting for you and your rants. Free blog services like Xanga, Livejournal, and the oh-so-incestuous Myspace.com are among the most visited sites on the Internet these days. My favorite blog? It's nothing more than two amateur girls who put up photos of celebrities (at http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/) and then ruthlessly mock their fashion choices. Is it mean-spirited? Ohhh, yeah. But it's also some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen in print.

But nothing -- and I mean NOTHING -- is as funny as doing a search for blogs written by area high school kids. Remember the days when your biggest and only concern was whether or not you were getting invited to Mike Ford's party this weekend? In the teenaged blogosphere, it's taken to an altogether new artform. In less than an hour, you can learn the social strata of pretty much every high school in the country. The nerds have blogs, the jocks have blogs. I'm even told that the cheerleaders have blogs. (Not that I'd be the kind of middle-aged guy who gets his jollies reading the innermost secrets of cute high school girls. That would be wrong, Shane. Very, very wrong.)

The best part about high school blogs, though, is the NAIVETE. Look, we've all done things in life that we don't EVER want our parents to find about, right? I would think that the No. 1 rule of thumb when attempting to conceal embarassing facts from one's parents should be: DO NOT PUBLISH THEM. But does common sense stop a diehard blogger? Heck, no.

While surfing the Net just the other day, I found a blog entry from a high school girl that basically read, in a nutshell: "I can't believe I smoked pot the other night and had sex with my boyfriend. And now, I think I'm pregnant. GEE, I HOPE MY PARENTS DON'T FIND OUT." The other day I found a blog from a high school kid who snuck into an abandoned building owned by the city -- AND POSTED 25 PICTURES OF HIM DOING IT. Your honor, we the jury find the defendant GUILTY of being a complete moron.

Kids of the world, as a general rule, I'm on your side. For the most part, I'm still one of you. I still let you guys kick my butt at X-Box Live every night. I root for you. EXCEPT WHEN YOU'RE STUPID. "I hope my parents don't find out." THEN DON'T PUT IT ON THE INTERNET, IDIOT. If I can find it, your parents can find it. If you think people over the age of 35 don't know how to use a computer, think again. People over the age of 35 INVENTED computers. My mom reads my blog. Trust me, if my folks can figure out the Internet, so can yours.

Kids are going to do stupid stuff. It's what kids do. But to brag about it on the Internet is lunacy; you might as well just hang a sign around your neck saying, "Mom? Dad? PLEASE ground me." So, kids, if I can offer you ONE word of advice on the matter, it's this: Shhhhhhhh! Now if you'll excuse me, I HAVE to go try to figure out what I'm going to wear to Mike Ford's party this weekend. I have it on good blogging authority that it will be both "wick3d" and "off the chain."