My story is a satire on the social networking craze and impact on our culture here in the United States. Of course, everybody remembers a day and age when kids used to pass notes around in class pissing off teachers. Nowadays things are a little different since the implementation of cell phones and blackberries.

Virtually every school now has access to personal computers whether it be in library, science class, business class, etc. And if you think kids are just on those computers doing homework, well you are either older then dust or kidding yourself because the only thing I remember about school computers is trying to rush an occasional assignment in between watching decapitated stick figures on and getting the highest score on Oregon Trail.

Yes, even this is a bit "old school" considering where things are at now. If you don't believe kids are sending information at an alarming rate consider the amount of kids now getting busted for the act of "sexting" or the trafficking of nude pictures of themselves on everyday cell phones. These pictures spread so rapidly that quite often they will end up in front of 50 or more kids before it's all over. Obviously, this situation can not happen unless there simply are a crapload of kids carrying cell phones and a crapload of kids sending pictures over them.

Another thing that inspired me was the hype revolving around twitter and it's supposed impact on the Iranian election protests as it reminded me of how the internet orients itself with fad technology despite it's obvious lack of originality or usefulness. My aim is to point out some of the subtle absurdities embedded within these websites although personally my experiences with social networking lie mostly with myspace as I curbed my addiction around the time myspace began to lose it's popularity to facebook well before twitter was ever well known. I have since went on twitter just to verify that nothing is new and blogging is just as shitty as it has ever been.

The truth is although this story is a slight exaggeration, it is primarily based on reality as most of it is based on things I have experienced from high school adding in what I think it would of been like if this technology was as widely used then as it is today. I think it presents a unique way of story telling since the story is pieced together through events happening over these mediums rather then through an unbiased third person narrator as in a typical story. Characters introduce themselves by their facebook and myspace profiles. They interact with each other by the text messages and e-mails they send. They are given depth by the twitter and livejournal pages they post assuming their character calls for that (of course these are simulated as best as possible due to the limitations of fictionpress). Sometimes other things are thrown in there for a little background story or for some added humor.

What it all adds up to is that this is a high school that could be anywhere in America, but for the sake of satire is in technophile ground zero or the gateways of hell (take your pick). A place that represents what was funny about high school and what is shitty about the internet all wrapped in a neat little package.