As long as I'm being an ass, I may as well go the whole nine yards

I wrote in a post earlier this week about my general disdain for the new behemoth social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, but allow me to take a moment to assert my contempt a little more forcefully.

I really dislike trying to boil myself down to a few sentences or graphics or, more annoyingly, a list of my favorite music, movies and books. What is that going to tell you, really, besides a very cursory glance at a few matters of personal taste and education? (And again, it's useful for the proverbial penis comparison, but little else). Look, I've written well over 1,000 blog posts in the past six years; if you really want to know what my interests are--and heaven knows why you would--then you've got plenty of reading material out there to keep you satisfied (though I haven't checked to see if it's still all there.)

These sites seem to be the internet representation of those people who like to boast of their wide array of accomplished friends, none of whom they really know at any level. I'm not impressed solely by reading a list of the media you like. I'm impressed if you can give me compelling reasons why you like it. But you can't tell me that if you aren't writing.