...my reason could not be worse. It's not a time of soul-seeking, or the dicovery of distance running or a great friendship, but an addiction to something as mundane as a teen photo-profile website known as Mingleville. Should anyone who mercifully escaped the FaceParty craze of the early-noughties not know what exactly this site is, let me explain. It's a neon-pink and purple little community of personal profiles, which include the posting of five free photographs, a little box to describe oneself, a blog, links for Mingleville buddies and the ability to message other members and comment on their photographs. The average age range of a "Mingler" as I shall refer to them is usually between 13 and 17.
I came across it in a dark moment of internet boredom-induced by unemployment and a non-existent social life, not to mention living in the back of beyond-where your brain feels heavy at Googling yet another useless topic-I found myself Googling Grange Hill characters and kids toys of yesteryear, not to mention cures for corns. Browsing FaceParty, I came across the profile of a young lady called Sexeh, known to her parents-in clothed form no doubt-as seventeen year-old Mandie. Mandie could be technically described as an amateur cam whore. She has all the common characteristics, bar an extravagant Amazon wish-list. She's articulate, slightly bookish in appearance, and obviously extremely computer literate. Not to mention obviously extremely curious of the effect her burgeoning sexuality has on men. Headless shots of torsos, breasts, legs and bums grace her many photo pages. Mandie had discovered, in her hours of browsing phot-profile sites, a cheaper and far more popular alternative to the dated, expensive and cliquey FaceParty-Mingleville. So off I went, tempted by Mandie's scores of male fans, worshipping at her pixellated, stilleto-clad feet. Within seconds, I too had my own Mingleville profile, and a community of 5, 000 potential viewers in my grasp.
Blogger it ain't. So fear not, I haven't found a superior sphere in which I can air my views. Nope. I've simply found a garish little spot on the internet for which to indulge my curious, narcissictic side. The photo comment feature had me signed up straight away. What do the web-literate teenagers of Britain think of moi?
With that it was time to take some photos. My first attempt, with the dated old webcam we got as part of our PC package, consisted of demure shots of me clad in jeans and a baggy TopShop hoody, and of my face only. I like to think they were model-esque, arty shots of my facial profile, glancing to the side and anywhere but the camera, lip-gloss pouts and Colgate grins. They were quickly uploaded, pended for approval by the webmasters and were then live on the site. And suddenly my mailbox was the fullest it's ever been bar when I've been on a long holiday. The comments were usual randy teen fare, in typical teen "txt spk"-"U R A BABE :D", "STUNNIN!", "MA JAW DROPZ, GAL U FINE". Messages asked me for everything from MSN names-more about this later-to phone numbers and addresses (seriously, the teens of Britain obviously learned nothing from Sarah-Louise hiding under the bed in the house of a web-paedophile in Corrie. And they can't be watching Tonight With Trevor McDonald either, with it's horror stories of teen girls zipping over the Atlantic to meet obese ex-Marines.). My positive rating, where members can rate you and therefore gain you points to spend online adding features to your profile, soared and I had 1000-plus hits in a couple of hours. It took me a year to achieve that on Blogger.
Mingleville's ability to turn your profile into a ratings hit worthy of the more popular Bloggers lies in it's intrusive tracking software which lists the last few visitors to your page at the bottom of your profile, a full list of online members, and the opportunity to see exactly who visits your site, and who rates you. Your every moved is tracked, and this is particularly highlighted by the feverish ratings and messages left by members whose profiles you stumbled upon for five seconds, because of an interesting name of something. It's on the whole a friendly place, where one never feels lonely. This ranges from the simple friendly comments on your photos or through messages, to the protectiveness and loyalty of Mingleville members when jealous 16 year-olds turn on one anothers bra pics. Your page isn't quite complete with a txt spk "ur pics r fake innit bitch" comment or two. That usually means you're a looker, worthy of the jealousy of people who wouldn't have even bothered spitting on you at school.
So I've become addicted. The first few days of my membership, when messages and comments would appear by the second, I was online for five hour stints, diligently replying to such and positively rating members. I formed friendships with a humourous and camp 16 year-old Dubliner, a male model from Brighton, a sex-obsessed Oxbridge graduate and a teenage Jordan lookalike from Sheffield.
The downsides of Mingleville are both it's potentially personality-altering effects, and the sociological explanation for why so many beautiful teenage girls feel the need to be photographing and exhibitioning themselves in their skimpiest underwear, and why I obviously succombed to a similar desire...
I came across it in a dark moment of internet boredom-induced by unemployment and a non-existent social life, not to mention living in the back of beyond-where your brain feels heavy at Googling yet another useless topic-I found myself Googling Grange Hill characters and kids toys of yesteryear, not to mention cures for corns. Browsing FaceParty, I came across the profile of a young lady called Sexeh, known to her parents-in clothed form no doubt-as seventeen year-old Mandie. Mandie could be technically described as an amateur cam whore. She has all the common characteristics, bar an extravagant Amazon wish-list. She's articulate, slightly bookish in appearance, and obviously extremely computer literate. Not to mention obviously extremely curious of the effect her burgeoning sexuality has on men. Headless shots of torsos, breasts, legs and bums grace her many photo pages. Mandie had discovered, in her hours of browsing phot-profile sites, a cheaper and far more popular alternative to the dated, expensive and cliquey FaceParty-Mingleville. So off I went, tempted by Mandie's scores of male fans, worshipping at her pixellated, stilleto-clad feet. Within seconds, I too had my own Mingleville profile, and a community of 5, 000 potential viewers in my grasp.
Blogger it ain't. So fear not, I haven't found a superior sphere in which I can air my views. Nope. I've simply found a garish little spot on the internet for which to indulge my curious, narcissictic side. The photo comment feature had me signed up straight away. What do the web-literate teenagers of Britain think of moi?
With that it was time to take some photos. My first attempt, with the dated old webcam we got as part of our PC package, consisted of demure shots of me clad in jeans and a baggy TopShop hoody, and of my face only. I like to think they were model-esque, arty shots of my facial profile, glancing to the side and anywhere but the camera, lip-gloss pouts and Colgate grins. They were quickly uploaded, pended for approval by the webmasters and were then live on the site. And suddenly my mailbox was the fullest it's ever been bar when I've been on a long holiday. The comments were usual randy teen fare, in typical teen "txt spk"-"U R A BABE :D", "STUNNIN!", "MA JAW DROPZ, GAL U FINE". Messages asked me for everything from MSN names-more about this later-to phone numbers and addresses (seriously, the teens of Britain obviously learned nothing from Sarah-Louise hiding under the bed in the house of a web-paedophile in Corrie. And they can't be watching Tonight With Trevor McDonald either, with it's horror stories of teen girls zipping over the Atlantic to meet obese ex-Marines.). My positive rating, where members can rate you and therefore gain you points to spend online adding features to your profile, soared and I had 1000-plus hits in a couple of hours. It took me a year to achieve that on Blogger.
Mingleville's ability to turn your profile into a ratings hit worthy of the more popular Bloggers lies in it's intrusive tracking software which lists the last few visitors to your page at the bottom of your profile, a full list of online members, and the opportunity to see exactly who visits your site, and who rates you. Your every moved is tracked, and this is particularly highlighted by the feverish ratings and messages left by members whose profiles you stumbled upon for five seconds, because of an interesting name of something. It's on the whole a friendly place, where one never feels lonely. This ranges from the simple friendly comments on your photos or through messages, to the protectiveness and loyalty of Mingleville members when jealous 16 year-olds turn on one anothers bra pics. Your page isn't quite complete with a txt spk "ur pics r fake innit bitch" comment or two. That usually means you're a looker, worthy of the jealousy of people who wouldn't have even bothered spitting on you at school.
So I've become addicted. The first few days of my membership, when messages and comments would appear by the second, I was online for five hour stints, diligently replying to such and positively rating members. I formed friendships with a humourous and camp 16 year-old Dubliner, a male model from Brighton, a sex-obsessed Oxbridge graduate and a teenage Jordan lookalike from Sheffield.
The downsides of Mingleville are both it's potentially personality-altering effects, and the sociological explanation for why so many beautiful teenage girls feel the need to be photographing and exhibitioning themselves in their skimpiest underwear, and why I obviously succombed to a similar desire...
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