Getting denied on MySpace in one easy, blurry step

When it comes to accepting the ubiquitous "add" for Illusion of Joy on MySpace, I'll pretty much allow anyone in. All publicity is good publicity, right?

I do check every single page coming down the pipeline, however, and there are a few things that will get people immediately denied. Pedophiles, hate-mongers and scam-artists are profiles which not only get a denial, but a report to the webmaster as well. If a profile offends my personal standards of good taste (which, granted, takes a lot), then I will deny it.

There are, however, profiles which I've denied because the add request just doesn't feel right. Case in point: someone tried to add me whose icon said "Ron Paul for President in 2008." Not encouraged by the politics espoused by the icon, I still checked out the profile. Upon loading, the web page before me sported a Simpsons background, but the majority of the foreground was - more or less - a shrine to Ron Paul. I scrolled down to find that the "top friends" section was made up of people who had some variation of the phrase, "Ron Paul '08" in their user name. Scrolling further down, every single comment said pretty much the same thing as the user names before.

Somehow I got the feeling that this person wasn't all that interested in my music. So, I clicked "deny" and bid adieu to someone who seemed to be playing a game of "bait the Democrat/Socialist (pick one, based on how far left you think I really am)." Let it be known that I don't deny people based on their (misguided) political affiliations, but this smelled propagandistic.