When Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, professed vampire and practicing Satanist, announced he was running for Minnesota governor on a platform of religious freedom for all and lingering impalement for terrorists, just about the only aspect of the campaign you could call mainstream was that the candidate had a MySpace account. With 47.3 million members and a growth rate of 5 million more per month, the number one social network service (having decisively vanquished the early front-runner Friendster) is fast becoming an obligatory whistle-stop for pop-icon aspirants eager for MySpace's prime demo: 14- to 34-year-olds. Recording artists especially—from comeback kings and queens like Neil Diamond and Madonna to fast-aging fresh meat like Hilary Duff—come to this fountain of youth in search of word-of-mouth cred, hiring flacks or fans to manage their tens of thousands of instantly acquired "friendships" and to cultivate the illusion that they even... More >>>