Most of the internet-connected population under the age of 40 or so has a MySpace page.

On MySpace, people post bulletins, which are pretty much like mass forwarded emails to people on their friends list.

Some are fun little &uot;about me&uot; surveys, others pass on important information about topics they’re interested in, still more contain cute jokes and amusing anecdotes.

Then you have those of a less intelligent origin who repost what can best be termed as complete and utter drivel, to put it politely.

People repost stupid superstitious bulletins that say things like &uot;since you opened this if you don’t repost within the next 500 seconds, you’ll have bad luck in love for the next 7 years&uot;.

Seriously, are they that insecure about their lot in life that they feel compelled to follow the instructions, &uot;just in case?&uot;

Bloody Mary isn’t going to pop out of a mirror if you don’t repost something.

Pigs aren’t going to fly, the fate of dogs in China does not rest on your shoulders, and a little magical elf isn’t going to come sit on your doorstep catering to your every whim just because you repost a bulletin.

When adults repost superstitious things, to me it is reminiscent of the days when children avoided cracks on the sidewalk for fear of breaking their mother’s backs.

Come on, you’re grown, people, not 12 years old anymore.

I’ve seen dozens of bulletins regarding a kid down in Florida who has cancer (or a child in Alaska who fell down an oil well) and the Make a Wish Foundation has supposedly agreed to donate a dime for every time the bulletin is reposted.

Don’t these people realize there is no way of tracking the bulletins?

All these things were started by someone just to see who’s idiotic enough to fall for the joke, yet they get passed on and on and people really believe it.

Newsflash – there is NO SUCH THING as a MySpace tracker.

If you’re that concerned about who’s looking at your page, delete all your friends and make it private.

Also, Tom is not going to delete your page if you don’t repost a bulletin saying &uot;repost or you’ll get deleted.&uot;

You’re not going to receive a check from Microsoft for every person you forward an email to. It’s impossible to track email on a scale that large.

Even if it was, do you really think Bill Gates is THAT generous?

Maybe I’m asking for too much; I just want people to wake up and realize they’re expending energy on something completely useless.

The ironic thing is, though, that most people who’ve read this already know not to do these things, so in essence I’m preaching to the choir.

But, hey, we can still have a laugh at the people who do, right?

Oh, by the way, if you don’t cut this page out of the newspaper, scan it into your computer and send it to as many people as you know within the next 756 seconds, you’re going to die of acute liver failure within the next 34 days.