In my Foundations of New Media class, we have started to explore some of the smaller new media players. In the book I have been reading, Paul Levinson's New New Media, these smaller new media players are referred to as the small potatoes. This group is comprised of New Medias that somewhat fell off the map and new medias that never quite made it on the map.
    The most prominent of these small potatoes is MySpace, which at one time wasn't such a small potato. According to Levinson's book, MySpace had over 300 million user profiles during its prime. That is certainly a lot of people doing their MySpace thing, but I was not one of them. I was either too cool for MySpace or MySpace was to cool for me.
    I may not have gotten into MySpace like 300 million other people did, but I cannot deny the effect it had on new media today. MySpace was the place that made having online friends popular. It is also one of the earliest examples of a new media offering blogging, photos, videos, music, and IMing all in one place. MySpace was pretty much the forerunner to Facebook and for the most part most new media today.
   
   

            Every Tuesday night Johnny attended the Happy Faces Support Group in the basement of his local Lutheran Church. He had been coming to these meeting regularly for about a year. Tonight was the first night Johnny was to lead the group discussion and he was feeling nervous.
            It was about 8pm and time for the meeting to start. Everyone took their seats and waited for Johnny. Standing behind a podium at the front of the room he greeted the group members.
            “How is everyone doing tonight?” he asked. “For those who have never been to a meeting before, my name is Johnny McLeady. Thanks to this support group, I recently overcame my addiction to cigarettes. Now every time I get the urge to smoke, I simply eat a handful of sunflower seeds instead.”
              Looking around Johnny could see two new faces in the crowd. They were both women and appeared to be vastly different from each other.
              Johnny continued on his little spiel, “I believe we have a few new members joining us tonight. If they would come up front and introduce themselves, I think we would all like to hear their stories.”
              At first the women appeared hesitant, but with encouragement from other group members the two headed up to the front of the group.
              The first woman introduced herself. “Hello, my name is Carla Sands and I am a former tattoo and piercing artist. I came here tonight because I have a hard time accepting the fact that I am beautiful.”
              After Carla’s introduction, the second woman stepped up to the podium. “Hello, my name is Linda Magnus and I have a problem with tobacco and cigarettes. I need people I can look to for support. This is something I cannot do on my own.”
              The other group members clapped and shouted out encouragements to the two women as they returned to their seats. The meeting continued to progress as usual until it was time for the small group therapy sessions.
             “Why don’t you two both join me for group therapy?” Johnny said to the two women as he approached them from his position at the podium.
             “I was nervous no one would ask me to join them.” Carla said with a look of relief on her face.
             “I was worried about the same thing.” Linda said with the same look of relief on her face. 
             Johnny though that there was something strange about the two women, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. They looked and acted completely different from each other, but from the way they interacted it almost seemed like they had already known each other.
             “Tell me a little about yourselves.” Johnny said. “I want to hear your stories.”
             Linda was the first to start talking. “This is hard for me to say. You seem like such a nice guy. The fact is we are criminals and we have been on the run for the last three months.”
             Johnny didn’t know if he should laugh or be concerned. He never expected to hear that these women were criminals and on the run.
            “I know this must be shocking for you.” Carla said with a grin. “At least the other people we have done this too were shocked.”
            The two women proceeded to produce small handguns from inside their purses. It was about to become the worst night of Johnny’s life.   The duo stood up and started shouting.
           “We aren’t playing around.” Linda said. “Do what we say and nobody gets hurt.”
           “We need everyone to get on the ground and hand over their wallets and purses.” Carla said.  
            Johnny’s life was flashing before his eyes and all of a sudden he wanted a cigarette again for the first time in almost a year. He took out his wallet and laid it on the ground in front of him.
            “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
            “Because we can and support groups like this are easy money.” Carla answered. “No one ever expects a robbery to happen at one of these things its perfect.”
            The two women worked quickly and collected all the money. Once everyone’s wallets and purses were empty the duo took off into the night.
            After that night, Johnny never went to another support group meeting. He started smoking cigarettes again and relapsed into his old ways. Johnny learned something that night. All it takes is one unexpected event to set you back to square one.