I have a slight problem: the Facebook Political Compass application. Everyone seems to have it, but it really doesn't tell me anything about anyone. I can't think of a single person who is strictly liberal or conservative. Most people are a mix of ideas constantly in conflict and getting jumbled together in some abstract thought process. The compass application, however, just averages the answers and gives a nice, simple readout. This can't be right.

Take me, for example: I'm apparently halfway between liberal and moderate. Seems reasonable enough, until you actually find out what my beliefs are. I support higher taxes supporting larger government with a focus on education and social services. Pretty liberal enough, but it’s only one facet of my political ideologies. The liberal appellation stops making sense when you take into account I support enforced military service for all residents as form of civic duty I consider a fundamental base of a democratic society.

Furthermore, I believe personal responsibility supersedes the moral responsibility of government. This would involve legalization and lesser restrictions for a lot of substances and a complete revision of civil law (think lawsuits). I still can't figure out how this makes me slightly liberal. I think this makes me odd, a score that apparently cannot be represented on my compass, so why bother with it?

This is the crux of the problem. We all want to be identifiable. Facebook works off the idea you can be accurately identified through an almost negligible amount of personal information. We become two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, readily digestible by anyone interested enough to look us up. Instead of making the application more complex to define us, we become defined by its limitations. We become simpler. You can see this in the festering boil of racial bigotry and general incompetence MTV likes to call "The Real World."

Every single character on this god-forsaken show represents an American stereotype. There's the naive but vaguely sweet Southern ditz. There's the vocally charged African-American who believes MTV will be his or her personal political platform. There's the flamboyantly gay man, followed up with an angry lesbian. Lastly, the rest of the crew is filled with sincerely messed up individuals who enjoy drinking a bit too much and have no concept of personal property.

Over the past decade and a half the show has been on air, each of these "roles" has become increasingly pronounced. As a TV show, it's completely mindless but harmless I suppose, but as a representation of American youth it's just frightening. It starts when people compare their friends, acquaintances and enemies with characters from the show and these people slowly embody their doppelgangers. I'm sure MTV is thrilled emotionally complex people have managed somehow to relate to the thinly veiled stereotypes, but as a person you should find this horrifying. We've managed to debase ourselves into characters that couldn't exist in reality (which is why I am curious about the term "reality TV").

Let's face it: People are complicated. We don't always understand each other, which is just fine. There's no reason to limit a person to his or her surface characteristics. People are people; people on MTV aren't.