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A cash-strapped Tom Anderson, president of social-networking website MySpace, attempted to hit up his 227,259,523 MySpace friends for some money yesterday in order to buy a burrito, a large Sprite, and a bag of Fritos at a local 7-Eleven.

“Dudes, I’ll totally pay you back next week,” Anderson wrote on his blog.

It’s not the first time the Santa Monica resident has leaned on his nearly quarter-of-a-billion MySpace friends for money, and some say they’re getting tired of it.

“The first couple times, sure, I spotted him a couple bucks,” says friend Pamela Worsey of Lancaster, Penn. “Tom really helped me out when I was new to MySpace and didn’t have many friends. So when he first asked for two dollars last summer to get a king-sized Mars bar, I was only too happy to give it to him. But I’ve borrowed him $6 in all in the time I’ve known him, and the mooch has yet to repay me. Some friend he turned out to be.”

Like Worsey, New York resident Alfonzo Juarez hasn’t seen a red cent out of Tom in the six weeks they’ve known each other.

“I bummed him $4 in February, because he said he forgot to get his chica some Valentine’s flowers,” Juarez said. “Since I only joined his lousy site to meet babes in the first place, I figured I’d help a brother out. Then I realized, if even half his friends gave him $4 like me, that’s $452 million! For fucking petunias! Ain’t that a bitch?”

Anderson co-founded MySpace in 2003, and is the default friend all new users acquire when they join the site.

“He’s the face of MySpace, really,” Worsey said. “And he’s had that same picture forever: him in a ratty white T-shirt, dopey grin, in front of what looks like an algebraic equation on a dry-erase board. He’s basically that one nerdy friend everybody has who’s always forgetting his Batman wallet in his other pair of nerd-pants.”

When asked why he was constantly in need of a loan, especially in light of the $770 million buyout of MySpace by News Corp. in 2005, Anderson pleads for understanding.

“Dude, this whole social-networking thing has been a real cash-suck,” Anderson said, leaning over his work computer. “You think it’s easy having 227 million friends? Try buying 227 million birthday presents a year! It drains the assets, lemme tell you.”

As we’re talking, Anderson receives another 195 new friend requests.

“Shit,” Anderson sighs. “That’s 195 more Webkinz I have to run out and buy. Dude, can I borrow, like, $5 for cab fare?”

Categories: News, Technology
Tags: money, myspace, social networking