Social Networking I Have Known: Myspace

Part One of an Irregular Series

Tom's still on Myspace. He says hi.

Myspace was my first foray into the world of social networking. And what a foray it was, eventually leading me to LOVE and ROMANCE! The memories! Despite the bad graphics and sifty sex predators, I would never change those Myspace days. It was through Myspace that I rediscovered myself post-Andy-break up. So much music to be found and loudly and obnoxiously blare at people! So many lurid colours and flashy sparkly gifs! I think building myself a social presence online helped give me the enthusiasm to maintain my social presence in real life (as oppose to hiding in bed for weeks at time).

However, all good things must come to an end, including this wonderful (‽) episode in human communication. Myspace has run its course. But why?* I'm guessing that the kind of limitations I found in the medium were the same limitiations found by others: it was far too similar to what I used my blog for at the time, it wasn't easily customisable, it was too easy for creepy people to find and follow you, and actually quite hard to get good information out of the format. And lets face it, Facebook ran Myspace into the ground. The best thing that can be said for Myspace these days is that it offers a pretty good cheap format for low budget bands to get their music out and publicise tour dates and album releases. The changes that were designed to make Myspace more relevant in a post-Facebook-world made the format even more unwieldy, and every time I checked into my account I just found myself inundated with crappy updates.

All in all, I think that the best thing that can be said for Myspace is that it gave people who weren't prepared to invest in blogging time an opportunity to create and maintain an online presence. I grew out of it pretty quickly, as did most people I think. In the meantime though, I had a lot of fun getting my flatmate to make me tea through Myspace wall posts.

Were you/are you on Myspace? How do you feel about it? Spill, y'all.



Note: During the process of researching this I discovered that I'm still on Myspace - I tried to quit it but apparently it's like, really hard to leave. Also, I found all the little love notes between Shannon and I. Oh, young romantic times!

* not intended to be a authoritative view on the demise of Myspace.