Myspace was undoubtedly the king of social media during the mid to late 2000s, and for good reason! Even though Facebook has obviously taken the reigns, Myspace had a one-up on Facebook and other social media platforms in so many different ways. Myspace was truly the voice of an entire generation and helped shape a lot of what we see in our generation today. These are 11 reasons why Myspace was, and in my opinion, is still, the king of social media.
1. It was the perfect platform to showcase new bands and local acts.
The rise of the emo, screamo, metalcore and all the other “cores” during the early to mid-2000s directly coincided with the advent of Myspace. Tons of bands were not just discovered with Myspace, but Myspace allowed for the development of a thriving local music scene in virtually every part of the world. Bands did not just have the opportunity to share their music, but they had the opportunity promote their local shows and get a huge following almost every single weekend.
2. Getting a “pic comment” was the ego booster of a lifetime.
If I see a new notification on Facebook about someone commenting on a picture of mine, it doesn’t really feel like all that big of a deal. Pic comments and messages on Facebook just feel like any other notification. But the feeling you would get during the Myspace heyday when you would log in and see a bolded notification “NEW PICTURE COMMENT” was like opening up Christmas gifts under the tree! Some say it may have developed the self-centered and vain culture that we have today, but boy oh boy I felt like Channing Tatum when I would read some comment from someone in North Dakota who thought I was “hot” or “cute.”
Pc4Pc, am I right?
3. You could design the layout of your profile page anyway that you wanted.
One of my biggest complaints with Facebook is the uniformity of everyone’s page. Other than the individual person, every single profile looks THE EXACT SAME; it’s like the suburb of social media. Every single profile looks the exact same and there is no creativity or variance.
The Myspace profile, on the other hand, was just an open palette of creativity. You could design your own layouts and designs. You could add your favorite song or songs. You could add any other graphics that you thought would spice up your profile. You could talk in depth about your favorite music, tv shows, movies, whatever! Other than where you went to school, where you work, and if you’re married or not... Facebook just like their profiles, makes you just any other person.
4. It was socially acceptable to add people from all over the world.
If you were unable to make new friends in person for whatever reason, that’s fine too! Unlike Facebook when it requires you to explain where you “know this person”, Myspace would allow you and encourage you to add anybody from anywhere in the entire world!
Yes, I still had my local friends that I would hang out with and do things with, but it was refreshing to know that I could talk to someone from somewhere else and develop just as strong of a relationship or friendship with them and I could virtually be any “Matt” that I wanted to be! Don’t get me started on the several online relationships our generation had during that time!
5. You learned relationship skills when most of your arguments were started over the placement of people on your Top 8.
Never has the importance of certain friends been more solidified and quantified than with the shallow-esque “Top 8” feature. Kids these days will never know the struggle of not just picking who virtually are your favorite eight people in your life, but also in what order you would rank them They'll never know what it's like to explain to your girlfriend or boyfriend why your “number one spot” is dedicated to your best friend who you were playing in diapers with, or vice versa with your best friend who is just one spot below your “flavor of the week” significant other. Point being, we learned how to balance relationships.
6. Your “Rep” was determined by how many friends you had on Myspace.
Maybe we didn’t all aspire to be “Myspace Famous Royalty” like all the little “scene queens and kings” with 675,000 friends. But I think we all aspired to not be that loser with only 42 people on his friends list. Myspace allowed us to become superficial about our value as determined by how many people “liked" us. Remember the “whore trains” that were saturated on Myspace, which basically promised to bring you at least 50 or 100 more friends? More friends meant more picture comments, and really isn’t self-glorification the most important thing in life anyway? You didn't have to be Matthew Charles on Myspace. You could be "Matthew Massacre" or any other "Myspace Name" you wanted to be!
7. You could add music or even an entire playlist onto your profile.
Did I mention music? MYSPACE WAS THE MUSIC SCENE. When someone comes onto your profile to decide if they want to add you or not, what better way to give them a glimpse into your teen angst than the new Hawthorne Heights or From First To Last song echoing through their computer speakers? There's nothing like millions of kids from everywhere in the entire world singing, “I can’t make it on my own, cause my heart is in Ohio.”
But as I said before, Myspace was about creativity, so if one song couldn’t completely sum you up, great! Just add a plethora of songs to a playlist on your profile so everyone could appreciate your multi-faceted self.
8. It was our first real interaction with Internet celebs like Jeffree Star, Tila Tequila, Chris Crocker, Kiki Kannibal, etc.
The new phenomenon of “internet celebrity” really hit its stride during the Myspace age because it was really the first real platform where someone could virtually become famous without actually having to do anything truly remarkable or talented. I’m not saying by any means that these “Myspace/Internet Celebrities” weren’t talented, because they were. They were talented about knowing how to market themselves as a person, but really, can anybody say that Jeffree Star or Tila Tequila had any real God-given talent? I don’t think so. Myspace opened up the idea that anybody and everybody could be a model, a photographer, a musician or just famous in general.
9. It was one of the first mainstream platforms of giving a voice to an entire generation through blogging.
Don’t jump all over me for this one. I know there were many platforms before Myspace that allowed its members to blog, but Myspace was the first real mainstream platform to do so, and you didn’t need to have any special skill or talent other than to join Myspace. Before Myspace, many people had no idea how to get their voice “out there” to the community. But the blogging feature on Myspace gave an entire generation a voice about whatever topic or issue they felt was more important, or at least most important at that specific time. I would probably cringe if I read some of my old blogs on Myspace now, but at the time, 14-year-old Matt thought “labeling” and being referred to as a “poser” was the single biggest travesty in the western world; so why wouldn’t I blog about it in order to prove my authenticity
10. It was the first platform where many teenagers learned how to write HTML.
Myspace was the first platform where I learned how to write HTML and develop a very basic sense of how to design a webpage. Whether it was “bolding text," skipping lines, centering images or changing the color of text, I could utilize the crap out of all the features on that one profile page. Ironically enough, even in my daily life now, I am still utilizing those HTML skills I learned on Myspace.
11. Fewer grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and older family members stalked your page.
This might be quite possibly the greatest thing about Myspace, in the sense of not needing to filter any portion of your online persona from your parents, grandparents and extended family. You could delve into an online persona. Since social networking was relatively new, Myspace really hadn’t reached the bounds of the older generation. I don’t know how many arguments I had with my mom during that time about the amount of time I spent online and how I “needed to get REAL friends.” I can’t blame my mom for that though, because it was basically a completely new concept to her. Point being though, we could still maintain our “cool” status online without the annoying “I love you and can’t wait to see you on Sunday at grandma's” public comments on your profile.
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So, as future generations examine our culture with a fine-tooth comb, the superficial complex of social media can all be attributed to one young dark-haired man named Tom, smiling at the camera with a creepy look on his face. Myspace was not the first social media platform, but it was the first that actually mattered. With all the hoopla surrounding Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg right now with privacy laws, is this Tom's last-ditch effort at karma?
