A Throwback to Myspace | The Odyssey Online
Start writing a post
Student Life

A Throwback to Myspace

114
A Throwback to Myspace
undergrad.osu.edu

Have you ever wished there was a way to relive your entire middle school career? Have you ever wished you could relive it on the internet? The answer to both of these questions is probably no, which is why you probably haven't logged onto your Myspace profile recently. These days we keep up with our Facebooks, Twitters, Instagrams and Pinterests, but the days of profile songs and comment boxes will always have a special place in our hearts. Admit it, taking the surveys you found posted in your Bulletin Board was a pretty serious hobby in seventh grade. Myspace profiles were like strange, awkward scrapbooks that permanently preserved our former selves on the internet forever. Yay?

Nothing on your Myspace profile said as much about you as your choice in profile song. Song choice was always carefully calculated, and if someone had the nerve to steal your song you had every right to start an internet war. Eventually we all got clever enough — or obsessive enough — to find the HTML code that would hide our music player so that no one who visited your Myspace page could find the name of your song, or stop it from playing. They were forced to appreciate your music, which was always very important because, after all, you spent a solid three hours searching for the perfect song to capture the overall mood of your profile page. If you were particularly expressive with your Myspace, you changed your profile song almost daily so it corresponded with the many moods of your middle school self.

Along with adding HTML code to our music players, I think we can all agree that there was a point in time when we actually became dedicated to learning and understanding how HTML codes worked. Entire nights in 2007 were spent editing our layouts, adjusting our picture scroll boxes and adding photos from our Photobuckets, and of course making a meticulously detailed list of all your best friends and inside jokes in your heroes section (in custom fonts of course, because everything looks great in Comic Sans). Once your profile page looked perfect, you had to post the mandatory “Updated profile page" bulletin inviting everyone to visit your profile and leave a comment in your comment box telling you how much they love your totally cute new layout. And any time you changed your default picture there was the obligatory “New default pic! Pc4pc" bulletin.

The most prominent (and in hindsight probably the strangest) aspect of Myspace was having a “Top Friends." Top Friends was essentially the “subtweet" of our early social networking career, meaning it let us passive-aggressively tell the entire internet community who we were unhappy with every day. In retrospect, this whole concept just seems pretty outrageous. In what world did it seem acceptable to allow teens and pre-teens to publicly rank their friends on the internet? Who let Tom get away with that one? That's a cyberbullying lawsuit waiting to happen. Regardless, there were very few tactics of middle school social warfare that were as serious as moving your former friends down on your Top Friends list.

These days, if we tried to visit our old Myspace site, most of us wouldn't even recognize it (believe me, I've tried). As the internet evolved and our social network interests moved on to bigger and better things, Myspace has become the desolate home of aspiring musician profiles and those individuals still technologically stuck in 2005. But our generation can remember Myspace in its prime. It provided our preteen selves with everything we needed. Why use Facebook? That was for adults. You can't even use a custom layout, so what's the point? Forget Mark Zuckerberg, we idolized Tom as the true social network genius of the early 2000s.

Do you think we could add him on Facebook now?

Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
Student Life

The 14 Stages Of The Last Week Of Class

You need sleep, but also have 13 things due in the span of 4 days.

207
black marker on notebook

December... it's full of finals, due dates, Mariah Carey, and the holidays. It's the worst time of the year, but the best because after finals, you get to not think about classes for a month and catch up on all the sleep you lost throughout the semester. But what's worse than finals week is the last week of classes, when all the due dates you've put off can no longer be put off anymore.

Keep Reading...Show less
Student Life

28 Daily Thoughts of College Students

"I want to thank Google, Wikipedia, and whoever else invented copy and paste. Thank you."

767
group of people sitting on bench near trees duting daytime

I know every college student has daily thoughts throughout their day. Whether you're walking on campus or attending class, we always have thoughts running a mile a minute through our heads. We may be wondering why we even showed up to class because we'd rather be sleeping, or when the professor announces that we have a test and you have an immediate panic attack.

Keep Reading...Show less
Lifestyle

The Great Christmas Movie Debate

"A Christmas Story" is the star on top of the tree.

2076
The Great Christmas Movie Debate
Mental Floss

One staple of the Christmas season is sitting around the television watching a Christmas movie with family and friends. But of the seemingly hundreds of movies, which one is the star on the tree? Some share stories of Santa to children ("Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"), others want to spread the Christmas joy to adults ("It's a Wonderful Life"), and a select few are made to get laughs ("Elf"). All good movies, but merely ornaments on the Christmas tree of the best movies. What tops the tree is a movie that bridges the gap between these three movies, and makes it a great watch for anyone who chooses to watch it. Enter the timeless Christmas classic, "A Christmas Story." Created in 1983, this movie holds the tradition of capturing both young and old eyes for 24 straight hours on its Christmas Day marathon. It gets the most coverage out of all holiday movies, but the sheer amount of times it's on television does not make it the greatest. Why is it,
then? A Christmas Story does not try to tell the tale of a Christmas miracle or use Christmas magic to move the story. What it does do though is tell the real story of Christmas. It is relatable and brings out the unmatched excitement of children on Christmas in everyone who watches. Every one becomes a child again when they watch "A Christmas Story."

Keep Reading...Show less
student thinking about finals in library
StableDiffusion

As this semester wraps up, students can’t help but be stressed about finals. After all, our GPAs depends on these grades! What student isn’t worrying about their finals right now? It’s “goodbye social life, hello library” time from now until the end of finals week.

1. Finals are weeks away, I’m sure I’ll be ready for them when they come.

Keep Reading...Show less
Christmas tree
Librarian Lavender

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas is one of my personal favorite holidays because of the Christmas traditions my family upholds generation after generation. After talking to a few of my friends at college, I realized that a lot of them don't really have "Christmas traditions" in their family, and I want to help change that. Here's a list of Christmas traditions that my family does, and anyone can incorporate into their family as well!

Keep Reading...Show less

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments