The recent redux of the website Myspace raises the question: Whose space is it, anyway?
Like most of the population, I almost forgot about Myspace, or as it goes by these days My ______. The former titan of social media only entered my consciousness because I was doing research on a local artist who miraculously still had a page.
Curious, I went to the homepage, and realized the space these days is a landfill of failed attempts to revitalize the social media relic.
Ads for Megan Fox in lingerie, a Chinese elephant man and features on Natalie Portman’s laugh littered the page. There were claims to top bands with Rise Against as the top rock band, or the top single was from Ke-dollar sign-ha. Guns ‘N’ Roses was another popular band, non-ironically from what I can tell. Yet another was a contest for a barbecue grill (really). A little more probing revealed even greater depths of trashiness.
I logged into my profile, after struggling to remember the damn password for a good 15 minutes, and was greeted by an improved newsfeed. The top of the list? An article all about Oprah Winfrey and farther down one all about Taylor Lautner.
Granted, Myspace users, or losers as they call themselves these days, can customize their feed to focus on whichever celebrity or band they would like, and I suppose the most popular celebrities automatically fill the feed with no input. However, this system sucks.
The suckitude of Myspace might be attributed to its redesign last June. Or it could be because the company just laid off 47 percent of the workforce. Or it could because no one on the planet uses Myspace anymore.
Pardon, that’s not quite true.
Last year, according to comsCore Inc., Myspace reported about 55 million users, a 9 million decrease from the previous year. Whether that takes into account dead profiles, and ones that are still around but no longer used like mine, is questionable.
I do know when I logged in, my friend count was 23, down about 50 since the last time I checked. I also know when I checked the statuses from my friends, about 20 percent said they had left Myspace for Facebook, and the rest were from about two years ago.
Out of all of them, one or two were updates (by which I mean only a month or two old).
Out of curiosity, I then checked to see if Myspace had a Facebook. It did, and it has about 437,562 fans. However, most of the comments on the wall are all about how much the new Myspace sucks.
This outrage over the redesign is by no means isolated. A group in England has even gone so far as to try to create a group to buy Myspace from its owner, News Corp Digital Media. The group collected about £13915 thus far ($22,183 in real money).
Obviously, the group has a long way to go, but its effort is a poignant statement about the fallen nature of the site: Some people still care.
I did more searching after figuring this out. Myspace is still a hot spot for fledgling bands just getting their music out there, and I suppose some people still use it for social networking, though I don’t really know anyone who does.
By and large, though, it’s become just another place to track bands and celebrities, services already offered on every corner of the Internet. The website seems to be adopting the idea that original content isn’t necessary so long as it has the name “Myspace†to go along with it.
Some popular comments from the site BuyMyspace.org include, “We are asking people to not accept that they cannot control what they use online, return to MySpace, but on your terms, ‘OurSpace’ ‘YourSpace,’ your rules.†Basically, they want complete control over their profile, a service already offered by Facebook.
Don’t get me wrong.
I have fond memories of using the site back in high school. It was a good introduction to the Internet world, but then I remembered the shitty parts of Myspace. Flash animations on every page, and even worse friend rankings that could devalue a person’s self-worth with a simple rearrangement.
There’s a reason Myspace went the way of the dinosaurs, though the ancient reptiles lasted longer. And while I don’t know the exact reason why it failed, besides Facebook kicking its ass, I do know more semi-nude pictures of Katy Perry or the Kardashian sisters is probably not going to save it.
Put in some semi-nude pictures of Penelope Cruz, and we’ll talk.
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