Editor's Voice: Reviving MySpace
Warren Haas, Opinions Editor
Long before the incorrigible Mark Zuckerberg (or Zuckers, as I like to call him) created everyone’s favourite website Facebook, MySpace was all the rage. Well, at least for my wicked cool friends and me it was. It was the site focused on in all the news stories about developing trends in social networking, and the best bet for catching internet pedophile predators. MySpace didn’t do much to protect your privacy, and everyone was cool with that, all you had to do was sign up and there was an understood bond between users. You might be out and overhear someone talking about their top eight, and you’d silently nod in solidarity.
When Facebook started, most MySpace users didn’t really take it seriously. We’d note how you couldn’t listen to absolutely any band’s music (regardless of talent) or we’d complain about the inability to effectively stalk people you weren’t ‘friends’ with. And while anyone can now join Zuckers’s website, it remains very difficult to follow the activities of the attractive girl in your poli-sci lecture on Tuesdays at 2:30 (I love you Cassandra) unless she grants your friend request. And apparently if you “poke” her on Facebook six times a day, that’s not very likely.
Yet Facebook has won everyone over. It has been responsible for the deletion of many MySpace accounts, less frequents reports of pedophiles posing as ‘sk8er bois,’ and waves of people over forty learning how to all of their relatives as a friend.
I’ve never been able to figure out why people love Facebook. Oh, I use it, but I much prefer Myspace, my original vehicle for looking at Cassandra’s . . . anyone’s personal photos and online conversations. Some people say Facebook has a better design, to which I say, who cares? If anything, MySpace’s inferior design makes it cooler than Facebook. Kind of a ‘fuck you’ to the nerds of the world, or something.
MySpace was a hipster sensation when it first came out, while Facebook was never really considered cool. It has been monopolized primarily by the ‘brah’ and ‘bro’ boozing douche bag crew with their polo shirts and popped collars. This is not to say cool people don’t have Facebook (I’ve got it, obvs), but rather that we have been forced to sign up for it in order to keep in touch with those of our friends who remain unenlightened about the excitement of seeing what new problem Tom has solved with the MySpace design.
Although MySpace still has the advantage of promoting any band, eventually that dastardly Zuckerberg will find a way to compete. That’s why I’m imploring all of you to come over to MySpace. Forget Facebook. So what if people can’t ‘tag’ you in photos, people you care about should know what you look like and not have to read your name to know you are in a photo. You’re better off having an ironic profile song playing on default when people come to your MySpace page. As for MySpace’s so-called ‘confusing’ design, it just deters your parents, step brothers-in-law, and third cousins twice-removed from joining.
More than anything, I’m tired of not being able to see if people I’m just getting to know have attractive friends. E-stalking is pretty integral to any social networking site. If you’re not violating someone’s privacy while you’re on the internet, you’re really not accomplishing anything. If you want to peer in on my life, you’re not going to find the details on Facebook, just on MySpace where absolutely anyone (Cassandra my MySpace page is www.myspace.com/warcat) can see them.