"MySpace is no longer cool. As a matter of fact, its number of users is now one-half the size of rival Facebook. Is this because MySpace is too black for the rest of America? Teenage Internet users may hold the answer. High-schoolers report their use of the social-networking giants along racial lines—MySpace is seen as “black,” while Facebook is “white.” And even within the networks, black kids befriend other black kids, Latinos mix with Latinos, and the self-segregation often practiced in real life is rampant online. Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, compares this dash from MySpace to Facebook to “white flight” from inner cities."I see it as a reflection of how people use social networking. Friendster was the first big site, but Myspace quickly took it over. When people first started using these sites, they were more anonymous. Myspace was that prefect mixture of fantasy, personalization, music promotion and exhibition. The users became more comfortable with sharing their information and their pictures and the site blew up in size. Celebrities were made. But with all good things, they become too popular for some, abused, manipulated and users probably became frustrated with the amount of spam-type bulletins and cheesy, blinking HTML comments. [Not to mention the feeling of rejection when you only have 50 friends, you have zero imagination and your page looks lame.]
Along comes the design-free, template-driven, music-free, boring "this is really who I am" Facebook, a hybrid of LinkedIn and an online stalker, and boring people now have a way of lazily stalking their boring friends. They no longer have to even call or e-mail, they can just follow their feed. Link your Twitter? Stale. This also caters to the stalking nature of parents who want to monitor everything their kids do. It's the passive-aggressive social media of the spoon-fed and mundane.
I don't see this as a black/white thing, more a boring news feed [Facebook] versus a "pimp my world", over-the-top site filled to the brim with scantily clad women and wannabe DJs/producers/promoters [Myspace]. Oh wait, did I just kill my point? Viva myspace!
Bonus: Myspace is offering free email now. "Yourscreenname"@myspace.com
h/t Andrew Sullivan.
Source: The Root
2 comments:
MySpace is trashy and always has been. When I first joined MySpace I innocently left my profile open so anyone could see my page and message me. Everyday for the week that it remained this way I would receive 20 messages and friend requests from random guys using MySpace as a hook-up search site. Personally, I always found it to be loud and messy. I don't need to hear someone's favorite someone's song blasting out of my computer speaker when I look at their profile page. I am speaking as someone who joins social networking sites for social networking. Maybe Myspace is for musicians and pedophiles and it is not for people like me. I don't want to decorate my page, i just want to write on it. I don't want to see other people's html creations. I just want to see where they are going to school, where they are working, who they are dating, and what their kids look like. Call it stalking or social networking, whichever you prefer.
I would hesitate to use the phrase "white flight" to describe the mass abandonment of Myspace. What should we call Myspace's domination of friendster and hi-five? Manifest Destiny? Those people who are still using Myspace, no matter what color they are, are using facebook and twitter as well because those sites can provide the social element necessary to have social networking. I went on my myspace for the first time in a long time the other day and I found that it is been abandoned by my "friends" as well except for random twitter updates that are unconsciously pushed to myspace. Lame. This is not a social issue it is a business issue. Facebook and twitter are better products than myspace.
On another note, I wanted to make a comment about how high school students referred to Myspace as black and facebook as white. I worked at a high school in Harlem from the last two years with a predominately latino and black population (I believe there was one white student, her name was Nancy). The school was full of students with sidekicks who interacted with their peers online as much as possible. For example, they would use proxies and computer tricks to get on myspace at school, because it was blocked. Over those two years I saw random student chatter transform "myspace comments" and "his/her's myspace pictures" to so someone's facebook profile or someone's status on facebook. After facebook opened itself up to the world without a .edu email address it seems as though that world has accepted its simple effectiveness. Even toward the end of last year students started talking about twitter quite frequently as well. Although those students maintained their myspace pages, it was no longer the talk of the town. It was outdated and boring.
Myspace started among bands and djs and facebook started among college students. It takes a long time for the stigma that comes with those communities to fade away. One thing is clear though, facebook and twitter are simultaneously gaining members and attention while myspace is not. Most people join these sites to stay in touch with friends and connect with people in their communities. I think the general population is more interested in staying informed (also known as stalking) than "pimping" their pages.
Fight on Facebook!
Oh and we can thank Myspace for the fame of Tila Tequila. Enough said.
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