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MySpace: A culture

I wanted to get some opinions on the MySpace phenomenon that has engulfed North America, and, to a lesser extent, UK/Australia. I know that many people, from teens to young adults, use it to communicate or flirt or just kill time, but there's some kind of a deeper social dynamic that seems to underlie this.

From what I've seen, MySpace and similar sites are mostly about immature people with junior-high antics. Who is the typical MySpace user, and what is his/her personality?

Is it someone who is so popular and has so many friends that the only way to keep in touch with them all is via the web? Is it someone who doesn't have any interesting hobbies or pursuits, and therefore takes part in this due to boredom? Are you personally disgusted by how fake and cliquey this social fabric is?

I haven't had a myspace account since 2004.

It PiSsEs Me OfF tHaT pEoPlE tYpE lIkE tHiS!

But the question is, why did you create the account in the first place? Did you have a lot of friends who you hoped would read your blog and leave comments? If this was a fashionable trend, why was it fashionable? What was the goal of your joining MySpace.

quote:

Originally posted by HardTranceProd But the question is, why did you create the account in the first place? Did you have a lot of friends who you hoped would read your blog and leave comments? If this was a fashionable trend, why was it fashionable? What was the goal of your joining MySpace.

I made an account to keep track of friends. I did write blogs that were big hits in my school at the time. I think the cool thing about it was that the blogs were really smart, and dealt with issues in our school, as well as current events. I really got people involved in some great discussions the next day in school, including some teachers (Which was kind of creepy).

But then, our school made it's own myspace group, and people would create really stupid threads about beating people up, and the fights would get dragged on the next day at school.

That's when I left, actually.

I created my account cause of TA. Most of my friends on there are TA's.

i just find it amazing that so many individuals think the world gives a fuck about them.

Its the Geocities and Angelfire of the 90's come back too haunt us in the 00's.
Just with more bandwidth intensive, AV footage and noise, horrid flashing gif's and colour schemes from the taste deprived. Add too that, its just full of sad, boring people I'd rather not know and to be honest, I really dont care about.
Not too say, I'm probably quite boring and uninteresting too but I'm not exactly wanting too announce that fact too the whole wide world.

It'd be funny except looking at 95% of those myspace pages makes me feel like I've been stabbed in the eye.

quote:

Originally posted by Lilith Add too that, its just full of sad, boring people I'd rather not know and to be honest, I really dont care about. Not too say, I'm probably quite boring and uninteresting too but I'm not exactly wanting too announce that fact too the whole wide world.

Okay, I'd like to stick with this quote because this is exactly the kind of social insight that I wanted to discuss.

My point is, the people represented on MySpace are "the majority culture". Boring and uninteresting they may be, but they are the ones who are popular in school, have large networks of friends, follow the normal course of relationships and dating, etc.

Yet, looking at their pics, I am frightened by how bland and sheltered their lifestyle is. They appear to have few interests or hobbies; they do not welcome those outside their circle. So: what does this say about the majority culture? Is it phony? Is it all a pretense?

Personally, I have zero interest in getting a myspace account.

If I want to meet people, I will meet them in various social settings. Sometimes these meetings happen due to first "meeting" them on a messageboard or whatever, but to me, I haven't actually met them until I've talked with them in person.

If contact/communication etc. moves onto something more conversational like MSN, that's great. If it doesn't, that's fine too.

I'm currently on 6 messageboards (3 music/clubbing and 3 car/racing...3 of which are international) and that's more than enough as far as I'm willing to put any kind of effort into checking regularly. If people want to get in touch via personal message, it's there for them.

If I meet people in any situation, I have no problems sharing my msn or email info if I get a decent feeling from them.

All of this can be achieved without dealing with the maintenance/upkeep/hassle/spam/marketing that seems to be myspace. I have nothing against people who use it for social networking/personal promotion. It's a useful tool with a huge potential audience. But, I think that this is also redundant given that most people I know are also socailly networked through various messageboards and personal websites/blogs.

myspace is the new ipod. It's a virtual fashion accessory that everyone seems to need except that it has the potential to affect individiual lives in more ways than just growing your circle of friends. Whether for better or worse is up for individual argument which will play out over time. Sadly we've seen how myspace can be used to harm people. People who want to harm people will likely do so whether myspace is there as a tool for them or not, but again, that's open to debate.

The social networking aside, I also have little interest in airing most aspects of my life on some website where people read about you for whatever reason. If I have stories or adventures to share, I will take the time to type out an email to my friends & family instead of spending the same amount of time to type the same message to random people....and I still have to send the email to my non-myspace friends to announce that there's something new and exciting on my myspace page. I just don't see the point.

Ultimately, for me, all of my friends already know my phone/email/msn/messageboard contact info, so they can always find me.

Just my $.02

Paul

quote:

Originally posted by HardTranceProd So: what does this say about the majority culture? Is it phony? Is it all a pretense?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZoyfhG0Wwk

One of the more interesting comments on society and how we see ourselves and other people. Before I worked for myself I used too sell beauty products and treatments too people that wanted too look like the girl in the picture after she's all done up and too some degree I'm guilty of dropping thousands on clothes and cosmetics too look less feral

I think everyone has their own idealised interpretations of how they'd like too look, even if it means looking like someone else or the same as everyone else too fit into some sort of unspoken but very much seen appearance.
While this isnt always an unhealthy thing, it frequently can be with young girls and boys starving themselves thin and at the cost of undeveloped social skills and psychological self esteem because theyre looking for ways too make up for that lack of happiness in their appearance.
Its far easier too look happy with yourself than it is too actually be happy with yourself, an all too human condition advertised all too often on a visual medium.

quote:

Originally posted by HardTranceProd My point is, the people represented on MySpace are "the majority culture". Boring and uninteresting they may be, but they are the ones who are popular in school, have large networks of friends, follow the normal course of relationships and dating, etc.

But do they really have that many real-life friends? This is what I don't really understand. As an example, if you are in highschool and you see these people every day, why do you need to spend more time communicating through a computer? Are people using a computer as a social filter/buffer/safety blanket? I worry that this type of change in social skill-set development might have a negative effect on how someone can function in real-world social situations. They will eventually have to deal with a whole world of socially challenging situations that they will have to live, in person, not from behind a screen. This is just one guess at how this might affect what is likely the largest demographic on myspace.

quote:

Yet, looking at their pics, I am frightened by how bland and sheltered their lifestyle is. They appear to have few interests or hobbies; they do not welcome those outside their circle. So: what does this say about the majority culture? Is it phony? Is it all a pretense?

I guess this is the new escapism....but one that's still grounded in some degree of reality (the degree is up to the individual user). I wonder how many people have multiple alias' that aren't divided in a personal/professional context (ie: artists/musicians/dj's)? If you engage in what amounts to being slightly szchitzophrenic (sp?) on a personal social networking site like this, how does this affect you in "real life" if at all? The potential ramifications of this are kinda freaky in a way, but that being said I do not believe for a second that any government should regulate this in any way other than hateful or otherwise distasteful (read: more than simple nudity) content which is likely already the case.

My take on your question about hobbies/interests etc. is that I would be interested to see statistics of what exactly those interest and hobbies are, and if they are more internet/electronic (video games etc)/otherwise socially reclusive? Or are people still participating in real, active, get-off-your-ass stuff like sports, photography etc etc.? I wonder how it breaks-down over certain ages groups?

All this being said, it's realy none of my business how anyone else spends their time, nor will I really put any effort into researching this myself (other than participating in this thread lol!)

I'm honestly interested to see other responses, since I really haven't given myspace more than 5 minutes of my time.

Paul

I do not know if this has been said yet... because I'm not reading through all of that, because I think the majority of posts here are myspace bashing... so...

If you look up the numbers... the people under the age of 18... or even the 18-25 crowd, are the minority of myspace. The over 35 crowd is very large, and its very surprising, I heard it on NPR, when youtube got bought out.

The point is, don't hate myspace because of the teenie boppers.

and, I like myspace, because I can fuck around on it, and I'm very sarcastic, and I've met a lot of sarcastic people, which is always a positive... thats lame, but whatever..

I'm pro-myspace...

I'm against myspace because it goes against my natural principle of meeting people in person. In other words it replaces real life social interactions with online networking. The problem with that is when people avoid the practice of developing real time social skills. Coincedentally, it is these same social skills that are required of us to be able to interact with others in the real world. That's something you're not going to get online. Here's a funny video which gives you a brief history of myspace and then half-mocks the whole site:

Ahh John Stewert he is a funny man. Myspace sucks because even then I couldn't get more than one friend...just like the real world


But, the real reason why myspace sucks is because I can't view the pics without being a friend or a member of myspace. Man, some of those girls are hot!

quote:

Originally posted by metalgearsolid Ahh John Stewert he is a funny man. Myspace sucks because even then I couldn't get more than one friend...just like the real world

Are you serious about that, or is this one of your jokes.

quote:

Originally posted by HardTranceProd Are you serious about that, or is this one of your jokes.

It's a joke.

I dont have any myspace account either, in my country www.orkut.com is huge.

quote:

Originally posted by pmoisse I guess this is the new escapism....but one that's still grounded in some degree of reality (the degree is up to the individual user). I wonder how many people have multiple alias' that aren't divided in a personal/professional context (ie: artists/musicians/dj's)? If you engage in what amounts to being slightly szchitzophrenic (sp?) on a personal social networking site like this, how does this affect you in "real life" if at all?

im one of those sad bastards who have two myspace accounts
my dj profile: www.myspace.com/djbassmonger
and mine: www.myspace.com/technoretrograde

the reason why i created the /technoretrograde was to placate all my friends and an inordinate amount of people in the clubbing scene who would ask me if i was on myspace, and while i dont really give a shit about it i must admit it has come in handy for networking and keeping in contact with friends (and people whom ive lost contact with over the years have added me)

im more of a passive user, i never actively search for people on myspace and only add peopel whove asked specifically, and i never add randoms, i cbf doing up the look of the page and i rarely post comments on other pages - one female friend actually told me "jake you cant not comment on other peoples pages especially when they post on yours, its not fair!" and i cracked up laughing hahahah

at the hostels im at in Buenos Aires ive spotted quite a few travellers using it in internet cafes, and added one person who id like to stay in contact with

and as for my second myspace /djbassmonger? well read it and find out

Taiti, is Lisa Marie PKC?

Tathi: If you'd notince in my quote, I mentionned people who DON'T use two names for business/personal

Having a DJ one and a personal one is cool, even though it's all the same person behind the screen.

I am a whore on Myspace, lol

I have met a lot of people through it, but then again, I am over 30 so we run it, ha ha


Add me

quote:

Originally posted by LazFX I am a whore on Myspace, lol I have met a lot of people through it, but then again, I am over 30 so we run it, ha ha Add me

added ya. we should start a TA PDD group lol nah


add me

www.myspace.com/jonnysun

quote:

Originally posted by stevieboy32808 I'm against myspace because it goes against my natural principle of meeting people in person. In other words it replaces real life social interactions with online networking. The problem with that is when people avoid the practice of developing real time social skills. Coincedentally, it is these same social skills that are required of us to be able to interact with others in the real world. That's something you're not going to get online.

That's presuming that you're interacting with people online in lieu of interacting with people in real life. The fact is that it's possible to do both and this forum (or, at least, the local forums here) are a pretty good example of that. I post in the Australian forums (which, I suppose, constitutes "online netwroking") yet I've also met most of the Melbourne TAs in "real life" social situations as well. My girlfrie... er, "the girl I'm currently seeing" uses myspace pretty frequently and has met a number of people from the Melbourne clubbing scene on there. She knows half the people I know when we're out and that's almost exclusively from social networking on myspace. Whether she knows these people well enough to consider them "friends" or not I'm not too sure, but I consider a number of the Au.TAs I've met to be real-life friends - are these relationships somehow "artificial" or less "legitimate" than other relationships just because we met on an "online social network"?

I don't know. Myspace strikes me as one big, online circle-jerk populated predominantly by boring, self-absorbed people, but then the real world is composed of cliques populated predominantly by boring, self-absorbed people as well. I don't think online networking, so long as its supplanted with healthy "real-life" interaction as well, changes the nature of relationships or human interaction in a profoundly negative sense. At worst, it changes little, at best it affords you the opportunity to meet people you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to meet. That still wouldn't be enough to cause me to sell my soul and actually sign-up to myspace though...

I for one do not like the private accounts. They have to add you as a friend and most of the times they don't. I feel like such an outcast because the girl looks so hot. And I know she has more pics of herself in her profile, but I cannot view them.

And another thing. Myspace makes it possible for people to discriminate and say things they normally wouldn't. It is just like the internet. It is the internet. But the good thing is that you get to see how superficial the majority of people are.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade I don't know. Myspace strikes me as one big, online circle-jerk populated predominantly by boring, self-absorbed people, but then the real world is composed of cliques populated predominantly by boring, self-absorbed people as well. I don't think online networking, so long as its supplanted with healthy "real-life" interaction as well, changes the nature of relationships or human interaction in a profoundly negative sense. At worst, it changes little, at best it affords you the opportunity to meet people you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to meet. That still wouldn't be enough to cause me to sell my soul and actually sign-up to myspace though...

Wow!! You just about described TA PDD

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