MetaChat - Who's on MySpace?

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16 October 2005

Who's on MySpace? Roll call! →[More:] I have just spent a week on MySpace, researching possibilities for a PhD. project. My research is about online social capital, and the "friend" feature has endless possibilities for research.

Thing is, I have been tripping over old friends (as Jon put it the other day - Meatspace and Online), left and right, and now I am hooked. How many of you guys use MySpace? Friend me and/or post your profile!

http://www.myspace.com/quartermass

OR... tell me why it sucks.

post by: Quartermass at: 19:27 | 39 comments

I've looked at my daughter's myspace a few times and could never figure out what it was about, other than people thanking other people for adding them. "Thanks for adding me!!!" is the single most prevalent comment.

Is it all just about commenting on other people's myspaces, and adding friends? Or is there more to it than that?

posted by iconomy 16 October | 19:33

It's also about ugly backgrounds and embedded music videos. Sometimes you can see cleavage pictures though.

posted by greasy_skillet 16 October | 19:35

I have a friend who's going through a really bad time and has started a Myspace blog to kind of "work through it." Thing is, I just don't need one more freaking web page account to deal with, so I haven't logged in. I just read his posts and then respond via email, if I have something to say.

Also, most of the pages/blogs I've seen on Myspace have been really hard to read because people use photos as backgrounds... it's like a trip back to 1996 or something.

Just my experience, probably nothing to do with what you asked.

posted by BoringPostcards 16 October | 19:36

I'm on myspace, and it has done exactly jack schitt for me in terms of meeting new people since I moved. I joined specifically because I'm new in town, but I am too antisocial even for meeting people over the internets.

posted by Eideteker 16 October | 19:36

Oh, and my name is displaying as lowercase again. W. T. Effingham?

posted by Eideteker 16 October | 19:39

who knows! I think it has more to do with "peacocking" than anything: in high school, the number of friends is correlated to popularity; this is a way to show off how many friends you have. Thus, the number of friends is most important.

Yet what is interesting is how it is also used by an older group of people for online dating etc, in which case it has more to do with your profile than anything.

Also, it is used by bands to get their music out (which in turn attracts a specific group of people)...

Also, interesting to note how few and far between actual blogging occurs.

posted by Quartermass 16 October | 19:39

My daughter is on it and loves it. I signed up so I could get onto the James McMurtry fan site, but once I got there I got bored quickly and now I don't remember how to get in. My feeling on myspace is that it crashes a lot, has obnoxious blinking ads, is slow as hell to load and kind of gets on my nerves. Also, which may explain all of the above, that it skews much younger than me.

posted by mygothlaundry 16 October | 19:45

OMG ADD ME#!!

posted by Eideteker 16 October | 19:51

I use myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/thejakalope/

Its been useful for me to meet folks and to keep track of what is going on around town, through the use of bulletins. It is definitely a bit heavy on the "tell me how hot i am" high school crowd, but I've found a great place to toss darts and had a few good makeout sessions from the folks I've met. It is basically a not as hip version of Friendster, but I've also found folks to be lots more friendly on MySpace.

posted by sciurus 16 October | 19:51

*checks bottom of shoes*
Nope, no MySpace, but I see I haven't scraped off all the MetaFilter.

posted by wendell 16 October | 20:04

Yeah, MySpace is for the kids. Those of us who are older and (possibly) wiser have our own domains, which we shan't get into here.

posted by mr_crash_davis 16 October | 20:04

I've never gotten laid by having my own domain though. ;)

posted by sciurus 16 October | 20:07

I put up a joke account on MySpace. I had a lot of fun with the pics. I'm goatdog there, too, but I can't seem to build a link that will take you there. Try this.

posted by goatdog 16 October | 20:11

Goatdog!

posted by Quartermass 16 October | 20:20

So goatdog, did you register with the name goatdog, or something else? I think your display name is goatdog but the name you registered with is something else, which is why you don't have a quick and dirty url like quartermass does? I'm just trying to figure this whole url thing out.

posted by iconomy 16 October | 20:28

We should start a mecha-based social networking site, one that dosn't suck.

That would be fun.

posted by delmoi 16 October | 20:34

I'm registered there, mostly because my friends asked me to. I check in maybe once a month because otherwise I get e-mails like "Why haven't you answered me? Do you hate me?" which pretty much sums up the maturity level of that group of friends. It's also a pain in the ass both for the reasons mygothlaundry cites, but then I pretty much hate any site that expects me to sum up who I am in 100 words or less. That includes dating sites, social software, really anything requiring a profile.

posted by cali 16 October | 21:05

I can't remember what I registered with. Probably not goatdog initially. I seldom go there, just when I get emails from people wanting to befriend me.

posted by goatdog 16 October | 21:15

sounds something like an orkut. I got kicked out of orkut. I think that marked the beginning and the end of my social networking.

posted by madamjujujive 16 October | 21:29

mjjj, I can't imagine you getting the boot from orkut! Why did you get kicked out?

posted by iconomy 16 October | 21:34

http://www.myspace.com/drezdn

Feel free to add me...

I just started using it this week. It's decent for reconnecting with old friends, or talking to people you only sort of know. It's got some major design flaws though (like not being able to just reply to a comment someone leaves).

I wish someone would design a trillian like piece of equipment that would let work across myspace, livejournal, sites like okcupid and maybe a blog or something...

posted by drezdn 16 October | 21:54

I signed up for MySpace earlier this year when I was still living in Florida, to keep up with old friends in California who were on the site. A bunch of former students of mine (I taught high school from 1999-2003 in Miami) subsequently found and added me. That's fine, if weird, and it's actually come in handy- a former student of mine died this summer and other students used MySpace to let me know.

But I shudder to think of the day when my current middle school students find my profile. I've already changed some of the information on there (mostly relating to alcohol and bisexuality) to prepare for that event.

posted by the_bone 16 October | 21:59

I *loathe* MySpace, if only because it makes me "log in" every fucking time. Whythehellizzat? Worse, it doesn't have my name and login right on the page with a submit button, I have to LOOK for the tiny text that says "sign in here", lick on that, THEN I have to click the checkbox for "remember me" which it obviously doesn't, THEN hit submit. Talk about putting barriers to usability.

goatdog: Try this: Edit Profile. Click Name. Click Edit. That's where my URL is displayed (but I can't change it, you only get one chance).

Anyway, here's my profile.

posted by stilicho 16 October | 22:06

I beleive Orkut frowned on pseudonyms, and since madamjujujive refused to reveal her secret identity as Harriet Miers, she got booted...

ooops, sorry, Harriet.

posted by wendell 16 October | 22:11

Thanks, stilicho. It worked.

posted by goatdog 16 October | 22:20

I am on myspace, to the extent that I created a page for myself. I use it about as much as my Yahoo 360 account and my Orkut account.

Which is to say, never.

posted by me3dia 16 October | 22:41

iconomy, wendell is on to me. They frowned on aliases.

posted by madamjujujive 16 October | 22:52

I'm on there, although hardly anyone else I know is so it's generally not that interesting to me...

posted by amro 16 October | 23:26

here it is

posted by amro 16 October | 23:31

eideteker I like that you're friends with a girl named "meat mitten"

posted by delmoi 16 October | 23:48

Me!

http://www.myspace.com/sisterhavana

Feel free to add me. : )

posted by sisterhavana 16 October | 23:54

Hmm... Friendster is actualy fast now. I might have to start checking it out, making sure my sister isn't friends with anyone shady...

posted by delmoi 16 October | 23:56

[OT] Eideteker, it looks like dodgy may have changed the coding on the profiles to fix something that wasn't working right before, so I've re-adjusted now, and it should be okay again.

posted by taz 17 October | 01:05

c'est moi.

posted by amandaudoff 17 October | 01:09

Why would I want to sign up for something that tells me "You have 0 friends" everytime I look at it.

posted by dodgygeezer 17 October | 05:32

Aw. I'll be your friend.

*shyly offers dodgygeezer half of her chocolate chip cookie*

posted by iconomy 17 October | 09:56

posted by mexican 18 October | 03:47

It can be a good resource for checking out music, on that note:

my band has a profile/page.

I am not the regular administrator of the account, but I'm sure the other guys would love to add people.

posted by safetyfork 18 October | 09:39

Are you guys related at all to "A Party of Helicopters"?

posted by Eideteker 18 October | 16:51

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