The MySpace Revolution
Nan Flory examines the etiquette and conventions of MySpace.com
MySpace.com is, according to the wonderful Wikipedia, the ‘world’s fifth most popular English-language website and the eighth most popular in the world’. Created in July 2003 by a graduate from UCLA and UC Berkeley, called Tom Anderson, and currently run by Chris DeWolfe, the company behind the website employs 250 people (though goodness knows what they do) and has a yearly revenue of approximately 20 million US dollars. Users can register for free and are then able to upload information, pictures, music and text, which can be accessed by other internet surfers and commented on or downloaded by fellow MySpace members.
Once you register, you can start building up a profile, listing your various interests – general, music, film – your personal data – name, age, status, sexuality, smoker or not etc. Users can upload different backgrounds and soundtracks to their profile; there is even a MySpace profile-editing programme which helps you to beautify your online personality. Members become ‘friends’ by sending and accepting friend requests and once two profiles are thus linked you can send each other messages. This interaction happens between complete strangers who find other members with common interests and also between people who are already friends, as an alternative to phone calls or MSN, and as a way to stay in touch over long distances. Some people have taken to giving out their MySpace URL, over their phone number or email, when they meet someone new. It is a slightly less personal, less intense thing to give out to a stranger, and much easier to screen. Members can also write blogs which their cyber friends can read.
Recently, I’ve been forced to create a MySpace profile of my very own. Denying that you actually want to get involved in the revolution that is myspace.com is, of course, all part of the ritual. My excuse was that my budding musician of a brother, using the website to launch his tunes, needed more friends; his single figure sum was getting him down. Being a music maker is pretty much the only noble reason for creating a profile; everyone else (cool) takes an ironic attitude to the cyberspace phenomenon, acknowledging the geek value whilst loving it really. A popular excuse is that you need to be a member to get access to more tunes; an acquaintance defends herself by explaining that constructing her extensive profile kept her entertained in a boring summer job.
So, in the interests of maintaining my disinterested attitude, I set out to limit my involvement in the network to just one friend – my loner brother. Unfortunately, this plan was quickly foiled when I realised that Tom, the American who started the whole thing, automatically becomes your friend when you sign up. Suddenly I had two friends! I quickly deleted Tom and for a couple of days I was feeling nicely aloof about the whole thing, “MySpace? Yeah, I’m down with that, a necessary evil of the 21st century music industry, whatever”. Things started getting complicated when I signed in (only to add a supportive comment to my brother’s profile) to find a little envelope icon on the right of my screen, with the words ‘new friend request’ in cute type beside it. My one-friend manifesto was looking shaky. The slightly plaintive phrasing on MySpace made things difficult: ‘Benjamin wants to be your friend, accept or deny?’ If I had not pressed ‘accept’ the Benjamin in question, unaware of my one-friend plan, would have received a curt little message, ‘Nancy Penelope has denied your friendship request’, and possibly would never have spoken to me again. I was back to two friends, and this time deletion wasn’t an option.
My plan was further ground into the dust when my housemate decided to create a profile for himself. I, in my usual obnoxious manner, had trumpeted my morally superior one-friend policy around the flat, although, in my defence, I did quieten down when the Benjamin issue occurred. My sweetheart housemate asked me if there was any way I could be his friend without him stealing my (by now defunct) one-friend-thunder by being mine. Obviously, I immediately caved, and now I have three friends. This puts me in a wonderful situation where instead of being a cool, reluctant member, I am just a loner with only three friends, much like my brother at the start of the whole malarkey (he is now up to 28 – still very modest since some MySpacers actually have one million, but better than a couple of weeks ago). I think this means I have to go the whole hog and embrace MySpace completely; this in-between phase is reflecting badly on both of us.
As I can’t claim amateur musician status, I’ve decided that, to ensure its validity, my debut as a MySpace friend-wanter, rather than my former cyber manifestation as an arrogant one-friender with a superiority complex, needs careful planning. First on the list is the photo you choose to represent yourself with. Obviously you want to look attractive, but the rules of MySpace cool dictate that you don’t want to look attractive in an obvious way. A good option is the kooky pose, a shot which, even if it is posed, should look ‘random’, demonstrating that you have lots of crazy fun all the time. If you do have an unfortunate face that even a well-angled pout won’t remedy, a tongue-in-cheek cartoon will do the trick. The internet is a great place to leave your less-than-perfect looks behind and lifting a secondary image gives you the chance to make a nice, obscure pop culture reference to peacock your excellent taste.
A good image choice is complemented by your on-screen name. It seems to me that the coolest Spacers avoid proper names and go for quotes or in-jokes (these are another good way of showing off your crazy fun life). All good profiles should include a degree of knowing awareness about the geek factor of the website and the best ones will have a zillion friends as well. This says “I don’t really try very hard at this MySpace game, it just happens to me”. However, this postmodernist approach can go on forever, as people start acknowledging the pretensions equally present in this attitude. The trouble is, my new status as a MySpace billy-no-mates makes me a badly qualified commentator. For all I know, earnest could well be the new cynical. Maybe admitting to your devotion of time, effort and a little love to the MySpace game is the way to go these days.
Whatever the facts of the matter, if MySpace leads my brother into a record contract and piles of cash, I will be a devoted MySpacer from the day he pays off my student loan. I will make cyber-friends with people in other towns or even countries, discover new bands, chat with real-life friends, write blogs, upload pictures, even marry someone as a result of our complementary profiles. As revolutions go, it’s maybe not the most ground shaking but rather MySpace than, like, communism
