I was stunned when I heard that MTV turns 45 this week. When was the last time you watched MTV? And has that in any way affected the affection you still have for a period of our lives defined by hours spent watching music videos? I have not watched MTV in years, and you probably have not either, but this anniversary has stirred an unusually powerful sense of nostalgia in me. It took me back to the days when we waited for a certain song to appear on screen, memorised the order of the charts, stayed up for the premiere of a new music video and allowed our taste to be shaped, at least in part, by something we had not chosen ourselves. Culture was not available to us at every moment. We had to seek it out, wait for it and share it with others.
I associate a similar feeling with the early years of the internet, before everything became so fast and tailored to us. Back in 2004, Facebook introduced a simpler way to find people we knew, exchange messages and follow their lives through walls, photos and status updates. Over time, its cleaner, more uniform design became the model upon which every major social network would be built. Before Facebook, however, there was a network that made it seem as though each user had been given a small piece of the internet and permission to do whatever they wanted with it. That piece of the internet was called MySpace.
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The news that the iconic MySpace could be making a comeback feels far more significant than one might expect from the revival of a long-abandoned platform. Tim and Chris Vanderhook, the brand’s current owners, have confirmed that they plan to relaunch MySpace, although they have yet to reveal a date or any details about how it will work. The brothers also discuss the network’s possible future in Tommy Avallone’s new documentary Myspace, explaining that they are waiting for the right moment to bring it back. It seems that moment may finally have arrived.
Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/Max
For those who do not know what MySpace is
MySpace launched in 2003 and quickly became one of the central hubs of 2000s internet culture. Users had profiles, friends, messages, photos and comments, which today sounds like the most generic description of any social network. The difference was that a MySpace profile resembled your own, often completely chaotic, website.
With a little HTML and CSS, you could change the background, colours, fonts and layout, add GIFs, photos, quotes and a song that would automatically start playing whenever someone opened your profile. MySpace allowed users to personalise their pages completely, which meant that profiles functioned simultaneously as digital bedrooms, diaries, playlists and mood boards long before we knew how to use that term. There was also the famous Top 8 friends list, a public ranking of the people who mattered most to you at that particular moment. Changing the order could spark arguments that removing someone from your Instagram Close Friends list today could never rival.
Every profile gave the impression that there was a real person behind it. It did not always look good: the music would start playing too loudly, the text was sometimes illegible and the glittering backgrounds were aggressive. Yet that imperfection proved that the profile had not been created by a team of designers intent on holding our attention for as long as possible. It had been created by a teenager who wanted everyone to know which band they were currently listening to.
Facebook soon offered a more practical and streamlined model. Every profile looked more or less the same, so the focus shifted from creating your own space to posting content within a space that belonged to the platform. The internet became easier to use and increasingly less personal.
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@charli_xcx
Why is MySpace returning now?
Personalisation moved far beyond choosing the background colour or the song on your profile a long time ago. Today, it means an algorithm tailoring content to our presumed interests so that we remain on the platform for as long as possible. Social networks now track how long we linger on a particular video, what we open, share or watch again, then offer us an endless stream of variations on the same thing.
Research into so-called algorithmic fatigue points to the paradox of such a system. Users seek variety and unpredictability, while highly personalised algorithms often present them with an increasingly narrow range of content in which they have already shown an interest. Prolonged exposure to these recommendations can contribute to feelings of boredom, exhaustion and declining satisfaction with social media.
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Before you start doing the maths, remember that nostalgia for the old internet is not limited to the generation that actually used it. Younger users are also showing an interest in networks with editable profiles, chronological content and a clearer sense of community. In recent years, platforms inspired by MySpace have emerged, while even Instagram has introduced the option to add a song to your profile, one of the features that once defined the MySpace experience.
A MySpace comeback therefore only makes sense if its owners understand that people are not looking for another app filled with vertical videos and an algorithmic feed. Its biggest advantage cannot simply be its recognisable name. It will have to offer us something we have lost in the meantime: the ability to make a profile feel like a space we created ourselves. A new MySpace would also have to address questions of privacy, safety, moderation and funding that are far more complex today than they were two decades ago.
Yet its return already says something about the moment we are living through. After years spent on perfectly designed apps, we have begun to long for an internet that felt a little strange, messy and human. An internet where the song you chose for your profile mattered more than how many people would see your next post. If you ask me, this is the news that defined my week, and a comeback I am looking forward to far more than you might expect from someone who never even experienced MySpace at its peak.