MySpace is “just like high school”
Flipping through channels this evening, I stopped on Comedy Central to see “The Showbiz Show with David Spade” (a show I don’t normally watch) doing a feature segment on MySpace. David Spade stated that you could list your favorite movies and music groups on your MySpace page, much like “decorating your high school locker”. He also said that MySpace was an excellent way to keep up with hundreds of friends you can’t be bothered to be in touch with in person.
The culmination of the “MySpace is like high school” feature was an appearance and interview by Miss Tila Tequila, the most popular friend on MySpace. To date, she said that she has *973,000* friends (although her MySpace page lists 965,008). She did say that “MySpace is like high school, and I’m, like, the most popular girl in high school.” Tila said there would be a major announcement on her MySpace page about her band and a major label, which I believe is this one.
I haven’t spent much time on MySpace recently, except to visit the pages of artists a) I know personally or, b) seem to be worth watching. Different social networking sites have a certain maturity level or range to the culture (for instance, Flickr has everyone from the very mature serious photographer and art appreciation types to the college kids taking drunken photos and posting them), and while (as I know it) MySpace started as predominantly an online haven for musicians and bands, it has definitely evolved into an online community of high school-level relationship maturity. The number of “friends” matters more than how many people you actually get to know, and so many of the blog entries and comments are really just empty and juvenile. Not all of it, mind you, but a whole lot.
All told, it’s a whole lot like high school. And yet, it’s the most popular social networking on the web. It might explain why the kids are all sorts of into it. So, in a weird but logical way, it’s an excellent way to reach teens. The young adult librarians at RPL are thinking about starting a MySpace account for this very reason, which I think is a super idea, but it comes with all sorts of interesting problems, so it’s still a work-in-progress idea. My recommendation: if you are going to dip your foot in the MySpace waters, spend a lot of time poking around first, and get a feel for the culture. Ask some kids what they think, how they use it, what works and what doesn’t. If you do make any special formatting changes to your MySpace page (should you create one), make them the spiffiest, hottest-looking modifications, instead of making it look like so many of the hacked-together pages out there, to make an impression in a high school world where appearances account for a lot, while substance and knowledge seem to mean so little.
Tags: technology
