Slashdot Mirror
The MySpace Generation
theodp writes "They live online. They buy online. They play online. Their power is growing. BusinessWeek reports on The MySpace Generation, aka Generation @, for whom being online is a way of life. Preeminent among the virtual hangouts is MySpace.com, who boasts 40 million members and claimed the No. 15 spot on the entire U.S. Internet. And in When murder hits the blogosphere, MSNBC reports on MySpace's sometimes surreal role in popular news stories."
With these freaks that post online all day, with their little friends, and their little hobbies that most people don't care about.
I'm glad I'm a part of a place like Slashdot that doesn't have any of that.
Previous generations got entire words to their name. At least some of us got letters (Generation X is cool). But you kids today have been reduced to punctuation. At least you're better than Generation colon.
Hope you like giving away your hard-earned works for free to Fox.
From the TOS: By posting Content on any public area of MySpace.com, you automatically grant as well as represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to MySpace.com, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information and content to MySpace.com and that MySpace.com has the right to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
Myspace is a festering heap.
Bottles.
Myspace Suicide
BusinessWeek reports on The MySpace Generation, aka Generation @
Since when did the MySpace l4mers get op status?
A festering heap of freedom.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
"comming" ?
Generation whatever articles. It seems they always want to neatly compartmentalize people's behavior by their age group though I know 40+ years old totally connected to the net and that my teenage nephews who hardly go on or know anything about it.
The article seems to be treating all this stuff as new when much of it's been around for a good while. Next, they will be gushing about how people use newfangled email over snailmail. The only message here is that people tend to communicate with the best medium for them which is nothing new.
Other on line communities with less restrictive requirements are springing up and gaining ground on MySpace. Frankly, I find the whole eletronic thing to be a bit frightening. Hear me out before you mod me down! Nothing digital happens without leaving traces. As the public library in Philadelphia who's fighting with the FBI over one of their "Letters of National Security". It becomes all too easy to obtain records of who did what and who said what. Anonymity is a big part of what makes the internet go 'round and if you take that away, all you have left is what we have in real space now. A bunch of folks with ideas but too afraid to voice them.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
I use MySpace regularly, mostly to meet chicks in my area (and it doesn't work all that well, but it's free), but I don't trust the site to hold a lot of formal personal information about me; just informal stuff.
Fox purchased MySpace, and I wish it was someone else like Google. The site is a mess with all sorts of useability and performance problems. It would be nice if someone just setup a good new framework for it, and then "imported" everyone's crap into it. The current MySpace framework is like some student's school project grown out-of-control. Maybe it is.
So anyways, it's really 'Not My Space' for a lot of people. Just a place to waste time. I wouldn't expect it to become somemore more than that.
Teenagers ARE fucking morons.
When i was a teen, i also heard trashy music, also had cheesy jet-fighter posters in my room and wasnt known for my social skills. And the others in my class werent better, either.
The only thing thats different is that with the internet, occasionally older non-parent people stumble upon this stuff, which just didnt happen before the internet.
I am sure if you go offline to an event thats REALLY in in the 12-15 age group, you wouldnt find a much different picture. But you wouldnt go there, while online, its just a click away...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
I am 26. When people my age were kids they had TV. Television is a one way medium where people are told how to look , how to talk, how to think. Think of the MTV generation.
Today, at last, kids have a better freedom of the press than we did. They can give back to the system instead of just listening silently. And they have so many more channels to chose from, some made by their peers instead of by the big media corporations.
What they say will be childish, stupid and uninformed. Just like the things we used to say when we were their age. But at least they will have an outlet to do so.
I drink to the @ generation. And to the generation before, thank you for making this possible.
Cheers,
Adolfo
PS. Remember when using computers was social suicide?
Funny, I've spent the last six months trying to get any random MySpace page to load without all the photos, videos, animations, sounds, java appletts and other mundane crap along with their retarded interface crashing any random browser I'm using on any random OS.
MySpace is just the equivalent of AOL chat rooms. Those who aren't self-involved cliquish drama whores and dorks trolling for pussy from average girls with self-image problems over it are busy using Usenet and other more appropriate and useful places.
My police for MySpace content is the same as LiveJournal. Don't ask me to check out your page on either one - I'm not going to look at it. If you want to tell me something, you can tell me. You are not so precious and my time so worthless that I need to share in a mass-broadcast on what kind of cheese you had on your sandwhich today or how cute you think someone else's hair bow is. I just don't care. If I don't know you at all - I won't care. If I do know you well enough to care about the news, I'd prefer you take the time to have a CONVERSATION with me rather than slip me a URL and tell me to read up on your life like you're Jennifer fucking Anniston.
And I'm serious about this shit. Girlfriend, relative, coworker, love-interest. I don't care WHO you are. I won't check your page out.
Also - there's nothing dangerous about MySpace. It's owned by Rupert Murdoch after all and Bill O'Reilly wouldn't stand for anyone putting children at risk, would he?! Hell no - he'd crusade against you until the tide forced you over!
Seriously - I just don't get the MySpace thing. I think you have to be of a certain social accuity and lower intellectual level to find it worth your time. It has a terrible interface and is filled with crap. You may as well be using geocities for all it matters. Hopefully they'll just splinter off and form their own internet and take the tards with them.
And there's no point in people replying with "oh and you're so special?!" or "aren't you elite?!" or anything, because I don't care anymore than I care about MySpace. Maybe if I were into hooking up with twelve year old girls, I would be interested.
So in other words, the "comming generation" is to MySpace as our generation is to Geocities. The Internet* survived Geocities; it can survive the "blogosphere"; and it can survive MySpace.
* By which I mean "the group of elitists on the Internet who wish there were literacy and knowledge requirements to use the Internet," also known as "Usenet."
For more information, click here.
2ch (2 channel) is a Japanese forum (more similar to slashdot then typical forums) that has over 10 million members from all different walks of life (not mainly teenagers like myspace). There is a US variant (an imitation not related directly or anywhere near as popular) 4ch that gives a good idea of the format. It's an interesting concept due to it's broadness in topics and people who use it. Although myspace seems to be pretty popular with people who aren't computer experts.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
... to change the TOS at any time, unilaterally (from Section 2):
:-p
"Even after membership is terminated, this Agreement will remain in effect, including sections 4, 5, 7 and 9-14. MySpace.com's Terms of Use and/or subscription fees that were provided to you at registration may change from time to time. By using the Service and by becoming a Member, you acknowledge that MySpace.com reserves the right to charge for the Service and has the right to terminate a Member's Membership should Member breach this Agreement or fail to pay for the Service, as required by this Agreement."
So who says they won't "pull the trigger" and try to claim rights (even retroactively)?
Hmm... so what's to say they won't suddenly change Section 5 to say "exclusive, in perpetuity rights to all material, even after you leave My Space"? If your novel/mp3/scientific breakthrough is online when they make the change to the TOS, it'll already be too late.
I'm not saying they'd necessarily do this, but it's possible. Better to keep your stuff off of Fox's servers.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
I just don't get it. Myspace is Friendster, only instead of yuppies, hipsters, and college students, it's populated by complete morons. All my friends from college and high school are on Friendster and/or Facebook.com. MySpace gets the lowest-life, most guido New Jersey and Long Island trash people I've ever seen, the teenagers who are too dumb to know any better, and a couple of pervs I know in their later 20s who just go there to pick up on dumb 17 year old girls.
I actively choose not to be associated with MySpace. Why? Because it's about as low class as anything I could imagine. Call me an elitist yuppie, but I would never want to be caught with a profile on that site, until they manage to improve their image massively, i.e. get rid of the massive guido overload factor in their userbase.
Please reference the number of pics of dudes in sleeveless wifebeaters with muscle shots, tatties and gang slogans in their profile for evidence. So terribly classless.
At least Orkut had geek chic before it was overrun by the Brazilians.
What about World of Warcraft and the burgeoning MMORPG space? There are 5.5 million subscribers to WoW, and in total, maybe 20 million people who play these MMORPGs worldwide, from games like Lineage to EverQuest.
I don't think myspace deserves to be associated with a "generation" because myspace hasn't generated its own unique subculture. And it's not really a "generation" as a large portion of the traffic on myspace is by older men looking for skanks.
The WoW and gamer culture, on the other hand, has its own languages and inside jokes. Plus guilds are way more cohesive than these loose organizations or "networks."
I'm creating a social network just for gamers, and WoW players specifically right now: Leetster. This is a link to my profile: pakhuda
Philosophistry
Wow. That's the most inaccurate picture of myspace i've ever seen. Myspace is not a beautiful anarchist e-topia. No, fuck that. It's a place where people can artificially inflate their egos, pretend to be things they're not to increase popularity (since the capital on myspace is your friend count, and nothing more), and places extreme emphasis on the superficial. No, it's not an anarchist e-topic. It's just like everyday life in the modern world. Even more, it's a centralized means for Fox to make a shit load in ad revenew. I'm always sure i've got privoxy fired up when i go on myspace.
It's basically one giant rumor mill. There is no natural judicial system as you describe. The majority of messages i see posted on bulletins (the way to disseminate information to all your friends simply) are chain letters.
You mention your brother's band and how myspace is a huge non-corporate marketing aparatus. It's definitely the best thing around for indie bands, and it has definitely helped a lot of local bands i see at bars...but if you look at the featured artist on their front page, you'll only see ones that are ones signed to fox-owned labels. So, while it does have extreme potential for small-band marketing, it's also a huge corporate marketing force for shitty, overrated music. Before fox bought myspace, pretty much only independent bands were featured artists.
No, myspace is not your anarchist utopia. It's just another way to make business as usual hip for us mindless youngins. That said, i've "hooked up" with quite a few attractive ladies from myspace. So, it does have legitimate use.
1) There are so many low-class/stupid/aesthetically-challenged/offensiv e-in-some-other-way people on MySpace and I can't stand that.
2) MySpace is mostly populated by teenagers, and this particular batch of teenagers is so much worse than teenagers from my generation.
3) MySpace is ripping off the people who use it, through TOS that allow MySpace to profit from content created by MySpace denizens.
4) The content on MySpace is total crap. There's nothing of value on MySpace. Ten thousand monkeys could create better content.
The "I can't stand the people on MySpace" response is similar to the bitching and moaning about blogging, which comes up on Slashdot constantly these days. On the one hand, Slashdotters are happy to carry the torch of freedom, demanding that Big Media should no longer control us, that TV should get hit with a clue stick, and so on. Yet when a community does spring up and people of all kinds, the unwashed digital masses, get on board, it freaks out a lot of Slashdotters. This is so reminiscent of the "if you don't know how to run UNIX, you shouldn't be doing things on the Internet" attitude so prevalent among alpha-geeks in the mid 1990s. The Internet shouldn't just be for geeks, any more than athletics should just be for jocks, or beaches should just be for beautiful people.
Not everyone on MySpace is a teenager. But people seem hungup on the large number of teens on MySpace. Teenagers are teenagers are teenagers are teenagers. My father's generation was the one that screwed up the Vietnam War and turned the whole nation upside down. When they started causing trouble in the early 60s, they were the scourge of America. They turned out ok. A bit self-righteous, but ok. ;-) My generation was described as a bunch of shiftless slackers when we were teens. We had no soul, no drive, no moral compass, and nothing to contribute to society. Somehow that opinion changed when we hit the workforce in big numbers and contributed to the boom in the Information Economy. The teenagers of today are obsessed with the superficial, spoiled, and unconnected to reality. I'm sure by the time they reach their 20s and 30s, they'll somehow magically be transformed into good citizens. Funny how that works, isn't it?
The using MySpace are just like any slice of a given population. Some of them have interesting things to say and some of them don't. Some of them are creative and others aren't too imaginative. Maybe the venue attracts one type of person more than another, but generalizing about content on MySpace, even if the generalization is correct, doesn't mean that there's nothing of value on MySpace.
As for the Terms of Service, MySpace users are making an exchange. They get to tap into a huge network of people and information without cost. In return, MySpace (Fox) can use content from MySpace if it wants to, for commercial gain. 99.9% of the content on MySpace, no matter how good, is not going to be used for commercial purposes by Fox, simply because there's so much of it. The content that is good enough (and that depends on how you define "good") to be used by Fox may in some way be exploited commercially. Do you really think that the creator of such content wouldn't be happy to have their content publicized by Fox?
Think back to when you were a bit younger, and imagine that something like MySpace existed at the time. You'd probably be pretty excited by it, perhaps because you hadn't yet become jaded to all things Internet, perhaps because you liked the idea of communicating with people outside of the narrow confines of the community you lived in.
MySpace isn't for me. It obviously isn't for a lot of Slashdot regulars. So what. Get off the high horse. Diversity is good. Peer to peer communication is good. Or should we just go back to the monoculture of NBC, CBS, and ABC?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
> That said, i've "hooked up" with quite a few attractive ladies from myspace. So, it does have legitimate use.
Translation: I have masturbated while looking at the images of attractive girls myspace users have uploaded.
No, please, somebody mod this guy troll. He deserves it.
I'm 31. When I moved across the country to an area where I knew NOBODY, MySpace helped me meet people with similar interests. MySpace is the only reason I have any friends at all down here (yes, I'm a piss-poor socializer outside of an ASCII environment). The one venue where I've found to play my music on a regular basis down here, I found out about through MySpace. I've gotten some fans for my (unsigned, independant) music through MySpace, as well as become a fan of other unsigned, independant local musicians. I don't have a huge fan base, but thanks to MySpace, if I ever visit Seattle, Canada, Charlotte, Chicago, Orlando, or Texas, there's people who can help me hook up shows. MySpace is how I find out when good local acts are playing (do YOU really wanna wade through ten pages of 5-point type in the back of your free weekly? Me neither). MySpace is the reason people come to see me when I play. If MySpace ever adds the ability to email multiple people without the use of bulletins, it might just replace email for me. All of my friends here, and all of my friends in Milwaukee, and all of my friends in San Francicso, are on it. I need to check my MySpace messages multiple times a day. I only need to check my actual email once every day or two.
MySpace isn't completely original - it's basically LiveJournal meets Demostreams. But the idea of a multi-featured user community has come a long way since AOL, and it's a concept that's rapidly gaining traction in the marketplace. Slashdot itself is a user-community, just without certain features (music and pictures) and with others (a more specific and exclusive user base). MySpace, Slashdot, Livejournal, Friendster, etc etc are as successful as they are because the marketplace rewards their ideas. Quit bitching about it, come up with a concept as successful as MySpace, and make your own billion dollars.
Are there problems with MySpace? Sure. The ads are getting more and more intrusive. But if that's your argument against it, you might as well argue against the internet itself. There is plenty of ugly HTML on MySpace. Last time I checked, though, there was also plenty outside of it as well. The servers are getting slower and buggier. But again, MySpace is not unique in this regard - I can't even log into Friendster anymore, it's so slow. And yes, there are a bunch of little kids running around acting like morons. But if this is your argument against it, then you must also be against all IM as well. And, just like Slashdot, there are plenty of people who are idiots - and plenty who aren't. Bottom line, MySpace is very much worth the ZERO DOLLARS I paid to be there.
If you don't want to use it, that's fine, but don't insult everybody on it without exception. That's just stupid and ignorant.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
MySpace is to writing and publishing what a bowel movement is to art. Honestly, I can't even believe you would compare the two.
If someone said "Hey, I wrote this great story" or "Hey, check out this review of the new movie I saw" - I would be interested. But I'm not going to read your block to find out "OMFG I'm so drink!!@!! I just got back from two partys and a consert! ROCK ON!!!!"
a festering heap of easily stalked females.
Just think. You go to wal*mart and Mandy helps you. Wal*mart is in your local town. Search MySpace for Mandy in the town between 18/25 and you just might find her and all her friends. next time you see her working "hey, don't you know nick?"
you know her first name, her friends names, her interests, everything.
it's ammo for people who are bad at dating or potential stalkers, alike.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...