Youths No Longer Predominant on MySpace

mikesd81 writes "The Associated Press is reporting on the rapid aging of MySpace. More than half of MySpace's users are now 35 or older. From the article: 'Just a year ago, teens under 18 made up about 25 percent of MySpace, the popular online hangout run by News Corp. That's now down to 12 percent in the comScore analysis released Thursday. By contrast, the 35-54 group at MySpace grew to 41 percent in August, from 32 percent a year earlier ... The study was based on comScore's regular panels for measuring Internet audiences, rather than MySpace's registration information, where users often lie about their age.'"

The Truth

More predators, less victims.

Re:The Truth

> More predators, less victims.

Wait, are we talking Myspace here, or are we talking Congress?

Re:The Truth

can't be Congress, they rotate in a fresh crop of nubile young pages every semester

Re:The Truth

Did you hear about the congressman who lost his bookmark?

He bent a page over.

Re:The Truth

What's the difference between the Library of Congress and Congress?

The Library doesn't let you lick the pages.

Huh?

Huh? Excuse me? Since where did 35+ become synonimous with paedophile?

It may be hard to comprehend for someone whose world revolves around a computer in a basement, but most humans are _social_ beings. Yes, I know, mind boggles. There are plenty of reasons for people, even aged 35+, to interact with other people in a real or virtual community, that _don't_ involve looking for 13 year olds to fuck. Like, you know, interacting with other 35+ people.

I'll give you one

Also, there are few reason for these virtual communities. The whole point of them is to meet people you will never actually meet. Want some social interaction. Try striking up a conversation with somebody, that alwasy seesm to work well for me.

I'll give you a damn good reason to be on a virtual community (e.g., you're on Slashdot right now) instead of striking a conversation with your good neighbour Jack Random: common interests. E.g., I'd rather talk or read a post about computers, history, or cats, than listen to the local drone go on and on about football (soccer) and cars.

Frankly, most conversations born out of sheer geographical proximity are fucking boring. There's a whole class of topics that really interest noone that much, like sports or the weather, that exist only as the lowest common denominator for talks between perfect strangers. ("Say, it's cloudy today." Yes, I noticed it, I'm not fucking blind.)

And people who devote a disproportionate amount of their time just to stay on top of such common denominator topics. E.g., sports. There are plenty of people whose only real interest in sports and in following the prowess of a give team, whether they consciously realize it or not, is only really to seem to belong to the local group of Tom, Dick and Harry who seem interested in that team. Bonus points if it's just groupthink, and deep down inside, Tom, Dick and Harry aren't in it for any other reason either.

Me, I'd rather find someone and some topic more interesting than that. On the Internet if that's what it takes.

I'll give you a second one: to stay in touch with old pals. People occasionally do have to move.

Plus, it's not even something new, and you only need to look at history to see how bogus that argument is. The same could be said for snail mail letters, for example. Here, lemme rephrase it for you: "Also, there are few reason for these letters. The whole point of them is to meet people you will never actually meet. Want some social interaction. Try striking up a conversation with somebody, that alwasy seesm to work well for me."

And yet, ever since someone inventing writing on a stone or clay tablet, people have used them to communicate with other people, some they'll likely never meet in person. All sorts of people, including philosophers, novelists, playwrights, statesmen, etc, yes, have often enough preferred to spend an evening writing a letter to an old friend or to someone with similar interests, instead of just going out and striking a random conversation about the weather. For the most famous ones you can even go to the local book store or library and buy a a book or three with transcripts of their correspondence. Those alone would make a nice mountain of evidence that people occasionally do want to socialize with someone more interesting than the locally available Joe and Jane Random. Go figure.

Heh

It didn't. It's the myspace part. It would be like a 40 year old guy wearing sunglasses and a trenchcoat to a Chuck E. Cheese. You just kind of assume.

Except in this case there is nothing about MySpace that says "kids only site". We're not talking about adults on some kindergarten's "I like ponies" chatroom (though even there they might have legitimate reasons to be, like making sure what their own kid could see there), we're talking about adults on a site that always had adult profiles too. It was never marketted as a teen-only site, it never had any mention of being a teen-only site, etc. So exactly _what_ warning signs would an adult have to tell them "it's a kid only place, they'll look funny at you if you go there"?

All you have there is some "omg, there are pedos on MySpace" media scare (and even there it's been only a couple of cases), and from there a bunch of people basically seem to extrapolate that everyone else there must be one. Which is a classic extrapolation fallacy, of the kind that goes "cats are mammals, hence all mammals are cats."

Or to put it otherwise, it's as illogical as reading that there was a rape in the central park, and from there assuming that every single male in the central park must be a rapist looking for a victim. Or that there are fraudsters on Ebay, hence everyone using Ebay must be looking for someone to scam. Etc.

Re:Heh

There's also the "Good GOD, Myspace is such a shithole, no self respecting adult would WANT to go there" part of it that probably throws people.

The Myspace thing makes sense for kids. They don't have cars (to spend time with real-life friends) and they're angst ridden (thus they need somewhere to gush their little emo selves). But for well adjusted adults, I don't get the appeal.

Re:The Truth

the statistics also reveal that an amazing 15% of myspace is apparently 69 years old.

Re:Or faking their age

It used to be that you had to say you were under 16 to make your page private. Now that you can control that separately, many people no longer need to pretend to be 14.

Re:Or faking their age

Well, I think its quite possible that the raw uglyness of Myspace pages caught up with people.

I think I've been to myspace maybe half a dozen times in total. I find the layout of most pages visually offensive. Useless sensory overload.

Teens look for a community of their own. They find one, build it, make it good, then the corporations move in to make money off of it. That lasts for a while, then the corporations eventually destroy it. Good example: Rap. I could come up with more.

proves the point.....

Thus proving:

Myspace: For 14 year old girls and the 40 year old men that love them

(don't know where i heard this , so i don't take credit)

I'm doubt these statistics are correct...

I'm pretty sure the large number of teanie boppers that register as 99 years old to avoid stalkers, creeps, and weirdos may have thrown the statistics off just a little bit. And then you have the crowd that thinks it's funny to be "69" years old. Although, the article is correct when it states that the user base is getting older. I'm surprised to find out how many older coworkers have myspace accounts now. It's definately hitting critical mass as a cultural phenomenon.

Re:I'm doubt these statistics are correct...

A friend of mine is a comic book artist, and one night I was hanging around with some of his sequential art friends--ranging from underground comic artists to DC/Marvel artists who have drawn stuff you'd recognize--and almost all of them had myspace sites to connect with their fan bases.

Between that and movies (myspace.com/moviename), it's pretty amazing to see how that service has become mainstreamed and co-opted by the adult/business world.

Remember, girls ...

I'm pretty sure the large number of teanie boppers that register as 99 years old to avoid stalkers, creeps, and weirdos may have thrown the statistics off just a little bit.

Remember, girls, if you try to project a highly sexual image to the world, that only teenaged boys will look and be interested. Anybody over 20 who's attention you catch is a "stalker, creep, and weirdo".

This idea's pretty weird, yet millions of kids seem to believe it ...

because its so yesterday

My daughter actually told me that mySpace is for "old people and loosers" I guess they have all moved on to a new site that is more of the same but fits this weeks definition of cool and edgy. Nothing new here, remember being in college when it was cool to like a band until other people did...then they were sell outs regardless of whether the music changed or not.

Re:because its so yesterday

Except your method just makes you into a looser and an ass in your childs' eyes.

Dont listen to this guy, your kids will see right through it. He is right in one respect though - teens want their own area in which to interact. You keep following them to all their places, whether online or in real life, and they'll keep looking for new places.

Re:because its so yesterday

Yes, the segregation of the children from the traditional family unit is certainly one of the most valuable modern tools in the arsenal of the profit-minded corporation. It rather puts one in mind of lions hunting herds across the savannah - seperate the weak and young, then feed on them...

Re:because its so yesterday

That was my first thought when I saw the headline. I don't really talk to teenagers these days, so I don't know about MySpace, but some time ago I read about somebody's "theory of cool" (I can't remember where) that seemed pretty accurate. The idea is that there are stages that pretty much everything "cool" goes through, and it went something like this:

1. First it's underground. Practically nobody knows about it, but the people who know about it are the "cool kids".
2. The other kids start finding out about it, and it becomes generally known as "cool". By this time, most of the "cool kids" have actually already moved on to something else
3. It starts popping up in the mainstream, and then even the geeky kids know about it. The cool kids have already left, and most of the regular kids start leaving because the inclusion of geeky kids means it's not cool anymore.
4. Finally, when it hasn't been cool for months, parents, and older people in general, start figuring it out. It might appeal to them, or it might not, but this is the stage where your Grandpa tries to rap because he thinks it's funny.
5. Every now and then the whole things starts up again 10 or 20 years later when a new generation of cool kids take it up, and it becomes "retro".

I knew MySpace was heading in this direction, but there's one thing that might save it. Apparently it started out as a place for musicians and became a general social networking site, and as it has become less cool, it seems to be reverting to a place for musicians... And there it might continue to eek out enough profits to get by. But we all knew it wouldn't stay the cool place forever.

I've wondered, in fact, if this might become a new business model in the new internet economy. A "hit of the moment with planned obsolescence". It seems to me that everything cool dies off, and internet fads spike quickly and then degrade. The key might be that, instead of planning to continue growing at ridiculous speeds, these sites might figure out how to squeeze everything they can out of the spike, and then degrade gracefully, either without any great loss or, if they're lucky, to become a minor fixture on the net.

On the other hand, I guess there's no incentive to do that. From the point of view of the owners, it's better to sell during the spike for a ridiculously high price, and let someone else deal with trying to keep the growth rate up on the now "uncool" venture. First Napster, now MySpace, next up, YouTube.

Wait, wait, wait. You mean rap...

...isn't cool anymore? Just because I'm a 40+ year old white guy who raps an obscene, extended version of "The Ballad of the Beverly Hillbillies" explaining in detail the relationship between Ellie Mae and all those animals and thinks I'm being funny while I do it, we've reached the point where rap isn't cool?

Damn it all to hell.

I worked hard on that song. A couple of drunk crowds at comedy clubs have loved at it. I guess now I'll have to ditch it from the act.

Damn.

What a double-standard

So, let me see if I understand the way this thread is running:

Kid's hanging out of MySpace are just being kids, but middle aged adults are predetors and/or lying about their age? is that about right?

What is this, the modern interpretation of "never trust anyone over 30 years old"? Some us "old timers" still enjoy meeting new people from time to time.

When I initially saw the article I thought, "cool, people my age, maybe I'll set up an account". This thread has been kinda depressing.

Maybe....just maybe...the notion of networking with people across the internet is becoming a more mainstream idea. This is kind of reminiscent of an old gopher site called "occ" which I used to use for job hunting. Nowadays, it's a web site called "Monster", and one of serveral such sites. Like many others, I maintain an online resume as a matter of course.

It could be that social networking sites are evolving to the same level.

I'd like to know how they measure age

Supposedly, this company has some method of telling the age of a person based on their MySpace profile. I'm guessing it involves voodoo.

Or maybe they just assume that everyone who likes Norwegian black metal is 14 years old, everyone who likes Neil Diamond is 57, and everyone else is 39.

This just in...

Today, it was discovered Myspace seems to extend life! A recent study today found that there are at least 100,000 people on the site that are reportedly 99 years old. This number of older people seems to indicate that all the 99 year old people in the world are either using Myspace, or it is extending life to that age.

Tom had no comment other than to say that he's your friend.

Dear God!

This can only mean one thing: MySpace users are aging at a faster rate than the rest of us.

We should look into this. Is there something about ugly HTML that increases the human rate of aging? This really demands further study.

Old Age

I guess I'm one of them. I put up a MySpace page a few months ago, trying to locate people for planning a 20th high school reunion. I've actually found more of my classmates at MySpace than at any other site on the 'net.

Will somebody, please..

..think of the adults!!

Re:Seriously...

They are starting to realize it's uselessness and dangers.

Comeon. Give me a break...as annoying as a lot of myspace users may be the service sure isn't useless, and it's only as dangerous as the user will allow it to be. It *is* a good way to stay in touch and find people you may have been friends wtih in the past but don't have any other means of communication between...and being in a band (I am) you cannot do *anything* anymore without a myspace account. It's very very handy to promote directly to people that want to know about you, provided you don't just blanket add everyone you can. Used correctly Myspace is a very good tool for a number of things.