The MySpace Generation 427
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."
What Myspace shows (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were to surf myspace you would think every teenager on earth is a complete fucking moron. DON'T mod me troll. Look for yourself.
Backrounds, stupid text colors, backround music, animations, inability to use the english language, and much more. I don't think I can express in words how worried I am at the stupidity of the comming generation.
Re:The Free Market of MySpace (Score:5, Insightful)
I never got the fascination with (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Not just MySpace (Score:5, Insightful)
2 cents,
Queen B
Its just more visible (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Its time to let go... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:The Free Market of MySpace (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Why not the Internet Generation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, I also think that the people on IMs who only have local people on their lists have no respect for the medium.. I had friends that nonchalantly logged into other people's accounts to propagate lies, create fights and stir tensiosn up, with the whole thing being a joke they can clear up with a face to face meeting... Some of us with friends on other continents don't have that luxury, and I don't appreciate that sort of immaturity. Not that that's everyone of course, just one example of why (what seems to me) a vast majority of teengers who just use the net to talk with local friends may not respect the medium as much as those who do use it to create a smaller world.
On a more positive note, I can foresee one thin coming from myspace that oculd have a huge impact on the net as a whole. Blogging is a huge topic right now.. and, in some ways, part of the popularity of blogs might be pinned on things like Livejournals. While occasionally used for the typical teen angsting and drama that we may not consider an advantage to society, the sort of wide teenage base acceptance of these might have led to more acceptance of the 'True' blogs that sprang up afterwords. Maybe Myspace will spawn something simmilar, in the sense of another generation of large, widely used communities. After all, if myspace's layout does offer some advantage or revolution, I'd hate to think that Murdoch is making money off of it.
Re:What Myspace shows (Score:5, Insightful)
* 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."
God I hate myspace (Score:4, Insightful)
I try to filter as many friends requests as possible to those who are older 23+. But still I see comments like "OMG
I would leave if I could. I guess I need more real life friends closer to home and less online.
But they reserve the right... (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
Ahem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is no "MySpace Generation" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Its just more visible (Score:1, Insightful)
The parent is a troll.
historical myopia (Score:3, Insightful)
depending on how old you are, should we judge you on your graffiti from the 1980s or what you carved in your desk in the 1960s?
are you serious? you have a poor, dim view of history
you see a frightening loosening of standards over time before you. it is a false perception, relax
you suffer from historical myopia
there is nothing new under the sun, only dumb teenagers being dumb teenagers, as they did in 4000 BC, as they will do in 4000 AD
Re:The Free Market of MySpace (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:What Myspace shows (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Mind you, I'm not claiming that all teenagers are intelligent and sensible, I'm claiming that they are of various intelligences in the same proportions as any other subgroup of society. There are as many smart teens as smart adults, and there are as many idiot adults as there are teens.
Re:The Free Market of MySpace (Score:2, Insightful)
First off, "hooking up" can have one of any number of meanings, depending on who's using it. By the current generation of teens and young adults, it's generally what old timers used to call "casual sex." This can occasionally involve cheating, but usually doesn't (unless you mostly hang around total scumbags). On the flip side, it might not involve sex at all. I haven't examined all corners of the site, but I would wager that most people who use the term on MySpace aren't talking about cheating. While "hooking up" as in "casual sex" is not generally frowned upon by this group, "hooking up" aka "cheating" most certainly still is.
As far as "the 'freeing' of embarrassment" is concerned... Embarrassment is what you feel when you realize you've been walking around all day with your fly open. Cheating on your apparently not so significant other is not about embarrassment -- it's about shame. And on that point, I agree that shame seems to be an endangered species in modern society. Some people think you should never feel guilty, or made to feel guilty by others, for your actions -- no matter how despicable. Sorry, gang, but there are some things we should feel bad about. Breaking a commitment with someone you claim to love is still one of those things.
Anyway, you're completely overanalyzing MySpace and as a result missing the point by a mile. MySpace's success is pretty simple: it's a free, easy, and personalized way for young people to keep in touch with old friends and to make new ones (including, and most importantly, those of the opposite sex).
Re:Not My Space (Score:4, Insightful)
If you wrote such a system and offered it to myspace, they'd probably pay big bucks for it. But it would have to handle more traffic than even Slashdot does, do it well, and manage tens of terabytes of data without falling over. And that's just for the user profiles... Then you've got the groups, the music, the mail system,
I love listening to people who have never built a massive web site before saying how "someone should just do it right". When you build a system and it explodes 1000x faster than you could possibly predict, it's hard to keep up with. Even when you build it correctly and manage to anticipate your traffic loads, serving that number of complex pages is no laughing matter and causes a lot of people to work a LOT of long hours.
--S (yes, I've done this before.)
When did all the minds close around here? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:What Myspace shows (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Its just more visible (Score:2, Insightful)
Teens are also full of fucking angst, self-pity, and delusions of persecution and gender warfare.
Re:Not My Space (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a reason FOX bought it!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Free Market of MySpace (Score:4, Insightful)
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!!!!"
Re:Thanks for your input, grandpa (Score:3, Insightful)
MTV has a huge audience, too. So what?
MySpace also sucks because it's a bunch of self-involved twats navel-gazing. Someone else commented that "that's what you do when you're young". The hell it is. I'm not that old and I wasn't a pretentious, self-involved drama whore seeking the world's attention on a stage when I was a kid or teenager and neither are my siblings (who are the target MySpace demographic right now). For that matter, I can't think of anyone that really fit that bill when I was in school either, other than a very small handful of people that didn't need MySpace to be drama queens and self-involved aholes.
MySpace has granted a bunch of whiney imbeciles the power to mistakenly believe they are all intelligent, popular and important. It's still nothing more than an AOL chat room based on its presentation, population and content. MySpace is a mix between a crappy journal (and god damn it, whatever happened to writing a journal FOR YORUSELF and not foisting it on humanity?!) and a great place to win friends and alienate friends and be a total douche and do things like make everything think you're going to commit suicide or hook up with some older guy or harass each other or whatever other mundane crap pops into kids head.
Children aren't stupider today. MySpace children certainly are, however. I don't care if there are 40 BILLION of them. They're still retarded and anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that. MySpace is the new AOL when it comes to referencing the worst behavior and people of the internet in a single word.
Re:The Free Market of MySpace (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Thanks for your input, grandpa (Score:1, Insightful)
Whatever happened to keeping your opinions on MySpace/LiveJournal to yourself, and not foisting it on humanity?
Hunting Deer == Homicidal (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny How... (Score:2, Insightful)
The answer is that there is none. Every time a particular culture comes up with one, it is only relevant to that particular culture at that particular time. As the culture changes the ideals shift (see IQ tests), and as cultures die out, they simply become irrelevant, historical curiosities. There is no objective way or measuring Intelligence, because there is no one Intelligence, but rather a multitude, perhaps and infinite number of different intelligences, which can only be gauged by how well they "function" in the actual material world. Given that this "MySpace Generation" (what a lame name...) is making the next fold in US culture simply by being the generation that will be coming into power, I'm sure they will function very well. Each new generation creates its own new categories for functionality, and in the process of doing this, in their youth, are invariably declared a dysfunctional generation because they do things different than the previous generation.
Making declarations like this shows that one is incapable of seeing that something is changing from what they are used to, comfortable with, without making an objective value judgement which is invariably wrong, and thereby showing themselves to possess a very small world view which is basically entirely occupied by their own personal view.
Maybe this is why I spend more time reading my friend's MySpace blogs than Slashdot discussions like this one. They may not exactly be though provoking, but at least they're not dangerously stupid.
Lame, lame, LAME!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Gen X, Gen Y, Gen @, Brat Pack, Rat Pack, etc. etc. It is so sickening and annoying.
I am venting, I think the whole thing should be ignored. It's as useless and pointless as watching the E! channel. What CRAP!!!
Pay attention to something of importance instead of media driven drivel.