MySpace used to be fun. Anyone else remember that? The joy when you first created your account. You chose a nickname. You put a picture of whatever you felt like putting. You controlled exactly what information you felt like giving. You added music however you wanted to, like through Project Playlist. And you went to band pages and could actually download the songs if they allowed you to. You jerked around with the page colors, the scroll bar, using and abusing CSS and even hotlinking in the process. Who cared?
I wasn't one those that was there from the start. I recall sometime around 2004 when my younger co-workers at the time were going on about MySpace. I wanted to view someone's pics but needed an account so I got one and fiddled with it here and there. That was that. I don't remember exactly when it took a turn for the worse. It may have been what appeared to be an upsurge of human trash trying to laid and/or stoned. For all I know, they could've always have been there along with the spammers.
People were always so damn suspicious. "Who's dat! Who's dat friending me?" And all I could think of was "Jeez, you think you're waaaaay more important than you actually are, you know that?" There was big stinkin' worry about being stalked. Hey, you know what? You put information out there, you get stalked. Especially since some of the said whiners were the type to bombard their profiles with personal photographs (some of illicit activities) and would put down their school, address, full name, phone number, etc. I never got that. Wouldn't your real flesh-in-blood friends already have that info? Why would you need to put it on the internet? Most laughable were those folks that'd put everything on private as if they were actually successfully hiding anything. It kinda seemed to defy the entire point of MySpace, which felt like a public forum to interact with others. Perhaps early on it had that Facebook feel of exclusivity, but it certainly never felt that way to me. Maybe I'm in the minority.
The change with the music is what I noticed first. Not being able to download mp3s anymore was a bummer. I remember sitting in the office on campus and wanting music in the background as I worked. Hopping around profiles of bands I friended, I'd play their entire music list and then move on to someone else. Myspace even put in an option of making a playlist although my memory of that feature is a little more vague. Then, one day, the music stopped. Huh? Turned out it stopped for an AD. What the hell's the point of a music playlist when it STOPS for advertising? A playlist is designed to play the fuck through. If you need to put in ads, why didn't something just pop up on the MySpace screen I was at or why didn't an audio ad interrupt the music and then move its ass right along?
That blue bar at the bottom got a real WTF from me. I'm not even sure I know what that is. I hated that thing on Facebook and was so glad when it was no longer a pest. Seems MySpace never got that memo. I was typing in a blog entry and the bar began obscuring the bottom lines of my text. Wow, they didn't even make it smart enough to move out of the way.
Then MySpace started whoring out a free e-mail service, which they continue to do so to this very day. Just who the heck wouldn't have a free e-mail account already? Hotmail/MSN, Excite, Yahoo, Gmail... I've had 'em all. Even specialty mails... dead-and-gone dbzmail and Xenafan mail. Hello Kitty e-mail. Seems like every fandom had a free e-mail account, especially ten years ago. Domain's have their own e-mail too so there's also that. Why the hell would anyone need or want myspace e-mail? Ew. It's right up there with MySpace wanting people to download some chatting IM thing. I was sick of IMing and sick of IM software *cough*AIM*cough* putting shitloads of spyware on my comp.
In trying to become the trashier cousin of Facebook in some of its features, MySpace has managed to passably attempt to be streamlined but still not succeeding. In my Friends Requests, I'd be able to open each person up in a new tab so I could look at their profile before I accepted. Now this isn't possible. WHY? YouTube did this shit, too. Now when I went to look at multiple links from the same YouTube page, I have to open up the user channel in a new tab (and that's if the vids I want to see even exist on the same channel) or go back and search the vid again. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. We live in a world of tabbed browsing. Don't fight it, guize.
I also got the grossest Match.com advertisement haunting me. "Hey B E C K, these GROSS UGLY-ASS GHETTO-TASTIC 'MEN' [and I use that word loosely] YOU'D NEVER GO FOR IN A MILLION YEARS are looking for a woman like you." EWWWW. I nearly threw up. If the ad hadn't eventually changed to something else, I would've logged out and not come back. I wanted to change my gender on the profile to not reflect female and you can't do that. I remember not having it listed for a while when I first started using MySpace. That's a stupid option to take away. I HATE HATE HATE gender specific advertising.
One thing I always felt MySpace had over Facebook was the profile customizations, especially where color is concerned. Let's face it, blue and white is a big fat bore. However, MySpace appears uninterested in playing to this strength. I'm still using the old profile layout. I've tried twice to change to the new one and can't bring myself to do it. It's just UGLY AS ASS. Not to mention it has the poorest ad placement ever. Yech.
A musical tone just played while I was logged in and I have no idea what just happened. That pretty much summarizes things. I've written too damn much anyway. Who cares? You didn't.
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