Prototype Issue
Forays into the Galaxy of World’s Largest Social Networking Site
By Tom McKenzie
(page 1 of 1)Like the virtual universe of the Web itself, the MySpace galaxy is changing and expanding. Yet while the Web remains a nebulous frontier of almost endless possibilities, MySpace appears to be headed in an increasingly commercial direction.
What this means for the hundreds of thousands of Angeleno users who’ve developed their own unique niche on the site depends on how Rupert Murdock’s News Corporation and perhaps to a lesser extent co-founders “MySpace Tom” Anderson and Chris DeWolfe implement changes to increase its profitability and clout.
Since its inception MySpace has enjoyed exponential growth. After it’s soft launch in Fall 2003, MySpace crossed the 1 million-member mark within months. Within a year of its creation, 5 million users gravitated to it. Currently, over 150 million accounts have been created in servers in 13 countries worldwide, and an average of 230,000 new users register daily. Since News Corp. swallowed up MySpace’s parent company Intermix Media in 2005, they’ve kept a loose grip on the largely user-generated content site by keeping “MySpace Tom” at the visible helm of the operation, where he’s still everyone’s first friend when they register a new account. Also, changes to the site so far have stayed consistent with MySpace’s traditional look and feel.
The seething caldron of users ogling, blogging, chatting, broadcasting, spamming, promoting, and phishing on MySpace resembles a silk road in the new cyber millennium. MySpace users get bombarded by attention-grabbing paraphernalia on almost every screen view. Many LA users have fallen in love with the freedom and creativity offered by MySpace’s loose parameters on posting content, installing widgets and tweaking pages. Angelino’s profiles reflect a vast cross section of LA’s cultural diversity. The question emerges, can MySpace, with all of its free-for-all user autonomy, be drug into a consumerist and potentially political overhaul without loosing its base?
Additionally, what about youth on MySpace? Can MySpace handle all of the press and parental scrutiny about children online? There are enormous concerns about the identities, insecurities, appetites and angst of children unfolded upon tens of thousands MySpace page views. For example, in Michigan, 16 year-old Katherine Lester secretly traveled to meet her Palestinian boyfriend that she met on MySpace. She made it as far as Aman, Jordan before FBI agents turned her around. This worrisome nightmare for her divorced parents generated worldwide intrigue about kids’ secret MySpace identities. Also, when seventeen year-old Rachel Bell posted a MySpace invitation for a “let’s trash the average family-sized house disco party” at her family’s suburban UK home, roughly 200 completely inebriated kids rampaged the premises for 6 hours swinging from chandeliers, stealing valuables and basically destroying the house. Rachel’s party caused $40,000 in damage, and Rachel’s mother told local reporters that she felt like a victim of “house rape.” The cyber antics of these youth illustrate how MySpace has altered the adolescent experience. To its credit, MySpace has responded to many of these concerns with some protective changes in the site’s design.
Interestingly, most of the reported youth-related horror stories took place in smaller, suburban communities. Perhaps, in LA, because children develop an earlier urban savvy about being wary of certain people, this problem is minimized. What seems evident instead is how many Angeleno youth use MySpace for organizing around causes they care about.
Huge tracts of the MySpace landscape represent LA’s vibrant, multi-cultural, youth-generated creativity. Over 2 million results pop up when searching on the term “Los Angeles.” Groups underrepresented in the popular media have found a voice on MySpace. It’s an urban outpost that users have created and networked autonomously. With pages like Estudiantes Unidos, Bike LA, History of LA Graffiti Art, CAMS (Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools), Leimert Park Book Fair, Foothills Peace Coalition, Asian American Film Network, CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles), LA Jewish History, South Central Farmers, LA’s Iraq Veterans Against the War, Southern California Anarchist Networking Group and many others, Angelenos have developed virtual clusters of like-minded people who may be physically scattered across the city’s sprawl.
Youth groups and activist networks have effectively coordinated local events and actions on MySpace. For example, the massive student walkouts that took place during the week after May Day 2006 were largely organized through MySpace. Smaller MySpace coordinated walkouts also occurred on Caesar Chavez day and on May Day in 2007. Angelenos using MySpace for organizing emanate from a wide spectrum of black, yellow, brown, white, red and all communities in between. Their causes emerge from users at a variety of economic levels. Because of the largely open format of user-generated content, MySpace offers self-styled reflections on LA that might not flourish as much in a more controlled format. This freedom is tantalizing for users from all walks of life.
Historically, MySpace seemed uninterested in the organizing potential of its product. It largely promoted itself as a place for friends, singles, musicians, families, entrepreneurs and study partners. Recently, though, MySpace shows signs of trying to harness the budding energy emanating from online grassroots organizing. On May 10, “MySpace Tom” announced the creation of the Impact Channel, “a home for people and groups trying to make a positive impact on the world.” The Impact Channel features MySpace generated content including a link to their Impact Awards, along with presidential candidate profiles and voter registration, environmental content, ample room for socially conscious advertising and more.
With US Presidential elections around the corner, MySpace is sitting in a perfect position to send a political tractor beam into the online organizing community. Many organizations have been attracted to the Impact Awards chance at $10,000 and publicity for their cause. This is creating a collection of users whose content MySpace can freely use to draw in well-intended users.
American political aspirants are now well aware of the kind of difference grassroots web organizing can make in a campaign. Remember the success of the web-fueled 2004 Howard Dean campaign before his famous “Byaaah!!!” reverberated over the airwaves from the Iowa Democratic Caucuses. MySpace users comprise a tempting constituency for Rupert Murdock because with them he has two dearly held passions on the line, politics and money.
But, why should users trust MySpace’s non-user generated content? Will it be different than the content of Fox News or any other Rupert Murdock holding? Murdock has a reputation for editorial control over his holdings. For instance, Murdock disclosed, in a 2003 interview with Max Walsh in Australia’s The Bulletin, “once it [Iraq] is behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else.” Coincidentally, all 175 editors under Murdock were echoing their boss’s support worldwide for the Bush and Blair push for war. Roy Greenslade of the Guardian UK had this to say about News Corporation editors who were obediently beating war drums prior to the Iraq invasion: “Some are bellicose baritone soloists who relish the fight. Some prefer a less strident, if more subtle, role in the chorus. But none, whether fortissimo or pianissimo, has dared to croon the anti-war tune. Their master’s voice has never been questioned.” Again, why shouldn’t we question the leanings of MySpace’s non-user generated content? MySpace would certainly become a transformed galaxy if a defined political slant emanated from its core.
So what does this mean for LA users who enjoy a unique niche at the periphery of controlled areas on the MySpace site? Perhaps there will be no remarkable changes, unless everyone finds a new social networking system to migrate to. It’s unlikely MySpace will make any drastically perceptible changes to the day-to-day working of the site. However, it seems that user-generated content that garners attention from other users will be studied, so it can be mimicked, adopted or appropriated in order to create competing content or broader advertising opportunities.
So whether MySpace continues to expand as cyber space’s social network of choice for Angelenos who’ve grown to love their autonomy may depend on how looming increases in control, commercialization and potential politicization come to pass. Perhaps no one will really mind. After all, the site is already awash with glitches and stalls as well as vast clusters of raunchy and glitzy advertising and no one really minds. How users respond collectively to changes on the horizon will make the difference between MySpace either becoming the cyber generation’s equivalent to the invention of the TV or just a virtual memory.
Discussion