Why You Should Dump MySpace.com
Two of Barefoot's Eight Reasons to Hate MySpace.com
The eight reasons sited in Barefoot's article are all valid problems with MySpace.com. Let's examine some of Barefoot's reasons for not using MySpace.com and explore better social networking sites.
Barefoot wrote, as reason number eight, "You are not an HTML programmer." Many of us, even with the fastest of Internet speeds, are tired of waiting for poorly designed pages with overlapping images and messed up fonts to load. So many profiles on MySpace.com look like they were created by computer school drop-outs, and are as ugly as the pink hair on a certain beauty school drop out in Grease. Really, nobody cares about your profile enough to wait that long. Sorry.
The layouts on MySpace.com also remind me of the early days of the web when new users through bright yellow font on an orange background with a transparent photo and floating logo made their web page stand out.
Barefoot also notes that "There is a whole industry growing up around building a MySpace page." I found lots of inappropriate material when searching for MySpace and HTML. Perhaps Barefoot and I are just old, and not into "bling bling" sequined images for our web pages.
In his article Barefoot also noted as number five: "Those stats aren't you." The use of the statistics on the MySpace community is the most disconcerting. They read like a dating ad service. There is just something that feels a little seedy about MySpace's presentation of personal data, including relationship status and sexual orientation.
MySpace.com Devotees
The most frustrating aspect of MySpace.com is attempting to discuss the downside of MySpace.com with its cult-like followers. Their voices rise, their faces turn red, and they actually become insulted. MySpacers will defend MySpace vehemently.
It is out of ignorance, though, from not having gone around the Internet block enough times. They suffer and do not even know it, that is the saddest part.
When asked "Why MySpace.com" the following lame and inexplicable answers came back as "reasons." The only part missing is the reasoning.
1. "Everyone's on MySpace."
Acutally, no, they're not. Not everyone.
2. "It's the only way to keep in touch with everybody."
Please. In the day of free blogs, free e-mail, free home pages, video conferencing, and oh, a little invention called THE TELEPHONE, it is not the only way to keep in touch with people.
3. "There's no other site like it."
There are two responses to this gem. One is to roll on the floor laughing, the other is to say, "Good thing."
Alternatives to MySpace.com
There are alternatives. There are better social networking sites and options. Break free and run as fast as you can, to a better social networking experience.
1. LiveJournal.com Community
At the heart of LiveJournal.com are personal journals. The LiveJournal community allows you set up a profile page with photos or images and include as little or as information as you want. Your journal entries can be public, private, filtered to certain groups, or be some combination of those options. There is a photo gallery and it's easy to post images in your journal entries.
The page design options are easy-to-use and clean-looking, and not immersed with flashing and blinking advertising.
While LiveJournal is more than just a place for online journals. The community aspects of LJ are quite powerful. Easily read all of your friends' pages on one page, ordered by the most recent post. The communities on LiveJournal are also incredibly diverse and very active. Users of the LiveJournal.com community can easily find a list communities simply by using keyword searching.
2. Any other site besides MySpace.com
There are other alternatives. Find old school chums on Classmates.com or your college's alumni page. Or connect on Friendster and Facebook. Share your life in images on Flickr.com.
Yes, some of these sites charge for extended features including LiveJournal.com and Classmates.com. Yes, MySpace.com is free. Just remember, you get what you pay for.
Published by Pam Gaulin - Featured Contributor in Arts & Entertainment and Lifestyle
Pam Gaulin is a freelance writer, journalist (B.A., Journalism), new (and next!) media writer and artist. Associated Content named her 2007 Content Producer of the Year. "First for Women" magazine featured... View profile
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6 Comments
Post a CommentI discovered Myspace a few months ago and have enjoyed using it. I know what you mean about some of the profiles taking forever to load though. Some people just put way too much junk on them and you have to scroll sideways to read the page. I don't even bother with those pages. Good article.
I despise having my eardrums assaulted by some emo teenager's idea of great music. For this reason, it is very rare that I go to a Myspace page.
I've been LiveJournaling for six years, and swear by it.
Devrie - 1. How do I know a page will be ugly or take forever to download (even on digital cable) before I visit it? I am not psychic. Very often I wish I had not clicked somewhere on MySpace. 2. Devrie, all those features you mention would be great, I had that much time to devote to MySpace. I am sure there are great people there, like everywhere else on line.
Hmm, to debate some of your points (hopefully in a respectable manner, of course), I have to disagree with the following:
html--ugly pages, personal information problem, and the networking problem. Firstly, not all pages are ugly and hard to load. In fact, if you don't like them, don't visit them. As far as the personal information goes, such as location and sexual orientations, if you just leave those fields blank, nothing will show on your profile. In fact, you can chose to use an avatar, rather than a photograph, use a silly word for your locations, and keep all that other stuff off your page.
As far as having to listen to music every time you visit a page (something Barefoot mentioned), you can select an option in your privacy settings that will prevent music from automatically playing. Also, you can choose to disable html in your comments so that you don't get those long-loading pictures in your comments that make your page hard to load.
Personally, I've met some gre
While I think it is unsafe for young children to be on MySpace because of getting solicited by perverts, I don't think that MySpace on the whole is a bad thing. I have found several old classmates on it, and was then able to connect with them in some other ways you mentioned, like through email, instant messaging, and the phone. You can make your free blog and your free LiveJournal look just as bad as your free MySpace too. I just think that some people are getting way too worked up about MySpace, when it isn't in connection to perverts coming in contact with kids, just a general "MySpace is dumb" kind of thing.
No one told me this would be on one of those internets. :)