I had to click seven different red boxes and surf around two half-page ads, but I just cancelled my MySpace account, and it feels wonderful. I know MySpace is the fastest-growing blahblah, and the founders have discovered a way to electronically wire crack to the brains of fifteen-year-olds, but it's never done it for me.
Maybe it's Saft or Pith Helmet, but MySpace has always been dog slow in Safari. The navigation, the iframeyness, the ease with which other users can hijack the entire UI: they've put me off from day one, but I felt like I had to be there in case something interesting happened. Nothing did, for me.
If I were dating, or if I needed to keep up more with the local music scene, MySpace would be indispensable. I have friends who use it a lot for those things. So far (and I created an account in its early weeks) I've mostly gotten messages that go like this:
Hey! Remember me from ten years ago when we said maybe two words to each other! Wow, here you are on The Internet, and I here I am on The Internet, and I'm talking to you on The Internet! Wow!
Let me know if MySpace is useful to you in ways I've missed.
Vanity?
Voyeurism?
Advertise to teens and twenty-somethings?
Feel better about yourself always knowing "hey at least I've got it better than a lot of stupid f-ups out there"?
Launch your porn career?
I, too, am trying to come up with some better way to use myspace. Sorry.
Posted by: jessi | March 23, 2006 at 01:18 PM