Don’t Judge Me. I Want A Myspace Account.

To start, I wasn’t even on the original Myspace. When people talk about Friendster I look at them weirdly because I hadn’t even heard of Friendster before I started working in social media. I joined Facebook right after they opened it up to high schoolers in late 2006 and I’ve been a loyal (if somewhat reluctant) user ever since. And don’t talk to me about G+. (Apologies to my Googler friends, I know ‘hanging out’ while you’re working from home is one of your favorite things. But wait, you’re getting paid for it, so never mind.)

I reluctantly embraced Pinterest for work, but have found myself sucked into its vortex of brilliant imagery and sarcastic yet inspirational quotes. I stayed with Pandora despite Spotify’s allure because… ew. Facebook will tell everyone about my embarrassing Michael Buble playlist. I remain on Linkedin because theoretically I can just inMail people with actual influence like Peter Thiel, Sean Parker or Marissa Mayer and they might even read it. Yet, somehow, at the end of 2012, with the Mayan doomsday approaching and more social networking profiles than dollars in my bank account, I find myself wanting, of all things, a Myspace account. So the Mayans were right, surely? Actually, no way. They were definitely totally wrong.

Am I intrigued because I didn’t get an early stage invite even though I’m a hip 20-something living in New York City? Perhaps. Damn you Justin Timberlake, will you like me already?! Where is my invite? Pretty please? Just kidding, that sounds desperate. But actually, DM me on Twitter, I’ll totally circle you back on that G+ account I have because Gmail forced me to.

Or is it the craziness of that horizontal UX? What are you, new Myspace, the Johnny Ive of social networking? How dare you upend years of wisdom that scrolling up and down and up and down is how billions of users want to get their daily fix of cat photos and Daily Show videos? Are you trying to restore equity to those long neglected left-right scroll buttons?

Perhaps it’s that insane video that you posted way back in September, you tease. That infectious indie song by that band-nobody’s-heard-of-yet-but-is-going-to-be-huge-in-three-years was designed to make me want to discover new music on you, wasn’t it? The weird thing is, I’m not even that into music. I like it but I’m not dying to get updates from the Kaiser Chiefs about their latest tour dates. Am I no longer in your target audience now? Perhaps it’s for the best. My grandma just joined Facebook and she promised to upload all my incredible artwork from ages 3-7. I don’t need you and your super high-resolution profile pictures.

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