MYSPACE IS COMING BACK: IS GEN Z IN FOR A Y2K REVIVAL?

words by TIANA DE HASETH

MySpace has been almost like a myth; sure, we’ve all heard our millennials peers talk about how amazing this era of the internet was compared to now, but the majority of Gen Zs haven’t actually gotten to experience it — but this may be going to change! The owners of MySpace reportedly announced that they are planning to relaunch the website in a more modernised way.

image via PINTEREST

MySpace took the internet by storm after the launch in 2003, with almost every teen and young adult in their 20s being on it. You were able to customise your page by (often self-) learning how to code through HTML and CSS. Animal prints, Hello Kitty, skulls, and neon pink backgrounds were the true manifestation of the internet in the early 2000s.

This creativity was a form of expressing personalities and interests by personalising your account in any way you desired. You could add your favourite songs — including songs you created yourself — filling in your bio with any possible information about your personality, next to your age, location, eye colour, favourite movie, or book. It was Instagram, X (Twitter), Soundcloud, Letterboxd, and Goodreads all in one. Everyone had their page personalised to their identity, making it all that much easier to get to know who someone is and connect with them.

There was no algorithm, brain rot, trends, doom scrolling, performative or nonchalant behaviour — and, surely, no pressure to create a “curated” personal brand or persona. It was the era of pure innocence and authenticity; millennials’ first encounter with social media and sharing personalities as a form of human connection on the web.

The closest thing Gen Zs have experienced to that was tumblr during the 2010s, if only briefly, before Instagram got popularised. tumblr was a free space of expression through art, photography, poetry, and fandom lore. Similar to Myspace, tumblr also had no algorithm, metrics, feed manipulation, or over-curated feeds. Perhaps tumblr was Gen Z’s MySpace, but just more focused on sharing aesthetics and art, rather than our authentic identities. MySpace represented who you were, whereas tumblr represented what you liked, or what you liked to represent yourself as.

In hopes that MySpace does get relaunched, with the goal to reject toxic internet culture, the mechanics of algorithm, and return to the nostalgic era of the Y2K and 2010s, we can’t help but wonder how Gen Z will navigate this unfamiliar internet system. Will they survive? Will it bore them? Or will it perhaps help them rediscover the authenticity of the internet — a place of sincerity, creativity, human connection, and ownership of identity it once used to be?

After all, we’ve all been feeling fatigued from the current internet culture of doom scrolling and consuming pre-selected content. Gen Z’s fascination with nostalgia might as well lead us to a place where social media isn’t objectively better but where the users will have more control over the expression of their identities and personalities instead of having algorithm build it them.