I joined Myspace long after it was the hot, new thing. By that time a lot of people had already moved on to Facebook. I thought MySpace was shit when I first checked it out. I could talk with my friends a lot easier on AIM without having to go to my friend’s page, reading their oh-so-contrived and unoriginal status, clicking on chat or sending a PM. I liked AIM so much more but unfortunately nobody used AIM anymore and if I wanted to keep in touch with my friends online MySpace was the only option. As time went on I started getting used to the site. I could individualize my page with fancy-shmancy backdrops and wallpapers, insert a music player that played my current favorite song ever (it changed almost daily back then) and some hilarious YouTube videos because, hey, they’re hilarious.
Not four months later I started to notice fewer and fewer people were getting online regularly. What could be better than a site that lets me create my own virtual representation of my individuality (oh, My Space, get it)? Well that website was, of course, Facebook, the NEW, new thing. I went to the site, saw all my friend’s lame looking, plain white profile pages, or “walls” as they were now called, and thought, “Jeez, this site sucks.” So what do I do? Create an account, of course.
And so commenced the typing in of all my personal information, adding all my favorite music, movies, and activities, “re-friending” all my friends, and putting some seemingly clever (at the time) post about “conforming with the crowd” and joining a site I currently disliked.
Now instead of just accepting the new “preferred” format of social networking I looked for alternatives. At the time a new smaller site was rising in power and was seen as the next big thing. Instead of being late to the party, as was the case with MySpace and Facebook, I decided to get in on the ground floor of this soon-to-be-revolution and around the same time I joined Facebook I also created a Twitter account.
Twitter was like no social media I had experienced. Back then it was just bare-bones and extremely hard to actually have any sort of relevant conversation with people; no lists, no @reply page, no real point to any of it. I quickly realized there was nothing really relevant about Twitter at all. No one I knew was on Twitter, so the only people I followed were celebrities, comedians, and game journalists, and the only people following me were random strangers who I had no interest in and spammers. This quickly led me to the conclusion I came to after joining every other website…“this place sucks.”
After joining the IGN blogs and becoming engulfed in the ‘Internet culture’ I now find myself in my Twitter followers started growing and people (for some odd reason) became interested in what I had to say in 140 characters or less. I still feel Twitter was created for the egotistical who want people to believe their lives are more interesting than they are, but that can be said for almost all social media networks, really.
After joining the IGN blogs I thought the same thing, at first. I wrote one or two (fairly short and uninteresting) blog posts that got zero comments and less than 10 views. I stopped blogging for almost a year before I decided to give the site another go. I began commenting and reaching out to others in the community and sure enough people started taking notice of my blogs. And now just about a year after I started posting regularly the site is shutting down.
These days there is no main networking site everyone has to use. Twitter acts more as a hub that collects certain information and links you to other sites, like tumblr, Deviant Art, YouTube, or various blogs to view the material. There are so many options out there and so many ways to stay connected with everyone it’s insane. There’s really no need to follow the crowd these days, yet everyone always does.
I’ve come to realize it isn’t really the format that the social network forms around; it’s the people in the network that matters. Why did I move on to several sites that I disliked? Because everyone I wanted to talk to was there and no longer using the old method. Why would I keep up a blog if no one were to read it? Yes, there is the pleasure of writing for my own sake and I do agree and understand that statement, but we wouldn’t go through the effort of posting if we truly didn’t care if no one reads. Writers have opinions and they want to be heard and have their thoughts out there included with the bigger picture. Everyone has their two cents to add, but without an audience you’re only really talking to yourself.
The community is the most important aspect and because of this we are somewhat forced to follow the crowd. When My IGN took over the old blogs became a wasteland. Most people made the transition, but several stayed at the old site refusing to abandon it. The old blogs were broken, out-dated, and nearly devoid of any newcomers to bring new life into the community, so why would anyone stay there instead of moving to the far superior blogging system; because they didn’t like the community.
In a lot of ways Facebook is better than MySpace. I realize that now that I use it on a daily basis. I miss some of the individuality MySpace offered which is what led me to blog and why I rarely post status updates or photos to Facebook anymore, but I never returned to MySpace. It’s not because it’s “so 2005” even though that’s true. It is because the community has moved on and if I want to survive in this fast-moving internet world I now live in I must follow the crowd even if I’d prefer not to.
Man, when did I start sounding like and old person?
