Myspaces and Facebooks
By Nupur Basu
Myspace. Facebook. Internet. Computer. Life. These are all words that connect to our existence, our world.
How many people do you know that don’t have a Facebook or a Myspace? Few.
How many people do you know that don’t have internet? A couple maybe.
How many people do you know that don’t use computers? None.
At least I don’t. There may be a couple of people in my life who are not comfortable in using technical devices, or they just don’t care. The older generations or my grandparents perhaps. But everyone else falls into the category of “computer users” and almost everyone in that category falls into a sub-category called “social net-workers”. Social networking is now a part of our lives. You get up in the morning and have coffee, then you check your Facebook to see if your friend commented back on your picture. You go to lunch at an internet cafe and check on your Myspace profile to see if any more people have come upon your site. But what is the real difference between Myspace and Facebook? They eventually do the same thing after all, don’t they? They connect people- friends, family, maybe even colleagues, bosses, and professors.. if you let them. So then what is the big deal in having two different sites when they both do the same thing?
There can be many reasons for this. As a frequent user in Facebook now, but an even more frequent user of Myspace back in its heyday, I noticed two main differences in Myspace and Facebook: efficiency and bling.
For those who prefer a faster way to comment, search, and connect with people, they would easily prefer Facebook’s efficient and easy button-clicking, where one can comment right then and there rather than having to go to another page. However, Myspace’s bling was my first love in the computer world. I cannot undermine the HTML awesome-ness of Myspace, nor can I forget my first technical infatuation. The bling that Myspace can provide made the glamour and creativeness come out of me like a glass rapidly overflowing with liquid. Once I got the hang of HTML and learned how to use it, glitter was all over my site. Animated stuffed animals ran across my screen saying “Welcome to Nupur’s World” while colorful links all across my page shone like neon signs against the dark starry background… which, by the way, also twinkled like stars. My page was so glamorous that once I heard the news of Facebook’s new uprising, I was crushed. My friend helped me get started with Facebook because, apparently, it would soon be the dominant networking site. She was right. But when I first saw Facebook, I realized there was no bling. There were no stars, no music, no colors, no fonts, no smileys… no HTML! I was devastated. Everything was so lonely, so plain and dismal.
But I soon got the hang of it. As me and my friends started the migration from Myspace’s colorful childishness to Facebook’s adult professionalism, we realized that Myspace is still, and may still remain for many years to come, a daily dose for many people. For now, I only talked about two kinds of individuals- the one’s who prefer efficiency over creativeness, and the ones who prefer creativeness over efficiency. Of course there are other factors determining the differences between these two massive social networking sites. Only those who have been a part of both of the sites’ legacy will be able to determine the real differences. And who knows, the future may even bring about another social networking site that will kill Facebook’s current glory and glow in fame for many years after that, crushing me once again and forcing me to migrate. Only this time, I will have gotten used to the moving about having done it already once before.
