Tom Isn't As Lonely As We Thought

rgMekanic

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The Guardian posted an interesting article yesterday, introducing some people who still use Myspace. Reporter Olivia Solon interviewed a few people who still use the site daily, despite the site essentially dying in 2009. There are some who wholeheartedly still believe in the site, despite any social interactions with other humans being rare, and the aggregated news being the only sign of life for many.

The article is actually kind of sad to read. I had a Myspace like everyone else, and I couldn't stand Facebook when it launched. Where was the custom music on my profile? The basic coding I could do to make Myspace... my space. While I just outgrew social media after that, seeing these people still clinging to the ghost-town of a website is depressing.

25-year-old Bronx resident Ray Maldonado said "I wholeheartedly believe we can live in a world where Myspace will become popular again, but it’s gonna take a lot of effort from both sides," referring to the site’s users and owners.
 
I actually did not know it was still around online....
 
We should all go back to ICQ. VP Chat. Get rid of these smart phones and get the one phone in the kitchen with the 50' curly cord all tangled up. Those were the days, people got leg and arm cast from doing crazy stuff outside, jumping ramps, riding bikes with out pads and helmets, we could walk on black asphalt in the summer because the bottom of our feet were like 1" leather, we didn't know what all this pansexual crap was... sorry like and old drunk uncle I started rambling. Carry on...
 
We should all go back to ICQ. VP Chat. Get rid of these smart phones and get the one phone in the kitchen with the 50' curly cord all tangled up. Those were the days, people got leg and arm cast from doing crazy stuff outside, jumping ramps, riding bikes with out pads and helmets, we could walk on black asphalt in the summer because the bottom of our feet were like 1" leather, we didn't know what all this pansexual crap was... sorry like and old drunk uncle I started rambling. Carry on...

By that logic, we should all go back to Telex, Fax machines and pagers. Get rid of these cordless units altogether and go back to landline. Those sure were the days, when people had to use legs and arms as they are forced to do stuff inside such as sending faxes, typing out notes with our typewriters and whiteouts. We had to make bank runs in the summer because we had no choice but to to it during business hours and we didnt know what all this work-life balance crap was... sorry like old drunk uncle I started to paraphrase. Carry on.

(having said that, I do miss the days of ICQ somewhat)
 
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Since no one here understand it.. I'll try to explain the positives that these people probably see.

Facebook sucks. People wish MySpace was still as cool as it was initially before facebook. If others would go back to MySpace, so would they. It's not about social media, it's about things that myspace did back then that facebook doesn't do: discover new people and make new friends online from matching interests, have a page of your own that others actually visit, your status updates are actually seen to *all* your friends, no facebook ad bs.

So, not so sad. It's a step forward from facebook and social media, towards a personalized online presence, staying connected, and actually making new friends online.
I've pretty much lost all my online friends at this point, entirely. So honestly I'd jump.
 
By that logic, we should all go back to Telex, Fax machines and pagers. Get rid of these cordless units altogether and go back to landline. Those sure were the days, when people had to use legs and arms as they are forced to do stuff inside such as sending faxes, typing out notes with our typewriters and whiteouts. We had to make bank runs in the summer because we had no choice but to to it during business hours and we didnt know what all this work-life balance crap was... sorry like old drunk uncle I started to paraphrase. Carry on.

(having said that, I do miss the days of ICQ somewhat)
I know you are just making a joke, but faxes are still very common today in corporate and government agencies around the world, and it is still the most secure way to send documents between two points.
Crazy as that sounds, it is very true. :eek:

Same with RS-232 Serial ports, it is still used in high-end enterprise network and server equipment, as well as many other enterprise and sales-related devices, to this very day; while not stated in any comment here, I did feel that this needed an honorable mention as well.
 
Since no one here understand it.. I'll try to explain the positives that these people probably see.

Facebook sucks. People wish MySpace was still as cool as it was initially before facebook. If others would go back to MySpace, so would they. It's not about social media, it's about things that myspace did back then that facebook doesn't do: discover new people and make new friends online from matching interests, have a page of your own that others actually visit, your status updates are actually seen to *all* your friends, no facebook ad bs.

I agree. I used to love the ability to discover new music and browse band pages, something which Facebook still to this day hasn't integrated very well.
 
MySpace has always been better than Facebook.

I miss MIRC, is that still a thing?
 
I know you are just making a joke, but faxes are still very common today in corporate and government agencies around the world, and it is still the most secure way to send documents between two points.
Crazy as that sounds, it is very true. :eek:

Same with RS-232 Serial ports, it is still used in high-end enterprise network and server equipment, as well as many other enterprise and sales-related devices, to this very day; while not stated in any comment here, I did feel that this needed an honorable mention as well.

Why, I loathe Asia-Pacific (looking at you, Taiwan and Japan) for this godforsaken dependence on fax machines. We have a lot to thank the fax machines when it comes to contract enforcement by wire, but I won't tolerate private enterprises still using fax machines when dealing with end customers.
 
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As far as social media goes, it would probably be a good thing if Myspace became relevant again. One of the best things to come out of it would be a loosening of the stranglehold that Facebook has. The current situation with a single site having so much domination in that space does nothing good for anyone other than the people making money off of it. A fragmentation into multiple sites would be the best thing in my opinion. Facebook is simply too big and tries to do everything at once and doesn't really do anything well simply because it doesn't need to due to the dominant market position. Facebook has all the power as shown with the repeated instances of selling data, security issues and just general fuckups which people continue to ignore simply because they think there are no other options.
 
Remember the smear campaigns from the media "Myspace is dangerous for the kids." ? Myspace was a real social network that let you interact with people without more personally unlike Facebook that hides other user's status updates if they don't interact with you because they want to know who is closest to your real social circle of friends. I use to tell people not to use Facebook or Google because they are government funded & it's obvious s fuck now.. I always said it's called Face-book for a reason and what is Google Earth in 2001? They never had ads for reason unlike Yahoo and Myspace. Google & Facebook data mining is never going away and I don't think we the people can do a damn thing about it except not use their product.
 
We should all go back to ICQ. VP Chat. Get rid of these smart phones and get the one phone in the kitchen with the 50' curly cord all tangled up. Those were the days, people got leg and arm cast from doing crazy stuff outside, jumping ramps, riding bikes with out pads and helmets, we could walk on black asphalt in the summer because the bottom of our feet were like 1" leather, we didn't know what all this pansexual crap was... sorry like and old drunk uncle I started rambling. Carry on...
If I get you another PBR will you tell me about T-tops and Iroc Zs, uncle mullet?:p
 
Didn't even watch the video. He needs an at least semi-hot girlfriend BAD. I play Magic: The Gathering *nerd laugh*, I know the type...I see them often. You would be shocked the effect an attractive woman can have on these people.
 
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We should all go back to ICQ. VP Chat. Get rid of these smart phones and get the one phone in the kitchen with the 50' curly cord all tangled up. Those were the days, people got leg and arm cast from doing crazy stuff outside, jumping ramps, riding bikes with out pads and helmets, we could walk on black asphalt in the summer because the bottom of our feet were like 1" leather, we didn't know what all this pansexual crap was... sorry like and old drunk uncle I started rambling. Carry on...
ICQ was great for getting laid when it allowed you to search for users by gender, online status, and zip code. It was the only messaging app to ever have that functionality that I know of. That feature was removed around 2000-2001 if I remember correctly.

My ICQ number still works, and I even remember my password. It is like stepping into a time machine when I log in, seeing all my old contacts dating back almost twenty years. Obviously, none are ever online now. Hell, a good many of them could literally be dead given the long stretch of time.

Those old sounds are still stuck in my head: the login horn, the UH-OH!, the typing sounds with the bell, the door slamming shut logout. Oh the nostalgia.
 
I actually used MySpace for about 2 months in 2007... I met my wife on that site.. Then I deleted it and never used social media again..
 
(having said that, I do miss the days of ICQ somewhat)

I do. And then I remember the lack of a centralized friends list, so if you hosed your PC, and re-logged in, you had NOBODY on your FL again, and they never had any interest in fixing that.

Not to mention the UIN was annoying. (Granted, I still remember what mine was: 7741473, even though it got PW hacked and reset years ago now. Apparently low-ish ICQ UINs are a commodity?)
 
A few years ago some friends of mine had a band and were trying to get noticed. One of them said that Myspace was the place to be for that kind of thing.
 
A few years ago some friends of mine had a band and were trying to get noticed. One of them said that Myspace was the place to be for that kind of thing.

I actually did not know it was still around online....

It's changed hands many times. The last round was Justin Timberlake and co buying it to make a social music platform. So that's the primary purpose last I checked.
 
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