Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

What's up with youth? Why don't they settle down, get a job, and stay the hell of my lawn, you darn kids!! Aaarrghhh.

danah boyd says: "For the average teenager in the US, if you're not on MySpace you don't exist," she says, just as in Europe if you don't have a mobile phone, you don't have a social life.

Friendster was the precursor of MySpace she says. It was populated by freaks, geeks and queers who rebelled against Friendster's hostility to them. They'd make fake profiles, which Friendster tried to kill off. MySpace went after the people being kicked off by Friendster, including musicians. Music is cultural glue for young people, danah says. A symbiotic relationship grew between bands and fans. The fans invited their friends. They started engaging with their friends. MySpace made the "mistake" of allowing html in the forms, so kids hacked the pages, creating highly personal spaces that people feel they own. A culture grew among those trying to figure out how to hack MySpace profiles.

MySpace profiles were based on Friendster's, based around dating. But because you can list your friends and comment, it becomes a public conversation space. This causes a shift in what it means to be a friend. They're writing not only themselves into being, but writing their entire community into being.

Top 8 lets you choose who your best friends are, in public. "Any decision you make about this are wrong." Nowhere in our public lives do we list who our friends are.

What's happening at MySpace is very similar to what happens in the rw. Kids are trying to figure out status. But, online social networks have "persistence, searchability, replicability and invisible audiences." Kids sent the norms based upon the invisible audience they assume is there. She points to Stokely Carmichael having to decide how to speak on TV, the way he spoke in DC to politicos or in the south to congregations. There is no right choice, she says.

Kids on MySpace are constantly being pummeled by marketers, she says. Marketers want to be friended by teens. To teenagers, email is nothing but spam. "That's what MySpace is turning into." It's a huge struggle. "I don't know if MySpace is sustainable."

The future is obviously mobile, she says. But how? What will it look like? We've assumed Net neutrality: Anyone can build something and put it out there. But not on mobiles. So, how do we take that next step?