William – your mom used the racial slur. No one on this post has included a racial slur when describing either site. Point?

The point was that, despite the particularly offensive way my mother expressed herself, she was essentially making the same criticism many of the posters had made. The term she used is generally used to describe something that is gaudy, especially something that uses bright colors in an attempt to mimic style. I thought that was clear, sorry if there was some confusion.

Assume much?? Also, I think access to a computer is a prerequisite for having a profile on both facebook & myspace.

Sure, I assumed a little. I looked at a number of people who had mentioned being in college, who were posting comments on a blog that tends to skew towards the fairly well-educated. More to the point, we were discussing two services, one of which was ONLY available to people with university addresses until very recently and had, previously, been available only to Ivy League students. I understand that not everyone involved is going to be middle class, but lets not pretend that doesn’t suggest a certain level of comfort.

Wow, you have a pretty broad definition of culture. I’m sorry but when someone posts a naked woman on my myspace wall with the banner “Its the weekend, time to get F**cked up”, I want to delete it. And what bs if you’re calling that “culture.” Maybe the culture of objectifying women.

Hey, I don’t really consider it my place to determine what is or isn’t art. I’ve been around enough to know that trying to apply objective standards to taste is a fool’s errand. Sure, myspace (like all democratic systems) has a tendency to allow any idiot to say anything they please. On your public space you allow what you choose to allow, others allow what they choose, and then you argue about taste. The post you described certainly seems like it objectifies women, but I’m not exactly comfortable denigrating a means of communication because some people suck.

The point you seem to have missed was that myspace allows people to share. It allows people to make something of their own, to show a video or a picture or a song to their friends. What many of the posters were criticizing wasn’t necessarily the content of communication, but the style. People mentioned pages being ugly, they mentioned teenagers putting up pictures of themselves drunk, they mentioned hideous color schemes and music that autoplayed.

As for your actual criticism. I’m not quite sure what a “myspace wall” is, but only people you have chosen can actually post comments on your page. If you’ve got friends showing up to your page and posting pictures of naked women with the phrase “Its the weekend, time to get F**cked up” perhaps the problem isn’t myspace, but the people you choose to associate with.

Um…again, assume much? I’m not white and yet I don’t like myspace. Not liking a website because it is poorly designed and preferring one that is much more organized is not a race issue. But thanks for all the assumptions and condescending attitude for those that prefer facebook.

Um….poor grasp of comparison much? Did I say that the people criticizing myspace were WASPS? Did I imply it? No, in fact I clearly see the phrase “digital equivalent.” I meant (and I’m having a little trouble believing I would have to explain this) that some of the posters reminded me of WASPish contempt for “low” culture.

I didn’t assume you or any of the commenters here were white. In fact, for the purposes of this discussion, your race really doesn’t matter at all. This is the internet and you are whoever you say you are. I was pointing out that the class attitudes on display in this thread were similar to class attitudes elsewhere in society. I see this discussion as largely people of privilege (and in this context I mean people who have more “sophisticated” taste, people who walk in the kinds of circles that would lead to their friends being on a site with a history of elitism like facebook) who are taking a rather elitist stance. If that isn’t you than I wasn’t talking about you.

When my mother first saw my (much younger) sister’s myspace page she described it as “polaky.” Aside from the racial slur she used as a descriptor, she is saying basically the same thing that a great deal of posters here have said. She looked at a page that she found gaudy, aesthetically unpleasant, and amateurish. I’m sure she would have like facebook more, with it’s clean lines, professional presentation, and ivy-league pedigree.

William – your mom used the racial slur. No one on this post has included a racial slur when describing either site. Point?

You have quite a few people who come from college background, people who are presumably middle class, people with access to computers, people who are just old enough that they can look back at those childish 15 year olds with a bit of disgust,

Assume much?? Also, I think access to a computer is a prerequisite for having a profile on both facebook & myspace.

You hear people spitting on someone else trying to share a little shard of culture that they liked or building a page that isn’t classy enough.

Wow, you have a pretty broad definition of culture. I’m sorry but when someone posts a naked woman on my myspace wall with the banner “Its the weekend, time to get F**cked up”, I want to delete it. And what bs if you’re calling that “culture.” Maybe the culture of objectifying women.

Seems to me that I’m seeing the digital equivalent of WASPs laughing at those stupid little people with their gaudy houses, their flashy clothes, and their cheap, empty, dirty little cultures.

Um…again, assume much? I’m not white and yet I don’t like myspace. Not liking a website because it is poorly designed and preferring one that is much more organized is not a race issue. But thanks for all the assumptions and condescending attitude for those that prefer facebook.

I find it interesting how much the content of many of these comments seems to support the original post, if only diagonally.

Pretty much what I was thinking, yeah. Thanks for the insightful post, William. And the overlap of membership (heck I am on all of the sites I mentioned) doesn’t disprove much about class either — you find similar overlap in any number of class-correlated behaviors. The defensive posts in this thread are pretty interesting.

i did not realize that about MySpace v. FaceBook. i’d barely registered the existence of FaceBook, just figured MySpace was for the kids and hadn’t thought of any further distinctions. veddy interesting.

b) Most people I know, have both amongst many other things (blogs, etc.)

c) The military does not BAN myspace or facebook, they just get pissed off when someone posts the exact time and place a battalion will be arriving. Lame as it may be, it’s a security issue. You can have a myspace, just be smart (though I won’t get started on how many military folk aren’t smart about it) They will prevent you from seeing your family on-time if this happens, trust me.

The point of the original post was to ask if class and culture might have something to do with who chooses which service as a profile, and I think these posts are throwing some light on the question. You have quite a few people who come from college background, people who are presumably middle class, people with access to computers, people who are just old enough that they can look back at those childish 15 year olds with a bit of disgust, and what do you hear them say? You hear them bemoan that just anyone is allowed on facebook these days, you hear complaints that facebook is letting in low culture in the form of little applications, you hear people spitting on someone else trying to share a little shard of culture that they liked or building a page that isn’t classy enough.

Seems to me that I’m seeing the digital equivalent of WASPs laughing at those stupid little people with their gaudy houses, their flashy clothes, and their cheap, empty, dirty little cultures.

But hey, it isn’t classism, right?

I was lured onto Facebook when Amanda started a Pandagon group there a couple of months ago; there’s something infinitely more wholesome about the feel of it, and I have a whole bunch of friends who are in my age group. There are quite a few more profs on Facebook than on Myspace, best as I can tell…

Facebook came out when I was a freshman in college, and pretty much everyone I know has an account there; nobody on Friendster, a few on MySpace, especially musicians/performers. Facebook is largely the medium of choice for procrastination among my peers. I got a MySpace for doing outreach for one of my jobs, but I never really use it for personal stuff. Facebook has definitely gotten creepier in the past year, but I think a lot of my fellow just-graduated friends are hopeful that it’ll end up being a good way to stay in casual touch. I do really love the photo feature, too, but I’m really leery of this whole “employers are checking facebook!” thing. Leave us our social space, would you?