Wednesday, March 7, 2012

MySpace's Ghetto?!


MySpace and Facebook have become addictions in our everyday life. Similar to people who are dependent on drugs or alcohol, social networking junkies count the minutes to their next profile fix, checking their computers multiple times per day to see how many shout-outs, or new friends they have acquired. Personally sometimes I guess I am one of those junkies, especially when I am bored. Some days I refresh my Facebook app constantly checking my newsfeed to see what is happening and what others are posting. In a completely non stalker way.  
Personally, I only had MySpace for about a month. The way it worked was a little confusing from what I remember. One thing I liked was that the layout really was customized to your liking. You picked any background you wanted. My favorite part was you could choose a song, so when someone visited your site it would start playing. MySpace as almost everyone says is a little confusing I remember I always had a hard time finding things for some reason, from trying to find friends to navigating from one place to the next. I deactivated it because my parents did not like me having one. Shortly after my friends introduced me to Facebook. Again shortly after I made one just like everyone else to keep up with the newest and “coolest” social network. Almost everyone I knew was already on there.  I felt like the new student in class. I did however get used to Facebook in a shorter time than I did Facebook. Which, of course, was a plus.
Facebook got started with a bunch of students from Harvard. Seems like a lot of good is coming from that university, like Microsoft and Facebook. This is why most mention that Facebook users are more in the higher social class. Which is ironic because half the things posted up there are definitely not “high class”. According to the article by Boyd, MySpace is being associated with the term “Ghetto”. Defined, it means a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships. Teens use the term probably because mostly minorities take up more of the demographic and also it is used as a music outlet. Mostly hip/hop and rap.
Personally, I only had MySpace for about a month. The way it worked was a little confusing from what I remember. One thing I liked was that the layout really was customized to your liking. You picked any background you wanted. My favorite part was you could choose a song, so when someone visited your site it would start playing. MySpace as almost everyone says is a little confusing I remember I always had a hard time finding things for some reason, from trying to find friends to navigating from one place to the next. I deactivated it because my parents did not like me having one. Shortly after my friends introduced me to Facebook. Again shortly after I made one just like everyone else to keep up with the newest and “coolest” social network. Almost everyone I knew was already on there.  I felt like the new student in class. I did however get used to Facebook in a shorter time than I did Facebook. Which, of course, was a plus.
I have to say I like Facebook more both the reason that I got a MySpace and Facebook was because a guy asked me if I had one and I didn't want to be an idiot and say no lol I have never referred to MySpace as ghetto though I think that's really funny... I think Facebook had more features than MySpace but the one thing I loved about MySpace was the personalized profile
-Anonymous
Facebook got started with a bunch of students from Harvard. Seems like a lot of good is coming from that university, like Microsoft and Facebook. This is why most mention that Facebook users are more in the higher social class. Which is ironic because half the things posted up there are definitely not “high class”. According to the article by Boyd, MySpace is being associated with the term “Ghetto”. Defined, it means a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships. Teens use the term probably because mostly minorities take up more of the demographic and also it is used as a music outlet. Mostly hip/hop and rap.
According to Danah Boyd, “Social media is faddish. MySpace came first and many teens chose to embrace it. When Facebook came along, plenty of teens adopted it as the “new thing.” In doing so, some chose to leave MySpace, while others simply maintained two profiles. Yet Facebook did not simply usurp MySpace. In May 2009—two and a half years after teens began splitting—comScore reported that MySpace and Facebook had roughly equal numbers of unique visitors. In other words, while a shift did occur, not all MySpace users left for Facebook, and not all who joined after both were available opted for the newer site.”  I agree with the notion that teens embrace whatever fad comes along. We see this with for example skinny jeans. Everywhere you look now skinny jeans, skinny jeans. Can they be any tighter? I’m not even talking about the girls the boys equally if not more.  The article also brings up a good point about the fastness that these websites come about. Like Boyd said, “ At the beginning of the school year, teens were aksing “Are you on MySpace? Yes or No?” At the end of the school year, the question had changed to “MySpace or Facebook?”
“I actually didn't switch over at first. I was using both websites simultaneously. My cousins were using Facebook more, and my friends were using Myspace more. I didn't like how everything seemed like a competition on Myspace. For example, if you were or weren't on someone's top friends list, or if your profile background was considered "cool" or not... I don't like that Facebook has turned into some sort of stocking website. In other words, people know your every move, and for some people, they want the people on their friends list to know. However, what I don't like about both websites is that they make you waste so much of your time. I never thought about MySpace being ghetto.”
-Anonymous
            From my findings, not one person had ever associated Ghetto with MySpace. Either they did not know what ghetto meant or they thought the idea was “funny”. I believe this is more a matter of opinion. Although yes, its true MySpace and Facebook have different users which statistics shows but I wouldn’t go as far and say its Ghetto. 

2 comments:

  1. Hey Syuzanna, I find your essay to be very interesting and I agree with it a lot. I always find myself on Facebook looking at people status from time to time. I know it is completely pointless, but I do not know why I can’t stop. I think the only differences we have between these two social networks is that I find that Facebook was more confusing for me than MySpace. I think from all those profile set-up that MySpace had made my Facebook experiences with wall post very confusing. My personal switch from MySpace to Facebook is just like most of the percentage of society. I felt that all my friends left MySpace and joined Facebook. I think that in society we follow this trend because just like in nature we do not want to be left out. Although I left MySpace for Facebook, I do not think MySpace is ghetto because their functions are basically the same thing, the only difference is the way they express the person’s best interest.

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  2. I love this topic on Facebook Vs. MySpace. It's not that I cant live without it but it is a nice tool to keep in touch with people or pass the time. I find myself constantly checking the news feed when I am bored just because I cant think of anything better to do. And I still never really understand how people consider MySpace to be more "Ghetto" then facebook. To me FB was just the cool new thing that was easyer to use so everyone jumped on bored and got one. And I to miss having a song on my profile like MySpace offered.

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