Personalisation endowed MySpace users with a sense of maturity, but it also endowed them with sense of distinctiveness. To have picked a theme that suited you, chosen a profile picture showing the best version of you, and then found a song that you wanted to use to show others what you liked, well, it was incredible. You were unique in a world of uniformity, and while it was only a small component of MySpace, it felt massive. An inherent part of being a teenager is constantly reinventing yourself, trying to find your identity and let it shine through; MySpace was incredible in catering to this niche in the market: you could have almost any theme you wanted, and could change it at the click of a button. Facebooks monotony is its strength, as there is a sense of standardisation to it, but MySpaces chaotic free range was far more fun. Individuality is always positive, and MySpaces ability to grant you this freedom was something that could be immensely successful if Facebook adopted a similar system. So there we have it, MySpace not only had many of the features of Facebook now, it had features that would vastly improve Facebook. MySpace is a different place now, but if it were to be reverted back to its original format people would migrate in their thousands- MySpace was, quite simply, the best social network.
A 21 year old History graduate looking for someone to listen to his ramblings. Lover of comic books, movies and all other superhero related things. Published in The Independent, always looking for interesting things to write about...Follow me on Twitter at @samclements1993, and check out my blog: http://samuelclements.wordpress.com/
