MYSPACE

Have you ever heard the term "X walked so Y could run?" Today's modern social networks can thank MySpace for walking so that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms could run.

- Jose Alvarez

People around my age (around 32-38 years old now) were among the most active users of MySpace, myself included. People spent hours on MySpace customizing their pages (making it a great way to learn HTML), talking to others on the platform through private messages and forums, and finding groups for common interests.

MySpace also helped launch the careers of bands such as Bullet For My Valentine, From First To Last, and the recently disbanded Panic! At The Disco. However, within a few years, this was all relegated to the background as other social media platforms rose in popularity. Why isn’t it the titan of social media that it was in the mid-to-late 2000s? Could it have stayed relevant today had a few things gone their way or if certain social media platforms didn’t take off the way they did?

MySpace was launched on August 1, 2003, by eUniverse employees who saw potential in Friendster’s social networking abilities. Friendster also launched in 2003 as a social networking company initially from Mountain View, California but later expanded to Asia, where it became very popular in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. Among eUniverse’s employees was Tom Anderson, more commonly known as “MySpace Tom.” Anderson served as MySpace’s first president and was also the first friend you made when you set up a MySpace account.