In 2006 Myspace was the dominant social network. It had well over a hundred million users worldwide and was adding tens of thousands per day. In 2007 it confidently declared its victory over the upstart rival Facebook. I still have a Myspace account, but it is a pretty lonely place these days. Just out of curiosity, every week or two I’ll log on and dodge the passing tumbleweeds. For months, the number of my friends listed as online has been 0.
What happened? I don’t know exactly. Fashions come and go. Maybe Myspace will benefit from a nostalgia fad at some point. Meantime, there remain at least two signs of life on the site, though by all indications the first one is robotic. Whenever I do log on (and typically post a link to this blog site), almost instantly I get messages ostensibly from bikini-clad young ladies with names like Chloe or Misty or Brittany. “Hi, I’m new to Myspace and I noticed your profile. Message me at something-or-other-dot-yahoo-dot-com or click on the link below to see my private photos.”
Myspace deletes the profile pages of the bikini girls pretty quickly. Perhaps they shouldn’t. Some of the fun still to be had on the network comes from checking out these phony profile pages, though not for what the bikini girls supposedly post about themselves, which is pretty tame (the links, of course, go to places that are not). No, the fun is in the comments posted by … well … let’s be kind and call them “naïve” men. There are always some who will thank Brittany for noticing their profiles, and they then will suggest "getting together." They are the second sign of life. Perhaps they persist on Myspace solely in hopes of one day getting an answer from a bikini girl.
I don’t know what the explanation possibly could be for the guys' obviously futile behavior, but I suspect it is the same as the explanation for why we vote for the same politicians (or their clones) in election after election.
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