4 Reasons Why MySpace Was BOMB

I have to admit, I feel bad for the people that didn't get to experience MySpace in its prime, or better yet, the people that didn't get to experience it at all! What a time to be alive.

For you uncultured swine out there that aren't familiar with MySpace 👀 -- MySpace was a social media website that launched in the early 2000s and was the largest social media website in the world from 2005 to 2008.

I think I hopped on MySpace in 2006. I'm so glad I did too. It changed my life! I want to talk to you guys about some of the main reasons why I personally feel that this social media site was so amazing during that time and how it impacted my life. The memories I have during the MySpace days are endless!

1. DESIGN

MySpace was the first social media website I ever had an account on and used consistently. One of the main things that made this website so much fun is the control it gave you over what your page looked like. I'm so upset I don't have any old screenshots of how I used to design my page. What you would do is get an HTML code from a MySpace layout website and then copy and paste it into the code boxes on your page. Your MySpace page would then look like whatever layout you chose.

A lot of people like to say they were coding connoisseurs at age 12 thanks to MySpace, but if you were just copying and pasting things, I beg to differ. Me, I would actually manipulate the coding that I would get on layout websites to change how my page and the layout looked in its entirety. This is definitely where my love for web design came from! I loved figuring out new ways to manipulate HTML codes to my liking and have my MySpace page looking exactly how I wanted. One time, two of my closest friends wanted me to do their pages how mine looked at the time, so I did all of our pages the same way, but I put a different twist on each page for each girl. Ugh, I really should've been getting paid for my services guys! 😂 One thing that I always struggled with was when guys would ask me to do their pages. I had absolutely no idea how to design guys' pages and I would always run into roadblocks. I don't know what the heck guys like in terms of design! 😂

These new social media sites could never. I think it's very strange how we don't have as much control over what our pages look like on Facebook, Twitter, etc. This is why I miss MySpace so much! We should be able to change more than our profile picture, name, and color scheme. How boring and basic!

Here's some pictures of what Nicki Minaj and Kim Kardashian's pages looked like back in the day to give you an idea. I loved intricate designs with a lot of text and pictures on them that included a music playlist, a huge banner at the top of the page, and really gave you something to do! Personality is KEY. Kind of like my website design. I don't know about anyone else, but when I went to people's MySpace pages, I wanted to see something aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I wanted to see a reflection of who that person was. I wanted to see a page that made me want to learn more about that person. Nicki's page design is more of what I would've went for, but my way of designing the page would've looked way better. Kim's was too plain for my taste. 😂

2. Blogs & Bulletins

Blogging was a huge deal back on MySpace. As you may have guessed, that's where my love for blogging started. My blogs were always filled with such personality, and I have to admit, I was a mess on MySpace, but that's another story for another day. 😂 I remember there being fun blogs that people would do that consisted of a bunch of random questions you had to answer about yourself. Very similar to the "tag" videos you come across today on YouTube! In the blog settings, you could select what you were reading, viewing, or listening to and what your current mood was. People could leave "kudos" on your blog posts, which is the equivalent to the "likes" you see today on modern social media. I'm pretty sure people could subscribe to your blogs too? Then they would receive a notification on their own page whenever you posted a new blog!

Aside from blogs, we had bulletins as well. There was a section on your dashboard called "bulletin space" where all of your friends' bulletins would pop up. A bulletin was basically a way of announcing something to all of your MySpace friends. If you were going on vacation and taking a little hiatus, you could post a bulletin about it. People used bulletins for lots of things though! To post links, to talk crap about people, I mean, the list goes on! There were layers to MySpace. Aside from the blogs and bulletins, you still had your typical "statuses" that you could post as well! There were tons of ways to express yourself.

3. Notifications

You might be thinking -- Deja', we have notifications on every other social media site known to date too. Why is this interesting? It wasn't the fact that MySpace had notifications, it was how colorful and intriguing they were to the eye and how much they made you want to click them!! Maybe I'm the only person that felt like this, but there was something so refreshing and exciting about seeing that you had new friend requests, comments, photo comments, messages, blog comments, the list goes on! MySpace didn't tell you how many you had either, so it always was a mystery until you clicked on it, which was so much fun for some reason. I absolutely loved logging in a MySpace and seeing what new notifications I had. On the new social media today, all you see is a number in a corner of the page or something. Yawn.

4. Top Friends

Do you guys remember when you could see someone's best friends on snapchat and everyone thought that was the biggest deal ever? You guys wouldn't have SURVIVED during the days of MySpace if you thought that was a huge deal. On everyone's MySpace page, there was a section called "top friends" where you could literally rank your friends. Not even kidding. So most people would have theirs set to only "8" people, but you could have a lower or higher number of people you wanted in your tops. The reason why this was such a big deal is because anyone who came to your page would see who you valued most, who you talked to, who you were close to, etc. Maybe your tops didn't even consist of who you talked to most! Didn't matter. People would still make their own assumptions about why certain people were in your tops and who they were to you. Back in the MySpace days, there was no hiding who you were close to. I'm sure you can imagine the drama this started with romantic relationships, friendships, etc. Everyone wanted to be first on your tops. So if you had more than one close friend, goodbye equality! You had to figure out a way to rank them. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It was allll out in the open. 😂 There were ways to hide your top friends like if you added a certain code to your page, or if you had a layout that hid it on its own, but if you knew the right URL to type in, you could still see people's tops even if they hid them on their profile.

I remember one time this guy I was friends with stopped getting online, so I took him off my tops! I usually used my tops as a way to have easy access to the people's pages who I went on the most so I didn't have to go searching high and low through my entire friend's list -- so it wasn't that I had an issue with him. He had just stopped getting online for months! I remember he came back IMMEDIATELY and called me a b**** all because I had took him off my tops. I'm not sure why he decided to come back after all that time, but he definitely made sure to come off of that 7 month hiatus to let me have it. 💀

It was brutal when people would take you off their tops or become closer with someone else and move them higher than you. 😂 You could always do the same thing back to them though, so could you really complain? I moved people lower or off my tops completely whenever they insisted on being a bad friend. I didn't care one bit. You didn't have to block people back then or tell them off, moving them down or off your tops said everything without saying anything. 🤷🏾‍♀️

You also got free promo on other people's pages, because if you were on their tops, whoever came to their page would see your profile picture and could click on your page if they wanted to be nosy!

Here's Kim K's tops as an example of what they looked like:

There were many other reasons MySpace was awesome, like how if someone added you, it made both of your friend counts go up! There was no "following" back on MySpace, so if you wanted more friends, you had no choice but to add other people and benefit their numbers as well. It was a mutual gain! How you could "own" people's pictures. Glitter graphics. The selfies and people doing the duck face. How everyone had their eyeliner as thick as a tire. Whore trains (look it up). How everyone had "Fireflies" by Owl City as their profile song at one point along with F*** Your Man by Tila Tequila. I mean, wow. In other words, MySpace was iconic and will always reign supreme in my heart.

MySpace went downhill because TOO MANY unnecessary changes started being made after Tom (the creator) sold the website. Now the site is a ghost town and looks like crap. 😭 RIP MySpace.

If you were on MySpace back in the good ol' days, comment below some of your favorite things about the website! I'd love to hear all about your memories. 😍

ALSO: Enjoy these hilarious MySpace photos of me down below. Peep my posters I had all over my walls.