MYSPACE

> ACCESSING ARCHIVAL DATA...

Here lies MySpace, the place where every teenager on Earth taught themselves CSS just to make their profile seasick with auto-scrolling marquee text and a background tiled in glitter GIFs. Tom was everyone’s first friend. He never asked for that responsibility, but he carried it well.

The Top 8 was social warfare disguised as a widget. Friendships were ranked, re-ranked, and quietly downgraded in full public view, and a single profile song set to autoplay could define an entire emotional era. Then News Corp bought the whole operation for $580 million, redesigned it twice, pivoted to “a social entertainment destination,” and watched everyone politely walk across the street to Facebook.

By the time Justin Timberlake and a relaunch tried to save it, the Top 8 was empty, the profile songs had stopped, and the glitter had settled permanently into the carpet of the internet. MySpace technically still exists. So do a lot of things, technically.

EOF