Myspace as Freedom?

by Joshua Porter  |   9 Comments

From a recent comment on The MySpace Problem:

“About 1-2 weeks ago depression hit me for a few days. As usual, it wasn’t just one thing; it was a combination of several things. MySpace and their seemingly undeserved popularity was one of those contributors. I kept asking myself, “Why!? Why is it that the worst things are the most popular?” Then, a few days ago while I was getting in the shower, I had a thought: MySpace is successful because it gives people freedom.”

This is exactly the sort of conundrum I was trying to explore in the piece. MySpace, in all its visual glory, is a paradox for designers, who, with their refined aesthetic sensibilities, cannot fathom how people value such decoration.

What we’ve learned, I think, is that in some cases giving people the ability to express themselves is more important than the designer’s ability to do so. Or, in other words, the designer’s ability to let people express themselves is often an important goal in social web design.

Comments ( 9 Responses so far )

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1.  Jared Spool on September 27th, 2006 (Comment) #

At a former job, years ago, I was part of a prank on a fellow worker who had several pictures of his wife and kids on his desk. We replaced those pictures with generic looking families we’d found in some clip art collection and left a memo on his desk, seemingly from the HR department, claiming that his family didn’t meet up with corporate standards (of which we had many) and the new images were more compliant.

That prank was funny because the only form of self expression we were allowed was with the pictures of our family. We couldn’t hang posters on the wall, we couldn’t put toys on our desk, we couldn’t even have a desk lamp or stapler that didn’t match everyone elses’ lamps or staplers. Removing the freedom of having your own family was the next logical extension.

Many web sites are not unlike that office environment. MySpace allows people who desire self expression (particularly desirable in the younger generations as part of their separation from their elders and coming into their own) to realize that desire. That’s why I think it has been so successful.

Here’s the irony I predict: At some point, that self expression will change to a different form, more outrageous and currently not allowed in MySpace. That new form will open an opportunity for another site (or something) to become even more popular, and, at the same time, have the effect of violating the sensibilities of all the MySpace advocates as they grow older and less accepting of change (like us old farts).

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2.  coolnalu on October 3rd, 2006 (Comment) #

I just wrote a post having just the same conclusion a week ago.

….Technology and even Visual Appealness are not as important as they are to other websites. Without these, the only thing I can see that make MySpace successful is it’s allowance to users to customize their own pages, to an extent that no others allow to. How many people left msnspace or still refuse to use it because of its lack of freedom of layout and template customization. And how many people feel timid being told that cannot access ones profile because the person is not in my network yet.

MySpace removed all these constrains and allows anyone, even unregistered users to browse register users pages. Also, users can add any objects to their personal pages, YouTube, flashes, windows media player, as well as set transparency and background images etc.. To me those pages look totally unpolished and lack artful overall look. But I guess young people are tough and are able to survive and expand their life on those. Ya, so maybe the generation is fairly “realistic” actually, as contents are most important, over-emphasized decorations not neccessary. :)…..

3.  kathren on October 7th, 2006 (Comment) #

HAPPY ALMOST BIRTHDAY!!!

4.  Mac on October 21st, 2006 (Comment) #

I agree the freedom is what makes myspace successful. MySpace allows everyone to do what they do ugly or not.

5.  onemak on March 31st, 2007 (Comment) #

myspace and freedome??
okay

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Bokardo is the blog of Joshua Porter, a web designer/developer, researcher, and writer. I live in Newburyport, MA, USA.

WHAT IS SOCIAL DESIGN?

Social design is design that focuses on the social lives of users. It deals with the activities, behaviors, and motivations of people who work and play together through software interfaces. It is built on the observation that many of the decisions we make are greatly affected by those we surround ourselves with in our social lives: our family, friends, and colleagues. Exploring our motivations and how to design interfaces to support them is what the Bokardo blog is all about.

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