i had some trouble posting this, so it is a bit late - i started to write weeks ago and have kept it
in draft form, but i think that it is still relevant. i want to
discuss another troubling piece of research that i read recently: danah boyd's essay
regarding the class distinctions on myspace and facebook.
to analyze communities, it's important to look at the founders and early community members. the characteristics and tone of the site are remarkably similar to the ethos of those who start the community and those who come first. this makes sense intuitively. i've been lucky to have been able to meet / hang out with people like stewart and caterina (flickr), andy, leonard, and gordon (upcoming), ted rheingold (dogster), . . . and i am always struck by how much the sites reflect the nature of those who founded them, sometimes shockingly so. keeping that in mind, consider some of the key differences between the founding ethos of myspace and facebook.
facebook was started at arguably the most elitist academic institution in america (stanford comes close when tech is bubbly, wharton when finance is hip). facebook was open to only users with valid .edu addresses until a few months ago. prior to that point, a school was not added until enough users requested to be added to the index. so, the site spread from ivy to ivy, and then to other major academic institutions where it provided the most utility. facebook is an online directory; it is most useful to those people who need to use it as such. these are students who are going to school outside of their hometown - people who can afford to pay (1) tuition and (2) room and board. when it opened registration to high schools it then proceeded to spread to the siblings of those students, anxious to be cool like their older brothers and sisters. then, when it opened registration to everyone, parents came in as well as a variety of older, well-educated adults who were aware of the facebook phenomenon and curious to see what all the hype was about / spy on their children.
it should be a shock to no one that the current demographic profile
of facebook skews upper middle class. i dont know why the word
"hegemonic" or "good" is necessarily applicable - they're upper middle
class kids and now adults. as time goes on, and facebook grows
(because for all the hype it only has 16% reach in the US), i'm sure
that the demo will broaden but facebook will likely maintain much of
it's "personality," especially for as long as zuckerberg remains at the
helm. not to mention the fact that the elitist atmosphere is one of
the things that makes people want to use facebook. this carries over
into the press coverage as well. many of the people researching and
reporting on facebook are exactly these ivy league-ers that i am
talking about (disclaimer: i have an MBA from columbia. danah has a BA
from brown . . . .)
now for myspace (which has 40% US reach). it was founded in LA, far far away from harvard. many of first members were actively recruited by tom from friendster to join his hip, new community. famous early members were larger than life . . . tila tequila is probably the most widely cited example. she quickly invited and amassed tens of thousands of friends. that was (and still is) the myspace ethos, even though now it's filled with millions of perfectly average people. create yourself online and share that persona with everyone you know or want to meet. people came to myspace at first because of the mega personalities, the bands, and to see what all the cool kids were up to. but then they began to friend their real friends . . . to replicate their offline networks and relationships. everybody is there, you can communicate publicly and easily, it's fun. there's no great mystery, the most important takeaway is really that the site was open and accessible and useful for everyone and therefore everyone was there. people continue to flock to myspace.
here's where i disagree with danah -- myspace is not predominately
weirdos and freaks. it's a bunch of totally normal people doing
totally normal things from all classes, all races, all states. it's
mass market; it's america. it's hardly "subaltern" as a whole. it's
open to everyone and probably was used by many of the facebookers prior
to their years at college; many of them will return post-college. it
will likely remain the primary site for people who don't go to college
and therefore never switch to facebook, as well as those whose networks
remain more stable between high school and college. these may be people
in the lower income brackets, but that is a result of the fact that the
site was open from the beginning, and allowed anyone in, despite the
fact that their email addresses didnt end in @harvard.edu.
i think that the sites pretty clearly sum it up for themselves with the language they choose to use on their front pages:
myspace is "a place for friends."
facebook is "a social utility
that connects you with the people around you."
