MySpace revival positioned as remedy to modern social media, but will it happen?

MySpace may potentially make a comeback, proving the power of nostalgia as social media users tire of perfectly curated feeds.

The original Y2K social media platform, MySpace, has been described as the “idgaf” era of social media, where people would post raw, unedited selfies and would destroy their relationships with the “top 8” friends hierarchy.

MySpace is emblematic of the internet of the early 2000s, when things were easier and felt lighter than the social media we’re familiar with today.

While the social media landscape has changed dramatically in the 16 years that marked MySpace’s descent into irrelevance, the brothers who bought MySpace in 2011 see a comeback in its future.

In the new documentary MySpace by Tommy Avallone, brothers Chris and Tim Vanderhook discuss reviving the old social media platform, specifically for the MySpace artists who were supposedly heartbroken when the site was outdone by Meta’s Facebook.

But the brothers promise to relaunch the platform, declaring they are “stewards of the MySpace brand” and “are going to relaunch” the site, according to People.

“We’re just waiting for the right time to do it. And if that one doesn’t work, we’ll do it again.”

MySpace lost out to Facebook

MySpace was once the most popular social network of its day, but lost out to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook in 2010.

While Facebook had been around since 2004, MySpace was still the social media champion until everyone eventually migrated to Facebook.

Facebook hit 500 million users in 2010, while MySpace lost millions of users. Former MySpace boss Mike Jones declared that the site was no longer a social network but an “entertainment destination.”

Since then, its ownership has changed hands, and the Vanderhooks have tried to reinvent the social network to give it a modern, up-to-date feel, but there has been little user enthusiasm.

Nostalgia won’t sustain MySpace for long

Experts are skeptical of MySpace’s supposed return to the internet, and some believe that the social media platform will struggle to stay afloat in this attention economy.

“MySpace’s biggest challenge is that nostalgia can generate a launch, but it cannot sustain a social network,” Ben Poulton, founder of SEO agency Intellar, told Cybernews.

After 16 years, the platform will return to an overly saturated market, “dominated by entrenched network effects and precision-perfected algorithms designed to retain users and their attention, Poulton believes.

MySpace would need to provide users with a “compelling reason to abandon the goldfish ‘reel' life and migrate to a new (revived) platform.”

Poulton seems to think that the success of MySpace’s return will hinge heavily on millennial nostalgia.

However, because social media has become algorithmically focused, MySpace may come as a refreshing surprise to users who want to actually experience the “social” in social media.

“Many users are tired of opening an app to find an endless stream selected to maximize engagement rather than updates from people they deliberately chose to follow, like their friends and family…so a less algorithm-led MySpace could offer a genuine point of difference once again.”