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  • MONDAY AUGUST 13 2007 4:00 AM

Facebook Vs. MySpace: What's Class Got To Do With It?

Submitted by seanbonner

Edited by erin_broadley

Tags: myspace, facebook, friendster, class


(Photograph by Mack Reed)

At least twice a month someone asks me for a link to my page on MySpace -- I usually end up pointing them to a blog post I made about this time last year called, "MySpace can eat a bag of dick." The short version is that I got so frustrated with every single aspect of how MySpace works that I deleted my account, walked away, and never looked back. The interesting change is that at that point people were asking me for the link several times a week and it's been steadily decreasing since then. For the most part I'm not very vocal about my distaste for MySpace so I don't think that's why requests have slowed, instead I'm getting the same questions but now asking about my page on Facebook.

I'd been noticing more and more of my social circle moving over to Facebook but had just assumed it was the same kind of migration we'd seen a few years ago when people started moving off of Friendster and over to MySpace. This was just my assumption and I had little to back it up, so when danah boyd started talking about the same topic I was very interested. Turns out it's anything but the same kind of migration, and in fact is more of a division. A few months ago danah wrote a piece called, "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" where she noted that only certain kinds of people were leaving MySpace for Facebook but for some circles MySpace was still the premier SNS. After a bit of explanation about how "class" in America has less to do with how much money you make and more with who you surround yourself with, she points out where this split is happening:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.


A very important note to make here is that danah's research focuses on high school kids only, as that's who she was speaking with directly before she came to these conclusions. It was interesting to see that among Facebook users, all of them knew about MySpace (and often had negative things to say about it), but frequently MySpace users hadn't ever heard of Facebook. As you might expect people misread her article, pulled bits out of context and jumped to conclusions prompting her to write a response a month later addressing many of the issues people brought up. The age issues was a big one, as was the use of race in her observations. In her follow up she clarified a bit more where all this info came from, stating:

When I talk about data, I'm not talking about my friends or what I hear from teenagers in Los Angeles (or San Francisco). I drive to disconnected communities and talk to teenagers from different schools about their lives. I hang out in public places where I watch teens. I hang out on MySpace and scan the micro-profiles that one can see on Facebook. I talk to parents, teachers, pastors, and community leaders from all over the nation. I talk to people from varied backgrounds, all to get at what's going on. The trick to ethnographic work like this is to understand the biases that are operating in the spheres you study. This is not survey work. This is about contextualizing what you learn, making sense of how an individual is or is not like her/his peers. This is not about random sampling, but sampling until you start to see patterns that are predictable, until you flesh out the domain. While individual experiences are important, when I'm drawing patterns, I'm talking beyond the individual - I'm trying to paint a meta portrait.


One point from her original piece that really struck me was how this division was reflecting in the military. She found that the educated Officers were all on Facebook, while the rank and file troops were hanging out on MySpace. MySpace was recently banned while Facebook remains accessible - perhaps because of who each site is reaching. danah writes:

MySpace is the primary way that young soldiers communicate with their peers. When I first started tracking soldiers' MySpace profiles, I had to take a long deep breath. Many of them were extremely pro-war, pro-guns, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, pro-killing, and xenophobic as hell. Over the last year, I've watched more and more profiles emerge from soldiers who aren't quite sure what they are doing in Iraq. I don't have the data to confirm whether or not a significant shift has occurred but it was one of those observations that just made me think. And then the ban happened. I can't help but wonder if part of the goal is to cut off communication between current soldiers and the group that the military hopes to recruit.


Bringing this back to my own observations, my peers use their SNS for more than just staying in touch with a select circle of friends. Lots of business is done through these sites and connecting with the right network of people can make all the difference when launching or hyping a new project. As key figures in these networks jump from one ship to the other there are huge circles of people following their lead, in the same way popular kids in high school circles determine (often without knowing it) which sites their peers will be using simply by which they choose to stay on themselves. I personally shifted to Facebook simply because it worked, where MySpace never seemed to.


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Comments
Osaka

Osaka

SUICIDEGIRL

Poland

AUG 13, 2007 06:56 AM

i use both. oooh a contradiction in terms! ack
i think they are both silly

OctEgon

OctEgon

Tustin, CA
July 2005

AUG 13, 2007 06:59 AM

Facebook's major leverage is that you can't turn your profile into unreadable garbage.

charlemagne

charlemagne

Battle Creek, MI
May 2005

AUG 13, 2007 06:59 AM

Having never heard of boingboing, I'll have to take your word for it. One thing I learned a long time ago about sociology and pollsters is that any so called poll is conditioned by the cultural bias of pollster. Any conclusions drawn are skewed by that bias, and no amount of disclaimers will eliminate that bias. Therefore, while Danah Boyd's article raises some fun issues, her conclusions must be taken with a grain of salt. Either/or dichotomies aren't intellectually popular nowadays because there are those gray areas that will never fit.

This argument over dichotomies is a tempest in a teapot, but it is fun.

anaesthetics

anaesthetics

Australia
February 2006

AUG 13, 2007 07:08 AM

Considering Facebook was exclusively University based at the beginning and spread on an educational basis for the first 2 years its hardly surprising.

photoline

photoline

Edmonton, AB
January 2005

AUG 13, 2007 07:23 AM

Give any community enough time, and it will dumb down to the level of the masses.

If Myspace could be more effective in eliminating spamming, it might keep more members.

fountainofdreams

fountainofdreams

Batavia, IL
January 2005

AUG 13, 2007 07:34 AM

OctEgon said:
Facebook's major leverage is that you can't turn your profile into unreadable garbage.



Correct. To me, that's probably more important than the demographics of who's on them.

goodpoltergeist

goodpoltergeist

Douglasville, GA
January 2007

AUG 13, 2007 07:35 AM

actually you can't access facebook from government computers either.

and facebook is far superior to myspace in all regards...or at least it was, when it was still elitist. Now that everybody can get on, it's much less cool, and then there was the recent explosion of all those weird features, it's all very stupid to me. Now I'm not particularly fond of either site. SG FTW!

Lyam

Lyam

Vatican City
May 2005

AUG 13, 2007 07:53 AM

Well,in my country facebook it's almost unknown, there are very few people on it so it's not very useful from a strict SNS point of view.
However, i like it more than Myspace and I have an account on it. I can't say I use it to "hang out".It's just a good way to keep in touch with people from other countries I've met.

FreakPirate

FreakPirate

Canada
November 2002

AUG 13, 2007 08:13 AM

goodpoltergeist said:
actually you can't access facebook from government computers either.

and facebook is far superior to myspace in all regards...or at least it was, when it was still elitist. Now that everybody can get on, it's much less cool, and then there was the recent explosion of all those weird features, it's all very stupid to me. Now I'm not particularly fond of either site. SG FTW!



Wow. You're serious aren't you?

ardour

ardour

Ottawa, ON
March 2006

AUG 13, 2007 08:20 AM

I think it would be hard to find people who still use Myspace in my neck of the woods. Myspace tends to be for kids. Facebook is, however, very popular in Canada.

RileyStClair

RileyStClair

Los Angeles, CA
September 2006

AUG 13, 2007 09:29 AM

Lode_Runner said:
I don't know about America, but in Australia half the 'alternative kids', 'artists', 'punks, emos and goths' that I know are from 'middle class' (ie upper working class) background and a lot of them do go to University. Most certainly wouldn't go into the military at the end of school.

It seems like she's just trying to dichotomise everyone into "University" going jocks and cheerleaders, and working class 'reject' 'outsiders' , to prove her point about class differences between My Space and Facebook.

I think if she explained the division as being between those who uphold the values of middle class America, versus those who reject those values or are outside of those values to begin with, it might be a bit more accurate.



i agree that her point would make more sense if she were talking about values moreso than class.

Bronk

Bronk

Clearwater, FL
June 2007

AUG 13, 2007 09:41 AM

anaesthetics said:
Considering Facebook was exclusively University based at the beginning and spread on an educational basis for the first 2 years its hardly surprising.



Totally agree with you.

Even though the article states that Facebook was an SNS that only college students (and faculty) could join (and no other individuals...i.e. non-college students) for the first couple years of its existence, the article seems to forget this small, elusive point when concluding with reason's as to why more college students are on it rather than Myspace.

Besides, they're both SNS that accomplish what they set out to do. Both are good in some aspects and both have their flaws. Some people view them as the center & life blood of their social lives...sorry for those that do. Others, on the other hand, view them as crap and still have accounts on 1 or both, or they've deleted the accounts. I have accounts on both; I view than not as a necessity but something to do to waste my time. Personally, I can live without them and I wouldn't feel any sort of loss if I deleted the accounts...but I haven't done that yet...oh well. Besides, I rather talk about both SNS's on SG instead.

SonOfAPunk

SonOfAPunk

Maple Ridge, BC
January 2006

AUG 13, 2007 09:53 AM

Facebook is MySpace, but useful.

jameaterblues

jameaterblues

Vacaville, CA
September 2006

AUG 13, 2007 09:56 AM

i'm a college educated art fag that loves myspace. it helps me keep in touch with all my friends from school, who are also college educated. hmmm, i think there's a problem with danahs logic.

mat8drb

mat8drb

United Kingdom
October 2004

AUG 13, 2007 09:59 AM

Being totally fair, danah hasn't "researched" this: it is a thinkpiece, or a published op-ed piece. Too many news outlets (not this one, but people like the BBC) have taken this thinkpiece and ran with it. It isn't proper peer reviewed research and shouldn't be treated as such.

I disagree with danah that it is too important to go unnoticed however, as putting aside the military aspect, the class thrust of this comes from the origins of the site - a social networking system amongst university students that has expanded. University education has long been a class divide (one that has broken down over the years, but still not fully), and in the early years of Facebook - we're only in the first year where non current university students can register - that divide will remain. However, it won't take long until it balances out.

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