06. Myspace with Tiffany Kwak

Tiffany Kwak

We were, we were at a stoplight and then I heard the car next to us and someone in there goes, hey, it's that girl from myspace.

...

 

Helen Grossman

Hello and welcome back to class of 03, the podcast about the year 2003 and all the ways it changed the world. I'm your host, Helen Grossman. And this is episode six, myspace one quick announcement. Before we get into this episode, we're going to be moving to publishing new episodes every other week for a little while. As I mentioned in most episodes, this is a labor of love and a product of curiosity. I write and produce and host and edit every single episode, which is a lot of work.

 

Speaker 3, Helen Grossman

It's work I enjoy doing, but it turns out it is a lot to do on my own.

 

Helen Grossman

So in order to preserve the quality of the show as well as my own sanity, new episodes will now go out every other Thursday. Another little announcement, I am going to be launching a substack or email newsletter to accompany the podcast in the coming weeks. So listen for an announcement about that or follow us on Instagram at class of 03 pod for links to sign up to get 2003 tidbits directly in your inbox.

Ok. So on to this week's episode, I'm going to take a wild guess that sometime between 2003 and 2008, you were friends with someone named Tom. You might not know him by his full name, which is Tom Anderson, but you'd know him by his photo. He's looking back at you from the scrawls on his whiteboard, smiling, you were friends with Tom because we all were, he was kind of like a gift with purchase of signing up for myspace.

In August. 2003, a few employees at an internet marketing firm called E Universe set out to create an alternative to Friendster, which is widely considered the first social media network. Friendster was founded in 2002 and by early 2003, it had over 3 million users. But as the site kept gaining new users, it couldn't keep up technically, with the increased traffic servers were crashing, the site was slow to load and users grew frustrated, Tom Anderson, Krista Wolf and some of

their colleagues recognized this opportunity and grabbed it. They launched and created myspace in 10 days. Myspace was kind of an amalgamation of a bunch of different kinds of socially oriented sites. It had the social networking component of some of the internet's earliest networking sites. It had aspects of an online dating profile a little bit of the music sharing ethos of Napster and early music forums, blogging capabilities.

It was customizable your template to arrange the colors and layout and fonts and gifts. If you just took the time to read up on some rudimentary html, it had a friend counter. So your popularity was visible to everyone. Of course, you also had your top eight to show off where you are in the social hierarchy or who your favorite bands were. It also allowed people to connect directly with bands and celebrities.

Really for the first time, it was most popular and influential with bands who could share new music, concert dates, videos and cross promote other indie or local acts. If all these things don't sound interesting or revolutionary today, it's because myspace's DNA is so embedded in our conception of social media that as the starting point, it seems so obvious, so dated but coming of age with myspace and I mean, this if you were a teenager obsessively scouring myspace for bands to

pretend you liked and mirror pictures to post as your profile picture. I also mean this for a broader coming of age of the internet too with the rise of web 2.0 coming of age with myspace fundamentally informed our relationship to the internet as individual users and our relationship to the internet as a community playground. If you've listened to other episodes of the show, in particular episode two Pirates of the Caribbean, you might be able to put the pieces together that

myspace emerged at an opportune moment. As the music industry was shifting, the recording industry was suing random teenagers and their grandparents were supposedly downloading music on Kaza itunes launched and offered songs for 99 cents apiece. Over the next few years from 2003 to 2008 ish. Maybe later, myspace became the destination for music discovery, as well as a free sanctioned music streaming platform.

The ecosystem of music discovery, listening to new songs and social connectivity around this music cemented around this platform and then they sold it to Rupert Murdoch and it became an ad platform. And that's a story for another day. But at this precise moment in 2003, that myspace was catalyzing, there was another conversation taking place around internet communication, but this one wasn't about top eights or forums.

It was about unsolicited emails spam. In the fall and winter of 2003, the House and Senate passed unanimously the Cannes Spam Act of 2003 which President Bush signed into law on December 16 and took effect on January 1st 2004. The can spam Act was the first national legislation to try to curb the proliferation of unwanted emails. The name of the law intended to use can like canning something or getting rid of it.

A very boomer way of saying, stopping something but critics quickly latched on to the can spam name as a calling card that the government essentially sanctioned certain kinds of unsolicited commercial emails. In essence, the law's most important provisions were that all emails must have visible unsubscribed mechanisms. And that opt out requests had to be honored within 10 business days.

Senators were also required to provide legitimate physical addresses and could not write misleading or false subject lines. It also required accurate from email addresses altogether. The government was just kind of saying if you're sending an unwanted commercial email, here's how to do it. All you really need to do is look at your promotions inbox and your spam folders to see how effective can spam has been at actually canning spam at the time of this recording.

I personally have over 19,000 emails in my promotions inbox on gmail and 100 and 50 in my spam folder and it's only 100 and 50 because they delete automatically after 30 days.

 

Speaker 3, Helen Grossman

Please don't come at me for not cleaning up my inboxes.

 

Helen Grossman

There's just too many emails. It's so overwhelming. In January 2003, a conference for programmers took place at mit completely dedicated to the subject of email spam. While organizers were anticipating a couple dozen participants, hundreds of people frustrated and angry and weary about the spam epidemic showed up. A speaker at the conference told attendees that spam had become the organized crime of the internet.

A lengthy February 2003 piece by James Gly in the New York Times magazine goes into extensive details about nearly all the different spam categories that the author receives and his exasperation is clear and also relatable from the beginning in a perverse tribute to the power of the online revolution. He writes, we are all suddenly getting the same mail, whether it's the Viagra email or the free vacations, free girls with A Z get rich quick schemes or the Nigerian princes.

The early two thousands were awash in spam messages and 2003 was a breaking point. Perhaps it could have been the end of unwanted impersonal emails. But we all know that corporations usually went out in the end. And as a former marketer myself with years of mail, Chimp and Cleo and whatever other inane email marketing platforms under my belt, it's really easy to skirt the spam filters and follow the law in the most evasive way possible.

So while the internet was opening up these opportunities for genuine social connection and interactivity, the floodgates were open for more nefarious players who according to James Flake, the author of the New York Times magazine piece often present themselves as people named Buffy or Suspiciously as James also no more constipation 68487 and UG 586 miz five W at MS N dot com. The internet in 2003 was a weird and wild place. Its legs still growing its identity still forming

this week. I spoke with Tiffany GUK, who in 2003 was a teenager growing up in Lawrence, Kansas experiencing the world outside of her hometown through forums, message boards and her own online scenes that she created. She also in the mid two thousands was very active and popular on myspace as you'll hear. So, here's my conversation with Tiffany Kwak, a Caucasian without the cock A K A that girl from myspace. I hope you enjoy.

...

 

Tiffany Kwak

Oh my gosh. Hello. My name is Tiffany in 2003. I was in high school in a place called Lawrence Kansas. It is a college town in the middle of nowhere. I was on the internet.

 

Speaker 3

What were your memories of the early internet if you were on the internet? Not three?

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

What were sort of like, what are the memories that come to you at that time when you're young?

 

Tiffany Kwak

You just want to talk to people, you want to learn more about the world and yourself. I, I really have a memory of being on this message board called Mad Rat Hair where it was literally just people who were posting about like cool haircuts very, you know, in the scene, haircut, crazy hairstyles that were like, you know, proto hipster hairstyles, right?

And so those threads are really interesting because I always wanted to emulate a lot of the things that were on there. And so a lot of that was just like posting about cool ways to dye your hair, cool cuts, you know, and then it was like, what shows would you go to? and just kind of posting, posting anything and everything around that. And then I also used to be on like the Backstreet Boys message board.

So like, not even like in the scene, the cool scene, quote unquote, so to speak. But like, I just remember being on those message boards and that was like particular to like the fandom where we talked about like different songs, our favorite Backstreet Boy. But then I also remember there was like a different message board that I would like peek into. I think it was related to like pop punk. It was like a pop punk message board and there was the craziest debate about Avril Levine. Like

that was something that like this thread was like giant and it was a debate about whether or not a Levine was a poser or not. And I just remember like that for some reason, like that specific thread was something that I apparently had very strong feelings about because I would check on it. I see the debate happening. But that also is just like a really early memory of just like people being so fiercely passionate about like defending pop punk against newcomers and like musicians.

 

Speaker 3

But the idea of a poser feels very early thousands like that word isn't something that we hear a lot anymore, but it feels very attached to that, to that era.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

Do you remember making a myspace profile and sort of how that came into your, into your world being online, being on these like live journal sites, you know, just where you're constantly online reading other people's like profiles.

 

Tiffany Kwak

I definitely feel like I found it through one of those channels. And I was super excited. It was, you know, it was a chance for me to this idea of like creating a profile, kind of customizing it, showing off who you are friends with was like, OK, that's cool. Like I, I want in on this. And so I just remember like being able to just customize my page, like learning rudimentary like html and like just being that kid of I want this to look cool.

I remember having like a block party, like the band block party song, quote in there somewhere. I, you know, my, my user name or display name was Caucasian minus the cock. And I think that was like, that was also a big highlight where people would be like, that's your user name like, yes, OK. That's amazing. So it worked out, it worked in a lot of layers for me.

And so yeah, I just remember my background was like mint green. I love that like sea foam, mint green color. And I think I did have a lot of photos like they weren't like full face shots. It was like definitely like looking emo in the bathroom, you know, kind of like half my face.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, that was like such a classic myspace profile photo. It was like hair cover, half your face or like the mirror shot with your digital camera.

 

Tiffany Kwak

But yeah, I just remember trying out just a bunch of different, you know, bunch of different like I want to be anonymous but still look cool to like con you know, conveying that in a photo in like 2003 to 2006 was pretty difficult. But we got there, we got there. Yeah, trial and error.

 

Helen Grossman

How are you teaching yourself?

 

Speaker 3

Html. Like was it were there message boards? Like I think that was one of the most underappreciated parts of my space that like in the transition to Facebook, which their world view was like, keep things stable and like keep things consistent and the world will follow. And myspace was like, this is your space, you could do whatever you want with it. You can have crazy fonts, you can have crazy backgrounds.

It was a very different aesthetic and a very different experience as a user. But what we lost in the transition was this customization and it also created a generation of people who now are like, I know some html when really we know like how to bold words and stuff like, but how are you, how are you learning about it?

 

Tiffany Kwak

Totally true. And so it's interesting because I think my fascination with, like, learning, you know, even before I realized it was, oh, this is like front end code, quote unquote. there were, you know, like geo cities, right? Like, we had these sorts of, like, you can build these different pages and have, like, your home page. And so I remember even before myspace just like tinkering around with how do I build a website or a web page.

And I forget what it wasn't geocities, but I use something else and I just remember having a bunch of different, like, you know, it looked awful because I just kind of want to do everything, you know, like marquees everywhere, italics everywhere, colors everywhere. But then I think with myspace, it's like, oh, you can make these things look good.

And so yeah, just kind of like surfing the internet looking up and researching how to do certain things. Like, if I want to build a block on this side, like how do I build a block? And so just kind of looking up different ways to apply that code. And then I would say at the same time, I had a myspace, I also actually had a web scene that was dedicated to interviewing like local bands.

It was very plain looking, but it was just a way for me to talk about cool music, find different bands to interview and it was, you know, just my, my first website really like that was. And so that was really built by, inspired by, you know, all of these different, internet holes that I would go down in and all the different, like websites I interacted with.

But then having the idea of like, hey, I love music, I want to write about it. I want to talk to people who do cool things, in this industry. And then so just really was able to, you know, pull pieces together, write some rudimentary HTML CS s to, to get like a site up and running. It was, it was so fun to just go down the, the internet rabbit hole and look up different, different things that you could do.

And so, you know, even now I'm just like, wow, I cannot believe I did that. And then I just didn't think of it as a challenge, right? Because like, now I'm just like, oh my gosh, like, like, where would I like? How would I host this? Where would I host it? How much would I pay? There's all these different micro decisions that come with a decision of having a blog or having some sort of website.

But back then I was just, hey, this is cool. Like, let's try it. So it, it was definitely I don't know, I don't know if it was a better time, but it was more creative in a lot of ways because a lot of things were just coming up at the same time.

 

Speaker 3

It was more diy, I think, you know, diy to it.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

When did you start to realize that your reach was sort of, reverberating beyond, you know, the middle of the country, I think for my web scene.

 

Tiffany Kwak

I definitely remember reaching out to a lot of, like a lot of teens and bands who were out, like, not in Kansas, right? But still in the Midwest. And I think there was one band in Iowa that I was just like, I think it was either Iowa or Missouri. And I just remember they were so cool. They, they just became friends after I interviewed them. And so we had never met in person ever.

But, you know, we, we had such a great, like rapport and they were so supportive of just me having a web scene. And so that was really cool to see. Right. Myspace is interesting because the, the influence I felt was more local. The first time I got recognized I was sitting in my friend's car. I think it was like the weekend it was super sunny. We were, we were at a stoplight and then I heard the car next to us and someone in there goes, hey, it's that girl from myspace.

And I, I look over at my friend, I'm like, wait, did I just get recognized? And he just like, I think you just did and so that was like the first time I just was like, ok, well, this is, this is kind of weird but interesting.

...

 

Tiffany Kwak

The second time I got recognized I was actually at Urban Outfitters. I was shopping, I was checking out. and then the cashier was like, you're that girl from my space and I was like, I don't even know you. This is so weird. And so that, you know, it's like pleasant, but it was just one of those things of like, hey, like you're in my store, you're on the internet.

I recognize you. So that was like, that was fascinating. That was, you know, still within my hometown and then the third time I got recognized, I was actually at a Jimmy Eat World concert. I, I'm sure it was a Jimmy Eat World concert. I don't think it was a different concert. And the one of the, like the, like the guards or the bodyguards or security guards recognized me as that girl from myspace.

So those are the three times I got recognized in public over a span of just like, maybe I don't even know like a few months to a year while I was still in high school and it was just one of those moments of like, whoa, like this is a real website and people, real people look at it and like you are not anonymous.

 

Speaker 3

I think we forget how young you are when you're a teenager. You know.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

And so that is, it is totally, but it's also simultaneously, like, I can't imagine how exciting it would be to be recognized at Urban Outfitters of all places, you know, like it was, and it was honestly that was maybe the most, that I think that was the most exciting for me because, you know, I think Urban Outfitters is just one of those places that, like when you're in high school, it was the place to go to shop.

 

Tiffany Kwak

We all wanted to work there and some of my friends did work there. I ended up working at Urban Otters too for just like a little bit.

 

Speaker 3

Some of the features of myspace. If you don't remember, you could have blogs at the top. It was about me and then it was who I'd like to meet, which is interesting, sort of like, yeah, my, was this like now that I look back on it?

 

Speaker 3, Helen Grossman

I'm like, was this about dating, you know, like was this was this sort of, you know, who I'm looking for?

 

Speaker 3

So, you know, that your blogs, who you'd like to meet your top eight and then your interests, so general interests, music, movies, TV. S books and then heroes do any of those subjects. Like, you know, bring to mind anything from your profile.

 

Tiffany Kwak

I'm pretty sure the people I like to meet it was all like bands I really like. So I'm pretty sure, like death camp for cutie was on there and, you know, like whoever was, you know, I think the band of the month or the week for me, that would constantly rotate. I don't really think I used the blog function like super heavily because I had other blogs that I, I like focused on more.

And so I just remember it was all about kind of like finding cool people to connect to, you know, seeing what they were into and just, you know, finding people who were like, like minded. I think I had Tom in my top eight.

 

Speaker 3

Did you have a song on your profile? Because on myspace, you could add a song. And that was really in some ways, like the most expressive you could get about who you were and like, what your values were. What were some of the songs that you had on your profile?

 

Tiffany Kwak

I think the entire Block Party album, Silent Alarm. Like every single song from the album had its time on my page. That was, that was the breakthrough for me, I think for, for a long period of time. And I, so that's like the one I remember the most, it was really fun to just like have that music on there. And that was like the first time that we can maybe do that. I'm trying to think.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, I think so.

 

Tiffany Kwak

I mean, yeah, because like Meaty Files. Like having actual like lyrics blaring from like a page.

 

Speaker 3

It would be like you went on, you clipped onto someone's profile and then their music would immediately start playing, which was simultaneously so annoying but also really fun.

 

Tiffany Kwak

It's like jarring. Yeah, but also like super necessary to just show your personality.

 

Speaker 3

It's, it's funny to think about when now because I think we have such a specific idea of like internet celebrity and like the idea of like the influencer or the quote unquote like creator. And when we think about what like myspace celebrities were like, what, what myspace recognition or notoriety was, it's like purely just based on taste, right? Like you weren't actually like, it wasn't about created creation.

Like you weren't creating content in the way that content creators now are like constantly making videos or like posting span con or whatever. Like, it was really just about like your expression of self and people's recognition of like, oh, this is like a cool person who has good taste, you know.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Oh my gosh, that is such a great observation because it is, it is so true. And that's why I think it, it's so hard because for the longest time, right? Like I really, I really maybe benefited from being part of a community that was so non judged. Well, OK, people judge music tastes. Yes. But, you know, I chose to be in spaces that were, you know, that had the similar interests of my own.

And so there was like a little protective cushion. and so, like, having good taste was definitely something that I think we all wanted to have. as we came into adult float. Right. It's like, oh, like all these things are interesting and, you know, a really good signifier of what your personality is. And so that's what you sought out is. Yeah, I want more of this.

I want people to know that like I'm in the know, I think about myspace celebrity all the time and like Tila Tequila comes up, right? And like that she was like huge on, on the internet. And so I think there was a turning point in terms of like taste versus like content creation that definitely happened on, on myspace.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

And then I think with Facebook coming on, like things just kind of, you know, took a turn, things just, you know, devolved, it didn't feel like a, like it was devolving at the time, right?

 

Speaker 3

When we would like to turn to Facebook. But in hindsight, I'm like, why do we give up so easily? You know, how do we turn our backs so quickly, you know?

 

Tiffany Kwak

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and I think about that a lot too because with Facebook, there was, I mean, it used to be pretty exclusive in terms of, you know, you had to have a university or college specific email address to be able to even sign up. So like that was cool. Because, you know, instead of being open, there's, you know, there's like a, there's a step that you have to complete.

It's, it's sad how, how that transition from myspace to Facebook happened. At least for me, I totally abandoned myspace when it was like, ok, cool. Like there's this other thing I can use. Yeah, that is maybe more, I don't know, more more more mature for like an adult.

 

Speaker 3

Me there is something about it where it's like you had this moment on my space where it was like there's Tiffany, there's a girl from my space and then at the height of that to like find Facebook so appealing. I like, I find that so interesting and so curious, you know, not, not in a judgmental way because we all did it right.

We all were so quick to be like, oh here's this much better version of myspace. Maybe it was that it was cleaner, a cleaner user experience. I don't know. You know, it was easier to connect with people to send messages to write to post on people's wall, you know.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Yeah. Oh my gosh and like poking, like poking. Yeah, it is. I do think it had to do with the transition of like I am not a teenager kind of looking to prove that I am that I have good taste. Like that was maybe like the turn remove myself from that local community and then going somewhere else for college. Like, I think that also had an impact too of like, you know, how would, how would this myspace How would this, how would myspace serve me in this next chapter?

Maybe I didn't know. Right. Like, subconsciously, I just knew like I had to be part of a different sort of network or community to be able to, to find that next phase of my personality and like my coming of age.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, early Facebook, this is such like a teenage teenage girl, like, but I remember like one of the earliest things on Facebook was that you could see when other people were online. And I remember being on Facebook and, you know, like knowing what time of night the boy that I had a crush on would be on Facebook, you know, and like sort of lanning, like commenting at that time, which was so much more calculating than, you know, gosh, so true.

 

Tiffany Kwak

And I also think like, how we use images and imagery in kind of just in all these internet spaces and places, right? And, you know, my space, I never really divulge a lot of just like my day to day, right? Because, you know, I, I wanted to remain as anonymous as possible, but like, still feel like I was giving off, you know, the best coolest personality I could though with Facebook, people could tag you in photos.

And so for so for me, at least that was like huge and that, oh, like this is like a this is a side of me that it gets projected out on other people's like photo albums and things. And so that was also like the era of like those early Macbook, like photo whatever the photo booth, right? And so, so that was just like a whole new way of actually expressing myself.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting to think about, we talk about like curation now a lot like curation of your social profile and like the sort of on Instagram, like when you curate your feed versus your story and like your profile and it's all there's this semblance or sense of control that you have as an individual over these profiles. But like if you actually think about it, myspace was like the ultimate curate curated tool, you know, because you really like, people couldn't

tag photos of you, they could maybe post photos on your, on your, they could post comments, but really it was like, it was the ultimate like fact sheet about yourself that you got complete control over yourself. Connotation.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Definitely. I mean, and now it's just like it's opened up so much, right? It's just everything, everything is content, content is everything. and in some ways, you know, it's, it's, it's very overwhelming. And which is, I think maybe ironically, I, you know, I don't have a lot of social media these days after being way on the internet, in those early years.

I just, you know, nowadays it's just like, wow, like I'm exhausted by kind of everything and having to, like, outwardly express things, about myself. And so, yeah, it's an interesting arc now. It's, everything is so open. There's just so many different ways that you can post about yourself and it is overwhelming and I have really opted to not, not do that.

 

Speaker 3

What do you think that myspace had and you sort of touched on it? But what do you think that myspace had that we sort of lost in this transition away from it when we all turned our backs on myspace after they were bought by Rupert Murdoch, let's just put that out there. It's not like we were and, you know, we maybe had reason to do this, they bugged it with advertising, the product itself went downhill.

There's a whole story there. But like, what do you think that myspace had? And it's sort of ethos of the, you know, one of the most important original social networks that we've really lost now as, you know, as a culture, we've transitioned to social media as this content farm.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Essentially, it's really complicated because at least for me, I really tie it to a specific moment in time where there is a lot of optimism. I think about the possibility of the internet. And so in some ways myspace could have only existed in this period of time that is so specific to our experiences in growing up with like the internet. And I say internet with like a capital.

I, you know, it was so formidable in terms of how we saw the world and how we wanted to interact with world. And so a lot of it is capturing that sort of naivete or that like optimism around the possibilities that was so unique to that time, not just on the internet, but also just personally what we lost is just like a genuine form of expression.

I think like all of us trying to figure out this new way to interact with each other. It kind of had an amazing value showing people what could be possible. You know, I think the minute people understood that potential and then tried to monetize it that, that definitely I think changed that that whole signature of how it even started.

 

Speaker 3

There's something really sad about like the memory lives on, but like, literally, we cannot access our myspace pages. Like I wish I could go back and like, you know, I remember my last myspace profile photo was one taken on digital camera where, you know, it was the kind of photo where like everything was desaturated except for like my green shirt and the green leaves and the green apple in my hand.

Like it was one of the you know, it's something that one of those settings on like a icon, digital camera that like, we can never do that now. But, you know, or we could, it would be a Photoshop thing but it was something that was so I wish I could go back and find that photo now.

 

Tiffany Kwak

You know, I remember my, my last photo and it was, you know, I was looking down, it was, you know, I had the camera up at an angle. I was, I think I was wearing a blue and green polo shirt that I got from Urban Outfitters and I had a white headband like a plastic headband. And so my hair was like swept to the side. And so yeah, I wish I could wish I could access that too. But yeah, I would love to see your photo.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

I would love to see everyone's my myspace profiles now.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, everyone tell us what your last myspace photo was before you turned your back on myspace and got on Facebook.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Oh my goodness. I should have taken a screen grab.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

I mean, honestly, I, you know, you think about it, you know, like I think everyone thought my will be around.

 

Speaker 3

It'll be here, you know, this mostly affected like musicians, but they announced relatively recently that they like lost, like all of the recordings that were put on the on myspace in a quote un quote server transition. Every recording from like 2003 to 2012 is gone.

We thought that these would be sort of that myspace would be there, you know, and I think it's a good reminder that like no platform is eternal. No, no, no, you're not guaranteed to have your Instagram around in 10 years.

 

Tiffany Kwak

You know, this, this tool, this social media tool like captured so many, I would say important things, right? It's like important cultural artifacts and then it just went away. That loss is huge in some ways. But you know, we've kind of processed it over time as in this platform is no longer a real platform. People have moved on to other things, but there's still like this chunk of like cultural history that is just nonexistent.

That was a huge Touchstone for people like us, right? I'm probably missing a lot of key things that happened. Like during my myspace era, what was my top eight? Like what was my last top eight? Like who was in there? I would love to find that out that loss of the history. I think about that. It's, it's pretty big.

 

Speaker 3

Yeah, it makes me sad. There's a macro and micro to it, right? Like the macro, like the general sort of tracking of trends and of artists and of bands that were because myspace had like music charts, right? So they, you could see which bands were sort of on the come up and updated every hour. It was like a real time you know, assessment of like, what people were actually like, listening to and following. But then on a personal level it's like, how, what bands did I say that I liked when I

was 14, you know, and, like, what books did I like? And who were my heroes? You know, I, I couldn't, I mean, I know that it would be like, I would hear one song of a band and put them on my myspace profile just to have to say I listened to this band, you know, like, oh, did I listen to Pin back? No, but were they probably on my myspace? Like, absolutely. Because I heard one song Fortress, you know.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And that's what's interesting is I remember there was a time when people just wanted to have the most obscure sounding names on their profiles and that, that was like, that was fun to just figure out look at these insane band names.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

And I mean, I think clap your hands, say, yeah, I mean, that was actually a band I listened to and liked, but they were on, they were on myspace as well.

 

Speaker 3

Absolutely.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Totally. Like Tilly in the wall, like, I just remember those bands like that was specific, you know, a music discovery now in some ways there, it's maybe a little easier, there's so many different, like, you know, like band cam soundcloud, there's a lot of different, these communities for, for music. to kind of help curate a lot of, a lot of the, the new things coming in and out. but in some ways I, I kind of miss that challenge of like, really having to dig.

 

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think tiktok now as a music discovery tool, it's like the music is secondary, right? The music is the soundtrack. That doesn't, it doesn't have the same sort of like, I'm, I like this band and this band likes this band and people who like this band like this band and there's a chase that you had to do.

There was a real sort of discovery that was so interactive and immersive, you know, and even on Spotify and on soundcloud band camp, whatever, like all of those things are also curated for you, like when you're discovering new music on Spotify, it's because some algorithm.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Yeah, myspace was just such a great resource for so many different things to be recognized on the street from that was honestly truly mind blowing.

 

Speaker 3, Tiffany Kwak

How do you think that this period of your life as you know, the myspace, the myspace icon of Lawrence Kansas, like shaped, I mean, you said you're not, you relish anonymity and you don't really go on social media anymore, but like think going into your later teens or college, your twenties now your thirties, you know, how do you think that this period, this very formative

period of time in such a public way, like, sort of shaped who you eventually became, being able to post your personality and taste so publicly also opens up to a lot of criticism.

 

Tiffany Kwak

And I don't think, I realize how hurtful that stuff could be until I went into college. Right. Because I think, you know, you think you have the best taste of music when you're 16, but then you go to college and you're like, oh, wow. Like, there's so much more that like I didn't even know about or, you know, obviously, like, there's just so many genres of music and, and all that.

And so I do think it was one of those moments of like, OK, like I can, I can take criticism, I can have thick skin around being judged for having taste. That's mine. And so in some ways, it really introduced me to like the harsh realities of also like being so publicly out there is, it comes with a lot of judgment, a lot of criticism and you're just like, oh wow, I didn't realize that there was negativity around like, you know, me liking a certain band or like people, people kind of

thinking that's not cool or, you know, whatever that may be. And so I think in some ways it, it made me understand that like it's OK to have taste, it's OK to have a personality and not put on the internet. Like what is mine is mine? There will always be people who will think you have bad taste in things and will judge you for it. But, you know, it doesn't matter what they say because what you like is what you like.

And so in a lot of ways, being part of myspace and, you know, music fandom in this, in that time, I think helps me, I don't know, just, it just really helped me figure out like what, what I liked and I had to be secure in that for so long. But it's ok if people don't like the same things you do, the public sphere can be super, super damaging. And so, you know, I think a lot of it is just, hey, like, I like the taste that I have.

I like the music that I like. I don't, you know, I don't need to make it my personality. It is not my personality and it just made me feel secure in my own taste. My space taught me how to just like be me and, you know, whatever the haters would say they'll always be there. But, you know, I, I won't apologize for the things that I like. I think that's, that's the core lesson.

 

Helen Grossman

That's an amazing core lesson. Thank you, Tom.

 

Tiffany Kwak

I know Tom. Thank you for this. You're the best.

 

Speaker 3

I feel like that's a beautiful note to close this out on.

 

Tiffany Kwak

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's been so fun to just walk down the myspace memory.

...

 

Helen Grossman

Thank you so much again to our guest this week, Tiffany Kwak for sharing her memories of myspace and the Backstreet Boys Forum. Do you remember your myspace song or your myspace photo? Do you still have them, share them, tag us class of a three pod? If you have a strong feeling about whether Avril is or was a poser, we also need to know. So, in honor of Tiffany's myspace profile, our 2003 song of the week is title and registration by Death Cab for Cutie off their fourth album.

2000 three's transatlantic. Widely considered one of the most important indie releases of the two thousands transatlantic gained popularity alongside another monumental 2003 cultural Touchstone, which will be featured in another episode.

 

Speaker 3, Helen Grossman

I promise the OC before the album even came out as lead singer Ben Gibbard, other seminal 2003 band, the Postal Service was taking off simultaneously.

 

Helen Grossman

Death Cab licensed some of their forthcoming songs from transatlantic system to be used in the 1st and 2nd season of the OC Rachel Bilson character, Summer Roberts was perhaps their fiercest critic in the show. She says of the band's music, it's like one guitar and a whole lot of complaining the whole album Transatlantic is this Meditation On Long distance Relationships?

The album title is a word Ben Gibbard thought he made up turns out he didn't really, it's a word but he made it up to or he used it to reflect the idea that geographic distance between two people can also represent the emotional barriers between them. Title and registration. The song begins with this joke with this funny ish observation, the glove compartment is inaccurately named and everybody knows it.

But as the song unfurls, the narrator is looking through his glove compartment for some legal documents and instead finds Mementos of a past relationship. The song slowly builds the texture of the track reflecting the rain that's beating down on the hood of his car or the tape deck next to the glove compartment. It's the stuff that made death cub so irresistible then and now the way it's lauded in the indie community at the same time that it's considered one of the best emo albums

of all time according to Rolling Stone. Although Death Cub always took issue with that label, it's a song that you may have stumbled upon in your myspace era and reflected on the profundity of this metaphor as you yourself were learning how to drive myspace was so essential to the music industry and especially to bands like Death Cab that by 2005 when they were launching their follow up album plans, they released the first singles exclusively on myspace.

So close your eyes. Summon your inner Seth Cohen and imagine you've just clicked on a friend of a friend of a friend's third in their top eight. And this is the song playing title and registration by death cab for Cutie.

...

 

Helen Grossman

 All right. And that's all for this week. You guys thank you again for listening. And please, if you like this show, share it with your friends, rate it, review it, send us your notes and your memories and your myspace stuff at class of 03 pod on Instagram or on email class of 03 pod at Gmail.

It will not go to my spam folder. I promise. Our theme music is by Luke Schwartz and Evan Joseph of Sawtooth and our show art is by Maddie Herbert of Dame Studio. I'm Helen Grossman. I write, produce, edit, post, whatever all of it this show and I'm so excited for the rest of the season. So stay tuned and see you in a few weeks.