I think we should bring back MySpace top eight
Summary
A straphanger makes the case for resurrecting MySpace's top eight feature, arguing it would actually reduce social drama rather than create it. His logic? We're already ranking friends constantly through wedding invites, birthday parties, and text response times. "Your wedding is like your MySpace top 100," he points out. Kareem initially balks at the chaos this would unleash, but the rider insists people are already being passive aggressive about friendships anyway. Better to be transparent about it. The conversation spirals into nostalgia for MySpace's gloriously messy aesthetic, complete with pink leopard print backgrounds and auto-playing Jeffree Star songs. Modern social media feels sanitized and corporate while people still act nasty to each other. Bring back the mess.
Full Transcript
So, what's your take? I think we should bring back MySpace top eight.
100% disagree. I'm sorry, King. I don't need to know. I don't need to know.
First of all, I feel like we have to explain what that is for young, young people who aren't millennials. Well, imagine if you had Instagram right now and you could pin to your profile your top eight friends.
Yeah. In order. And everyone in the world can see it.
Yeah.
This man wants to bring it back.
Okay. But the reason is, so it was big when I was in middle school and obviously like, cause drama if somebody was on yours but you weren't on theirs. Whatever. But the thing is, like, we're having to do this all the time anyway. How—your wedding is like your MySpace top 100. Your birthday party is your MySpace top 10.
Yes.
And actually, I think this would be a tool of peace if used correctly. You got the inner circle and then you got the outer circle and you got the outer outer circle.
Totally.
But I consider everyone that I meet a close personal friend.
So if I'm having a birthday party— Everyone here is invited. But then you actually can't do that.
No, no, I can't. So then I have to make it the top eight.
Ah, this is gonna cause a lot of problems. I think that anyone who would use it in a, in like a petty passive aggressive way is already doing passive aggressive things to communicate to their friends that they're like moving up or down in a kind of like mental ranking. Like, people are just like taking slower to respond to a text or being like sort of cold to you instead of just like, you've moved from place three to number five.
Would we put this on Instagram? Is that where it's going? I think it could go on Instagram or Apple, like, just on your phone. They're already collecting all that data anyway about who you're talking to.
Yeah, they could do it automatically where it's just like whoever you're texting the most.
All of social media now, it's like it feels so sanitized and corporatized like in the actual design, but it's like obscuring the fact that people are still being very nasty to each other.
Yeah. Versus MySpace era, you would, you know, go to someone's profile. They had like a pink leopard print background and like a Jeffree Star song blaring loudly and you knew something about them immediately. And I kind of missed that.
Bring back the mess.