I really hate MySpace. Even before I factor in the ways in which it is used, and many of the people using it, I just hate how incredibly ugly and broken it is. It is one thing to give the masses a way to quickly customize a page and another thing to give them options which create audio and visual assault on any person who is unfortunate enough to click a link. I find it foul and hideous and I am saddened by just how popular it is. I even signed up for an account to try to check it out from the inside and see if it was possible to create something more functional with their tools, because, if I could it might be a good level of promotion for the short films I produce. From the inside I found it a total mess as well.
Even if I ignore the ugly, I am very turned off by the way in which it is used. It doesn’t just give me a bad feeling about the site, the popularity gives me a bad feeling about society – as if I needed extra fodder.
Because of that, I found this article about Mixi, a Japanese online networking site, and MySpace trying to break into the Japanese market to be very interesting.
I wonder if I would like Mixi better, if I could score an invite and… you know… read Japanese. Would social networking sites hold more interest for me for actual social networking, if they reflected a different cultural tone? It would be amusing if it turned out that I wasn’t actually anti-social, so much as just living in the wrong society.
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