Facebook vs. MySpace vs. Danah Boyd

The blogosphere’s been abuzz over a recent essay published by Danah Boyd, a prolific Berkeley researcher and SNS expert, drawing parallels between class divisions and Facebook and MySpace membership.

The essay received criticism for its claim that, essentially, Facebook is for “goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes and other ‘good’ kids’” while MySpace is dominated by “kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school.” Steven Levy of Newsweek weighed in on the debate, speaking with Chris De Wolfe, one of the founders of MySpace, who defended his site’s diverse community:

“We have everyone from heavy-metal bands to mothers in Portland, Oregon,” says DeWolfe. “How are you going to put 70 million people in a box?” (Facebooks has 28 million.) He also notes that class has nothing to do with all those who access videos and music on MySpace. (Boyd responds that she’s focusing on which one teens use for their core socializing.) [Co-founder] Tom Anderson adds that people go to MySpace for the freedom to design their page the way they want it, while Facebook’s more stringent template enforces a spartan design ethic. But Boyd argues that the difference in style may help separate the snobs from the proles. Upscalers like Facebook’s clean style, she says, while the nonelites prefer the blinglike cacophony that is MySpace.”

Boyd’s controversial conclusion is easy to dismiss as reductive and over- generalizing. But it would be foolish to claim that SNSes are not geared towards certain niches and audiences and, therefore, more popular among some and not others (site advertisers depend on this). Facebook started off as an exclusive site for ivy leaguers and a few select others, and MySpace was one of the first SNSes to offer profile customization and band pages. So the differences in membership seem, in some ways, built into the design and intention of both sites. These points seem obvious, but once the notion of ‘class distinction’ is thrown in there, everyone seems to get a bit more touchy.

Newsweek: Social Networking And Class Warfare