June 25th, 2007danah boyd on myspace and facebook: cultural divide
Earlier today I ran across an article that detailed danah boyd’s ethnographic research into Facebook and MySpace, but I don’t remember where. Maybe Boston.com?
Fortunately, one my favorite bloggers (who I just recently found and who is an incredibly entertaining writer), Accordion Guy went to her presentation at Harvard and blogged about it on his other site, Global Nerdy.
The most interesting bit in my opinion? Her research concluded, among other things, “that there is a sharp divide between the MySpace and Facebook cultures: Facebook is working class and subculture, which Facebook is upper-middle-class and college-bound…. Note that the U.S. military is banning the use of MySpace, but not Facebook. They’re banning what the soldiers are using, not what the officers are using.”
MyEvilSpace is loud and garish and cluttered, while Facebook is clean, simple and has Google-type ads.
Her research is really fascinating and I’d say dead on. I hate MySpace because it is just ugly, but I am ambivalent toward Facebook. Actually, when I was in college I even got a page on it, simply to look at my friend’s pages.
I actually didn’t want to get hooked on these stuffs again because I am sick of registering into millions sites that I stop using months after. I have a MySpace which is empty.
A month ago I popped by the Facebook thing… I have to say it is more interesting and that..yes, I am quite regular visitor 😉
Comment by Me, Myself and I — June 27, 2007 @ 12:28 pm