Start narrowing down your Top 8 and finding a melodramatic song that speaks to your moment, because the platform that truly set the social media wave into motion — MySpace — is cresting for a comeback.
MySpace was the website at the center of the millennial internet experience in the 2000s (115 million monthly visitors in 2008). It was defined by highly customizable HTML and vibrant profiles and personal profile songs, a somewhat juvenile “top friends” list, “duck face” selfies, everyone’s first friend “Tom,” blogging and an emphasis both on interactions with close friends and offering a useful tool for finding new and obscure music at all levels.
Founded in 2003, by 2006 MySpace was the most visited site in the U.S., before the “more mature” perception of a then fledgling Facebook crashed the party in the late 2000s.
Now, current brand owner Viant Technology — which became the platform’s fifth leadership team as it rapidly faded from prominence in 2011 — is planning a detail-light return with its second relaunch attempt since 2013, it announced in the 2026 documentary “Myspace.”
Millennials on the North Shore on Thursday were already waxing nostalgic.
“As an elder millennial mom, it was such a simpler time in my life in general, prekids, less worries. I feel like the world was simpler,” said Alia Beaver, 38, of Bloomfield. “So I’m excited for a little blast from the past.”
Her first question was echoed among those whose reactions ranged from raised eyebrows to instantaneously wide smiles: “Will I have access to my original page?”
“I would love to see what my page looked like, what songs that I had on there. I was full-blown coding at 17 years old, somehow,” she said with a laugh. “So I would love to go back in time and see that exact profile.”
Unfortunately, that option won’t be on the table if and when the reboot happens at a date still to be announced.
The site never went away, but did eventually transform into a more barebones music and music news site. And in 2019, as an unintended result, the collective memory of a generation that uploaded content — ranging from bedroom-penned songs and storytelling blogs to inside joke-laden comments and transportive photos — prior to 2016 was erased in a server migration issue.
For many, however, excitement about its return centers as much on what features its return might exclude as include.
“Excitement about MySpace’s relaunch reflects nostalgia for a more analog time, when algorithms were less dominant in our lives,” said Kate Winick, a principal analyst at Forrester, in a recent interview with CNBC. “We’re seeing this in recent moves by both brands and users toward smaller, more private social experiences that feel less built for the algorithm and more personal to the individual user, like the explosion of growth on Substack and private communities on Discord.”
Major platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X are increasingly overrun by steering suggestions, AI slop, self-aggrandizing influencers and elevated misinformation that didn’t exist to the same extent in MySpace’s heyday. Meanwhile, global social media use has been steadily declining since peaking in 2022, according to an analysis by the Financial Times and GWI.
If MySpace plans on bringing familiar millennials back into the fold, its objectives will be clear beyond reenergizing advertising demand that dried up rapidly as advertisers shifted spending to Facebook.
“MySpace was really fun when it was a thing. And if it comes back kind of in the same state it was before, then maybe it will be awesome,” said Halle Powell, 31, of Fineview. “But will it? Will there be forced AI integration like there is with everything nowadays? Will it be just another platform for people to be negative and unpleasant to each other like every other social media platform? Who knows? I’m interested to see how it turns out.”
She hopes it feels smaller and more policed.
“I think I would want to see a return to a very close-knit concept of social media, your immediate circle,” said Powell. “I would definitely want to see steps back from the forced AI integration of everything. I’m personally sick and tired of AI and it being forced down our throats. And I would want to see very strict moderation policies. I think a lot of social media websites have really let lax their moderation policies and you can get away with saying almost anything on the internet with no consequences.”
Beaver spoke to the revaluing of accurate information.
“The issue with so much information is that you kind of desensitize yourself and you don’t trust or believe in anything, which is kind of unfortunate … If something was truly filtered and you could trust or rely on it that would be really helpful, so I don’t just disregard all information,” she said. “If that is their plan, then I would like that, for them to do all the fact-checking for me because I don’t have time. I think that would be a cool angle for them.”
Steven Adobasio, 26, of Texas was too young to use MySpace but also finds himself interested in the idea of deemphasizing AI — and to a lesser extent algorithms — in an effort to go “back to the basics” for a more localized and only lightly curated experience. He said its real test will come once the hype dies down.
“Then it will really become, ‘Is this something I can see myself using over Facebook or Snapchat or Instagram?’” he said. “I think for it to be successful, it really has to just create a new standalone identity.”
Kacie Peters, 27, of the South Side termed its return “awesome.”
“I think it will be successful because it seems like everything from when I was younger is coming back,” said Peters. “It may bring back a community.”
Adobasio shared his vision for a return that might stand the test of time.
“People want to talk to people, hear from people. I think a social media platform that brings that back — the human aspect as opposed to all the AI and videos and reels and just brain rot that goes through. Like ‘Hey, now I can actually connect with a person in a real, personable way that I wouldn’t have been able to before the internet.’ I think that would be a very transcendent thing.”