Have you heard? The old Myspace is back. Kind of.
Fully coded by an 18 year old from Germany named An, Spacehey is almost a copy of the design of the OG social network in the glory days of the early 2000s. According to Vice, the new network, which looks entirely like the old network, which launched last November and has attracted around 55,000 users worldwide so far.
An told Vice that he wanted to create a social network offered better privacy and allowed users to be more creative.
“I’ve heard a lot about it thanks to older friends and the internet [Myspace]. I came to the conclusion that something like this cannot be found nowadays, ”said An.
He spent his free time during quarantine searching internet archives to make Spacehey look as authentically as possible to the classic version of Myspace.
And he succeeded.
Myspace has been rebooted before, but never with the look and feel of the original. That made it attractive, and Spacehey mimics it almost perfectly.
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Spacehey offers a few features that the original Myspace didn’t, such as the ability to add links to your other social media profiles on Twitter and other platforms that didn’t exist then. You can embed content from Spotify and YouTube, which didn’t exist then either. There is even a section with pre-made, user-created layouts if you don’t feel like coding everything from scratch – although that’s half the fun of a Myspace, er, Spacehey.
But all the core elements of the classic Myspace are there. Friend space. Blogs. Interests. Comments. Even the small label “now online”. If you’re feeling a bit inspired, Spacehey user corentin has a running list from other users who have completely decked out their profiles with fun fonts, bright neon colors, and animations that are almost too nostalgic to deal with.
An says Spacehey is more than just a Myspace clone. He is very active on the platform, responds directly to user complaints and is not afraid to strike the ban hammer on anyone spreading hate speech and intimidation on the network. Not only is that a welcome change of pace in the overall social media landscape, but it also contrasts sharply with the approach Facebook and Twitter have taken over the years in dealing with disinformation and hate groups.
Myspace taught my high school itself many things. It taught me how to use HTML and that overloading your page with flashy text and autoplay music made for a bad user experience. It taught me how to deal with creepers sliding into my DMs. Most of all, though, it was a much-needed retreat for overbearing parents who liked to sniff through my text messages and listen in on my calls while all I wanted was privacy. I’ve been looking for a Facebook alternative for years and Spacehey has potential.
Of course, there are concerns about how feasible a return to an old social network may be once the novelty of nostalgia has dissipated. For example, there is no Spacehey app so if you want to open it on your phone you will have to use your browser. But I like that. I miss the early days of cell phones that couldn’t connect to the internet, which made it so easy not to connect to social contacts for days, even weeks at a time. Spacehey could become a niche social media platform for a very specific user (say an older millennial), but that’s okay.
My Spacehey page needs a lot of work. But I had a great time going through my old Photobucket account where I saved all the menu and background images I took for my old Myspace. It’s such a unique time capsule of my younger self’s interests: my obsession with CSI, Zach Braff in Garden State (my grown-up self doesn’t understand that anymore), little icons I made for some of my favorite albums from Icon of Coil, A Perfect Circle and Don Hertzfeldt’s short film Rejected. I’m still like my teenage self in some ways, but I’ve clearly grown a lot since then.
It may not skyrocket to the popularity of TikTok, but Spacehey is a throwback to the days when building a social media profile was fun and creative. And I’m having a great time.