MySpace comeback talk stirs nostalgia, and skeptics

MySpace, once the world's biggest social network, is flirting with a comeback. Its owners, brothers Tim and Chris Vanderhook, say they plan to relaunch the platform, though no date or product details have been announced. A spokesperson for Viant, which owns MySpace, said the company does not have any updates to share "at this time."

Just the idea of a comeback has stirred nostalgia among people who remember the MySpace days of more than 20 years ago as a place where personal pages were messy, loud, and deeply individual.

"You could be authentic on MySpace," says Monticah Hawkins, a 31-year-old real-estate agent in Atlanta. "Upload raw images, no filters. You could have snot coming out your nose and nobody would judge."

The relaunch talk has also caught the attention of creators like Melissa Kristin, a TikTok star with more than 900,000 followers, who grew up on MySpace and remembers it as a more personal digital space.

"It was all very much your own little world, your own corner of the internet," Kristin says. That sense of autonomy shaped how she expresses herself online today, and she believes a revived MySpace should avoid the algorithmic, pay-to-play dynamics that dominate modern platforms.

"It would be best served for personal connection rather than performance," she says. "Just to recapture that high we felt as millennials when we got all the friend requests and comments. It helped us feel connected."

MySpace launched in 2003 and quickly became a cultural hub, helping artists like Arctic Monkeys, Adele, and Nicki Minaj find early audiences. Its highly customised pages, auto-playing music, and busy layouts eventually became a liability. Facebook's cleaner, simpler design pulled users away, and MySpace struggled through redesigns and ownership changes before fading from mainstream use.

Marketing experts say any comeback will depend on learning from that history. Dr Alexa Fox, a marketing professor at the University of Akron, says the platform was a "first mover" in social media, one that became too complex for many users. She believes MySpace's original strengths, music, creativity, and personal expression, could still resonate with more accessible design. "It could be more user-friendly, with less coding involved," she says.

Alex Mills, a social media strategist who has led campaigns for Spotify and Adobe, says the very thing people are nostalgic for, a feed without algorithms, was also "the thing that killed it." "People still want a feed," Mills says. "They just want a better one than the ones optimising for rage bait."

Kevin McClary, head of performance marketing at Gorilla 76, believes MySpace should not try to compete directly with Meta, TikTok, or X. "They can be successful and sustainable even as a niche platform," he says, arguing it should be rooted in 2000s culture. Leaning into MySpace's music identity could be a smart move, from profile songs to 2000s-themed festivals and merchandise.

McClary believes the audience could be broader than former users, with younger generations embracing the early-2000s aesthetics they never experienced firsthand. "You see younger generations now buying old point-and-shoot digital cameras, MP3 players, even film cameras," McClary says. "They clearly have an interest in the past." MySpace could meet users where that trend is growing by becoming a place rooted in a "specific time," he says. He noted that creators making 2000s-style content on other platforms are often at the "mercy" of algorithms.

Fox agrees that differentiation is essential. "MySpace shouldn't hang their hat on features other platforms already dominate," she says, pointing to Reels and short-form videos. Popular formats can be added, she says, they should not define the platform. She also sees an opportunity to offer a calmer experience. Today's feeds, she notes, are "algorithmic-driven AI, constantly in your face." A platform where users have more control, or simply feel less overwhelmed, could stand out in a crowded market.

For fans like Hawkins and Kristin, the appeal is emotional as much as practical. Both say they would return if MySpace kept its original spirit. For now, its comeback exists mostly as a promise, a reminder of a time when social media felt a little less polished and a lot more personal.

"Are you still gonna have that same feeling?" Hawkins says. "Are you still gonna feel like, 'oh my god, somebody loves me?'"