#before facebook

So I was listening to my iPod on shuffle and some Something Corporate came up. Cue MASSIVE flashback to the time that it was my profile song on my MySpace page. My walk home from work turned into a slow stroll marred half by embarrassment, half by vague nostalgia, for the social networking sites of time gone by - in which I want to even further reminisce about in this here post.

MySpace

**Ohmygod, the boy I like put me in his top 8. Some people are posting comments about me. Listen to that AMAZING profile song, do the Quizilla.com quiz about your personality and HTML IT, and oh wow, have you SEEN their poetically written "about me" section and the truly awesome way she has HTML-ed the fuck out of her profile??!**

YES, MySpace. As far as I know is now only any good for streaming music when nowhere else has it. It's a shame, between the ages of 13 and 18(ish?!) it was a site I could spend AGES on. The only knowledge of it now is email notifications of American skinheads sending me friend requests and romantic "hey r u horny bbz" messages. It was a site of over-sharing in your 'about me' section, the fact that side fringes and a jaunty photo angle made ANYONE look good (particularly if you took them in the bathroom), extra points for a photo with a camera flash, everyone had, at some point, 'boats and birds', 'how to save a life', or anything by the Rocket Summer as a profile song.

Bebo

So basically I hate this site, and I always have. I always remember it being about two years too young for me and full of miniature prostitutes. It's also an absolute bastard to delete your profile you made when you were 14, which is particularly unfortunate when you've got an unusual name. No poetic reminiscence for this site. Fuck bebo.

VampireFreaks.com

LOL goths - I never had a page but this site is the Cyberdog of the internet.  (*My hair is made of neon plastic and my 'favourite bands' list is not actually bands, but words I have picked out a dictionary that sound METAL*) Points for angry photos, most facial piercings, and how many unusual religions you believe in.

Faceparty.com

I don't know if this is still around? You could pay money for icons. You could google people near you and see if you want to have sex with them.  Generally full of LADS who like RnB, their favourite film is 2Fast2Furious and bookz r 4 saddos. Jordan iz mint. etc etc.

Habbo Hotel

I spent hours of school holidays on this website in my early teenage years. Premise is that you can make a little person and wander about chatting to other little people, occasionally playing glitchy chess or battleships. It's a chatroom, but less threatening because it's a cartoon.. There are goths, who wander about with names like "Symposium." and Type Like This With OTT Punctuation. Your swearing is turned into the word "bobba" unless you use creative spelling. There were glitches and occasions when you could walk through walls. You had to pay REAL MONEY to get some chairs and shit, which, at 13, means you CAN'T have certain chairs, because you don't have a debit card. Sad times. The last I heard of it was on channel 4 news about paedophiles and cybersex. Ah well.

MakeoutClub

Ultimate "emo"/scene/"misunderstood" semi-dating website.. be sure to post Taking Back Sunday lyrics in your personal description and name a thousand bands you like who you've never listened to but a girl with a cool fringe likes. You also have a fringe. You are probably American.

livejournal

Oversharing of the highest order, teenage angst, whole blogs dedicated to quotes from 'the perks of being a wallflower' (which, when you read it along with J.D Salinger novels at the age of 15, is oh so profound) and yet more bands from the american midwest you've listened to on myspace. It's easy to be embroiled and become obsessed with people you will never, ever meet, and who live 2,000 miles away. Also a million and one pro-anorexia pages which, if I were to look now, would probably break my heart.

MSN Messenger

trying to be cool and sexy. what fools we looked like.