Several years ago, I sort of embarrassed myself by making fun of Andre Bauer for having a MySpace page. (Actually, no one mocked me for it at the time, but looked at a year or too later, it made me look pretty hopeless…)
Back then — we’re talking 2006 — nobody at the State House did social media; not yet. Or not so I had noticed. There were a couple of bloggers, but MySpace? Facebook? Those were for kids, for college kids trying to hook up or whatever. And it was an indication of a lack of seriousness for a constitutional officer of the state to engage in such activities. Or of a constitutional officer trying to, you know, hook up. Ahem.
Then, everybody started doing it. Which sort of made Andre look like a trailblazer. Way before Obama.
But then… MySpace got really uncool. If we want to be taken seriously, we are still not allowed to make fun of Facebook — yet. And in fact, it seems to be going from triumph to triumph. To hear some talk, it will soon take over the world. Well, that’s another topic for another day.
My purpose in addressing you at the moment is to declare that it’s officially OK to make fun of MySpace again. It’s sort of been OK for a couple of years now, but this makes it official:
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has finally found a buyer for MySpace, but the $35 million sale price is only a fraction of how much the company had been asking for.
Advertising network operator Specific Media and News Corp. finalized the deal Wednesday, allowing Murdoch’s company to move the once-mighty social networking site off its books before its fiscal quarter ends Thursday.
News Corp. had reportedly been hoping to sell the company for at least $100 million.
The $35 million price tag is either laughably high or embarrassingly low, depending on where you’re sitting. It is $545 million less than Murdoch paid for the site only six years ago. But that was when MySpace was the new Friendster, back when such a comparison was a flattering one. (Yes, we know we’ve used that joke before.)
Go ahead. Let’s hear your sarcastic remarks. It’s OK. (Ha-ha-ha — Friendster. The Aztecs had Friendster…)
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I remember a Warner Brothers cartoon making fun of the herd mentality. I know Daffy and Porky were involved, but I don’t remember if the ‘herd’ was chickens or sheep.
Either would be appropriate.