Myspace Is Back (in Documentary Form)

While films about real-life tech companies are getting kind of stale — they even made one about Blackberry — we’re admittedly excited to relive the early aughts after the announcement of a new documentary charting the rise and fall of the social networking site Myspace. Per Deadline, the new doc hails from Gunpowder & Sky (69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez, Everybody’s Everything), The Documentary Group (Amend: The Fight for America, The Deep End) and Tommy Avallone, who directed the Barney docuseries I Love You, You Hate Me and The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learned from a Mythical Man.

The film will apparently reunite founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe with the current owners (yes, Myspace somehow still exists), along with “a slew of notable stars who got their start on the platform.” So expect plenty of emo and Katy Perry, and get ready to remember why a website had you rank your top 8 friends.

“Top Eight” Captures the Rise and Fall of the MySpace Music Era

Author Michael Tedder delves into the platform’s early-aughts heyday

“While working at MTV, we were all obsessed with Myspace and how they were able to build a filter-less connection between musicians and their fans — as well as fans with other fans,” says Gunpowder & Sky CEO Van Toffler. “We tried to build it, buy it, befriend it, even mimic it — ultimately observing it as big media and tech coveted everything about it. Hell, without Myspace, there’s no TikTok, no Facebook, no YouTube, no Instagram, no social media. The first ones in aren’t always the biggest or the last ones standing, but they sure do break some shit along the way and have stories to tell.”

Myspace launched in 2003 and was soon the most popular social network site, essentially killing off Friendster. It was most notable for its music discovery and its somewhat customizable profile pages. However, Facebook dethroned MySpace in 2008, and the site has gone through a few sales and some confusing pivots during the last decade (it appears to be a rather janky music site now that is never updated).