[Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook andMySpace

[Jason Wilson]

Hi Andy and all, 

Thanks for the question. 

First I'd reiterate what I'm trying to account for: a specific, well-heeled, well-educated demographic is making the switch to Facebook, while other people stay where they are, and others still continue to join MySpace. In addition, other specific groups are heading to other services entirely, e.g. American teens to Xanga. I would argue that "tipping points" and "usability" arguments can't entirely account for this, and class and the desire to congregate with "people like us" plays a part. 

I guess that I'd defer to Bourdieu for the most basic theoretical underpinnings of what I'm  arguing here. In Distinction he remarks that "Objectively and subjectively aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing, or home decoration are opportunities to experience or asset one’s position in social space, as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept." One of the central arguments in the work is that "taste" and cultural preferences mediate class distinctions, that taste is one of the primary ways in which class distance and membership are asserted. This informs my belief that design, "usability" and the contexts of social networking are never neutral, and are always inflected by issues around class (among others). I guess that for me, the problematic assumption would be that social networking, and the selection of an SNS, could take place in a way that somehow evaded, or was innocent of all of this. 

Why would I think of this specifically in relation to MySpace vs. Facebook? Well, to amplify on an earlier example, I think that the ways in which the two services can be personalised appeal to different taste formations. The often-"gaudy" nature of MySpace personalisation, arising from users' ability to insert large amounts of HTML into their profiles to create background images etc. presents a contrast with the essentially "modular" personalisation available with Facebook profiles, where users select from a range of options which do not disturb the given, "clean" colour schemes and layouts of Facebook profiles. The Facebook interface strikes me as very "designerly" - it is reminiscent to me in its look and feel of an OSX application, with all that connotes in terms of "funky"/creative professions, the blurring of work and/in play, and discernment (think of the Mac vs. PC ad campaigns). The use of whitespace, drop-down menus and a very "Web 2.0" set of icons allow it to be
 read as uncluttered, fresh and efficient.  Personalisation for many Facebook users takes place by way of deferring to the expert knowledges of application designers. By contrast, MySpace personalisations often seem inexpert, distracting, ungainly - in short amateur, even where the "pimping" is outsourced. Coincidentally, both Danah Boyd and I (me in my blog post on the 22nd) are drawn to the metaphor of/comparison with Swedish furniture stores and their emphasis on modularity and design in thinking about Facebook. There are visual rhetorics in Facebook's presentation that  connote a restrained minimalism which is not avant-garde but rational and "tasteful". This observation chimes with the excitement of those marketing high-end consumer goods about getting access Facebook's "elite" user base. Facebook's aesthetic of personalisation appeals to a certain kind of networked, linked-in, design-aware, educated, "mature" (non-emo :-) ) subject, in part because of the "distancing"
 it offers from messy old MySpace, which begins, by contrast, to resemble the chaos of a teenager's bedroom wall. In this sense, I think we can talk about class in relation to the design interface. 

That's an example - as I said in yesterday's post, I think the modes of networking Facebook offers as well as the narratives associated with it's success are appealing to a certain kind of contemporary, class-inflected sensibility. If you wanted specific examples of MySpace profiles that bear out the contrast, I'd hesitate to give them on a list, but could send you some off-list if you like. 

Cheers
Jason






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