WebLog 9

Emergence; it is the occurrence of a complex result or pattern caused by generally simple actions. The best example I can recall, is MySpace. MySpace has a lot of history behind it, and due the recent increase in the popularity of social sites; many people started their social networking experience with Facebook and no idea about the progression or former popularity of MySpace. MySpace had humble beginnings, it was a new idea at the time, and purely social networking website and quickly gained a huge amount of popularity.  As time moved on, it seemed like everyone was making a MySpace page, and it only grew from there. Eventually, businesses and musicians began to make MySpace pages in order to advertise and communicate with the general public; it’s the same way businesses and musicians (among other thing) have pages on Facebook.  I only witnessed MySpace’s former glory; I never created a MySpace page due to the fact that I thought that MySpace, and at the time social sites in general were pointless. I saw no point in creating an account so I can virtually befriend and communicate with the people I see every day, however, most of my friends created accounts anyways. I began to see myself become distanced from the people who created MySpace accounts as they began to created and coordinate events and post them on MySpace, and I witnessed MySpace quickly grow into a huge virtual society.

Nearly everything that could occur socially could occur on MySpace, whether it be making new friends, or advertising a new local business. MySpace emerged from a simple social site, to an online society. At the time, I still wasn’t intrigued by the idea of MySpace so I still chose to avoid it. Globally, however, it was an advancement in digital media because, it was one of the first ways for people to communicate, and share information through the internet on an organized forum type site. No good thing can last forever though, and eventually MySpace began to fall in popularity. This came about due to the constant misuse, like sexual predators and cyber bullying. This, paired with the rise of Facebook, caused the eventual “end” of MySpace.  How is this emergent behavior? It’s because it took the simple idea of having a website based mainly on social interactivity and from there created a “cyber-society,” and while MySpace itself isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be, its ideals still live on in websites like Facebook and Twitter.