James' Myspace: What was that like?

NJO: So on the 13th of June 2013, without any warning, the proprietors of the world's most popular social media platform 2005-2008 went and put its entire existing content to the torch. Great job, wankers.*

I managed to recover a fair bit of James' Myspace by copypasting the remaining cached text in the Google search results. Here's what I got:


James on Myspace
www.myspace.com/29306000‎

James's profile on Myspace, the leading social entertainment destination powered by the passion of our fans.

Details. Status: Single; Hometown: Westwood; Orientation: Straight; Religion: Catholic; Zodiac Sign: Cancer; Children: Someday; Education: In college ...

Rutgers University-New Brunswick. New Brunswick,New Jersey; Graduated: N/A;
Clubs: Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Centurion. President, Glee Club. President, Philoclean Society. Rutgers Ski Team, Rutgers Debate, New Jersey Mathematics League.
California State University-Fullerton. Fullerton, CA; Graduated: N/A; Degree: Professional; Major: J.D., Law. 2007 to 2010 ...

...

Sailing, Nautica, Lobster, the Alps, Romance, cabernet Sauvignon, knots, Port Wine, 80s music, Method Acting, Theatre, Maps, Tobacco Pipes, Cuban Cigars, Calculus, Sprinting, espionage, Argyle clothing, Slam poetry, Irish heritage, cocktail parties, Old Books that smell like leather, Wikipedia.com, Dictionary.com, US Constitution, video Activism, Jack FM, politics, camping, breakdancing, public speaking, machine guns, Boys Scouts of America, cobblestone, daydreaming, skipping rocks, New York City, esp Central Park, Alto Saxaphone, skyscrapers, Men's choir, Paintings with Music, National Review, football, climbing trees, sleeping in, stick-shift Sports Cars, Jack Russell Terriers, Airplanes at night, Fans, Brooks Brothers, Bear Mountain, hanging with my best friend and roomate Zach Matusheski, Power Yoga, the Wall Street Journal, Waterfalls, Spanish and Italian languages, Sushu, Strawberry Milkshakes, Artichoke hearts with butter, fake plants, Penny Loafers, being in love.

...

Harvard Classics Series, Dante on Truth, Cicero on Truth, Dosteovsky on Truth, Shakespeare on Love, Sun Tzu on War, Aurelius on courage, Buckley on Sailing, Russell on Mathematics, Aristotle on ethics, Machiavelli on ethics, Nietzche on Morality, Burke on Tradition, McIntyre on Virtue, Chambers on Communism, Weber on Beaurocracy, Shaw on Activism, Hoffer on Mass Movements, Zimmerman on Metaphysics, Ogilvy on Advertising, Bronough on Writing, Harvard on Management, Santorum on Family, Alinsky on tactics, Hyde on Leadership, Ayer on traveling, Plato on Soul, Bloom on Education, Schall on Education, D'Souza on Reagan, Bastiat on Law, Horowitz on Academia, Clancy on Espionage, Chesterton on Othodoxy, Friedman on Contract, Buchanan on immigration, Krakauer on Wilderness, Eliot on Life and Death, Aquinas on God, ... "Flowers for Algernon" and "Grapes of Wrath" are fiction favorites.

...

Anthony Dini. dude, check out my new song! 5 years ago. Ryan Sorba. Anthony Dini. Great song, but how about Juliet? 5 years ago. lila. oh James, you are so cool with your sunglasses, your abstract interests and your brilliant books. why myspace? and when are you coming again? 6 years ago


* Seriously, the destruction of an enormous historical resource like this makes me want to punch something, and when I say "something" I mean that Tom guy or whichever bright-eyed, coke-rictus-sporting billionaire bawbag did the despicable deed.

As of November 2013, the Google search results for "site:myspace.com" were still displaying text from the wiped pages, so I thought I'd experiment with this a bit. (See below)

I would say this gave me a small sense of the amount of stuff that future generations won't be getting to know about now.

(Updated 2nd January 2014. The way the textual data have faded away on Google makes me think of the data ghosts from the Doctor Who story "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead".)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation soldier"
About 2,400 results
About 1,070 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation airman"
About 45 results
4 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation sailor"
About 269 results
About 116 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation musician"
About 15,000 results
About 6,050 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation prostitute"
About 563 results
About 311 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation banker"
About 1,510 results
About 836 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation office worker"
About 1,080 results
About 278 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation acorn"
About 1,990 results
No results found for site:www.myspace.com "occupation acorn". (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "hometown kuala"
About 1,440 results
About 874 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "dob * 1920"
About 9,910 results
About 2,200 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation ngo"
2 results (2nd January 2014)

site:www.myspace.com "occupation teacher"
About 9,670 results (2nd January 2014)

(UPDATE: Okay, haha, so it later transpired that it wasn't quite the total historica-bonfire I imagined. If an original-iteration Myspace user wishes to recover their old content, they apparently can do that now. Still far from ideal for future historians *cough* and nosey people like me *cough*. Also still a total dick move to just leave your users hanging like that for, what was it, a year? until letting them know their pictures, journals etc. could be recovered. When the site went down I remember reading a post by one guy, devastated, claiming he'd used Myspace for keeping a detailed journal of his medical school career and travelogues which were understandably very dear to him. You've got to imagine there are a lot of people like that who had something important to them stored on Myspace, but who for whatever reason (disenfranchisement; the shortness of life) will never happen to see the memo about the recoverability of said stuff. So, yeah. Definitely could've been handled better.)