Sooooo I guess I should put my flying pig socks back on because I caved and opened a MySpace account after years of denouncing the MySpace name and swearing I would never stoop to such depths. Shittastic, I know. I’m a total sellout. I did so good holding off from joining until now but there comes a point when… well, it’s a Saturday night in the suburbs and you’re bored as fuck.
I joined mainly so I could befriend bands and stuff. And socially network, I guess. Because as ugly as the interface is, as much as it crashes my browser and as insufferable as the neon-colored, oversized-animated-GIF-containing, automatic-(bad)-music-loading profiles are (and it’s even worse under the hood), the one thing it has going for it is that pretty much everyone is on MySpace.
Which basically reinforces that the masses are collectively stupid, yes, and is much a curse as it is a blessing.
I tried to make it look as non-fug as possible. A Herculean task, to be sure. (I really wanted to use the word ‘Herculean’ there; did you notice? Anyway.) Mike Davidson’s work on the matter is indispensable; I essentially just modified his code. As a design reference for anyone else who may want to make similar customizations, here are some things I discovered, along with the stuff that Davidson had already figured out that I found helpful:
| This element… | ...defines this | Notes |
.whitetext12 |
titles in the left-hand column (“Contacting Rachel”, “Rachel’s Interests”, etc) | |
tr.userProfileURL td div strong |
“MySpace URL: ” | |
tr.userProfileURL td div |
Your MySpace URL (right after the above text) | |
.blacktext12 |
“Rachel is in your extended network” | From reading Davidson’s article, I learned about a nifty little pseudo-element called :before (and yes, there’s an :after, too) which allows you to insert text before or after an element. Hence the “Dude! ” in front of my status. Because that’s probably how I’d tell you in real life. This trick doesn’t work in Internet Explorer, shocker of shockers. Too bad Darwinian laws don’t apply to computer programs. MySpace and IE could breed with each other and eventually the offspring would become so stupid and ugly they’d all die out. P.S. What the hell is the extended network? And who ISN’T in it? Engelbert Humperdinck? |
.btext |
“Rachel’s Latest Blog Entry” and “Rachel has 1 bajillion friends” | I don’t know how these two titles have anything to do with each other and would therefore be styled the same, but such is MySpace. |
b |
“Displaying X of X comments” | A telling example of the ridiculousness that is MySpace’s code structure… as far as I could tell, this is the only text inside a bold tag, but if anything else should pop up, say, in a user comment, it will automatically be formatted the same way. Thus, disabling HTML in comments (under Settings > Miscellaneous) is pretty helpful. |
.blacktext10 |
comment date | I would have used something intuitive or logical like .commentdate, but what do I know. |
.columnsWidening |
comment body | Uh, ok. |
Some general CSS comments:
!important was my closest ally, the caulk on my wagon whilst fording the tumultuous river that is MySpace’s style rules. It’s the easiest way to override whatever poopfestive styles MySpace has applied and you don’t have to dig around for the element you’re looking for, which will invariably be something crazy like table tr td table tr td table tr td div strong. It’s kinda like MySpace determined what would be the best and most intuitive way to code their pages, and then did THE EXACT OPPOSITE. GOSH.* (asterisk). I only recently learned of this humble yet powerful ‘universal’ element, which applies styles to every element that isn’t otherwise specified, unless you hook a property up with ol’ !important over there, in which case you pretty much have a foolhardy bastion of a style rule on your hands. I used * to apply my desired font-family and line-height to the entire page.display:none; is another sneaky little bastard I like to use. I used it to hide the top navigation bar. Because I’m rude like that. It probably violates the Terms of Service and will definitely irk many a visitor, but it’s not TheirSpace, so ha.So, take leave and go friend me!
(Wouldn’t it be great if real-life friendships were like social network site friendships? You’d always know exactly how many friends you had, you could easily remove friends, and you could make new friends by clicking a button and never have any obligations to talk to them ever.)
Oh, and the first thing I did when I signed up? Unfriended Tom. That guy is not my friend.
(The second thing was to change my preferences so that I never again have to hear Soulja Boy or some other g-dforsaken song start blasting whenever I visit someone else’s profile page while killing time in the library or computer lab and consequently making an awkwardly mad dash for Volume Control.)
P.S. Did you know there is a christian-myspace-layouts.com? What exactly makes a layout ‘Christian’? Does the design not show up on Sundays or something? Does it give you the stinkeye if it knows you do recreational drugs and engage in premarital sex?
Anyway. Enjoy my brand new, nontraditional, non-Christian MySpace page.
Kiera
Yeah, I kicked Tom off my friendslist too. I couldn’t take him and that goofy looking grin of his.
The thing I like most about myspace is that it’s introduced to me to a lot of good music, especially local bands. I think you will like it for that reason as well.
Ok, off to friend you now. ;)
Kaylee
I want to meet your mom, too!
All my peers ditched Myspace and ran to Facebook, which is a lot more bearable.
Jen
Seriously, who the hell came up with the CSS code for MySpace? heh Thanks for the detailed list! Tom’s a loser.
Leslie
False: Your profile layout does not kick ass. All the other profiles did not just get their asses handed to them.
True: I once had a MySpace account. I opened one in order to read Billy Corgan’s MySpace blog. About a week later, I deleted the account when I realized I was reading Billy Corgan’s MySpace blog. God, that man is bleak.
I think a layout is Christian if it makes Jewish layouts feel bad during Christmastime.
Marianne
Leslie’s comment made me LOL.
I don’t have a MySpace. I already waste enough time stalking people’s MySpace pages without having an account of my own, so I don’t want to risk the addiction it would become.
Sabs
You need to do what I do, which is hack into your sister’s fake MySpace account (tagged “Ho Chi Minh Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hoochie”) whenever the impulse to stalk an individual arises.
Truthfully, I attempted registering a MySpace account many years ago.
My computer crashed.
Yes. It crashed on the sign-up page.
My computer loved me and committed suicide so I would never experience the chagrin of owning a MySpace account.
Ipso facto x-acto knife, your computer does not love you. How does it feel to be in a loveless relationship where you keep coming back for more?
C
What? Design overachiever. I love it.
Amy
LOL at Leslie’s comment.
SAFFE
what, myspace? rachel is taking over every piece of the world wide web as we know it :D
Sam
I personally prefer uber.com to any other social network.
maxigumee
Wow! Your design is awesome! I don’t have the attention span to mess with the CSS that much, so I usually end up using one of those myspace layout generators.
P.S. I friended you!
gally
hey there!!
i can’t quite remember how i got here but here i am
’well, i don’t have a myspace account myself, but i indeed do know lots of people who do. and maybe i shall pass to the dark side as well one fateful day, err or night, and maybe not.
but anyway i had much fun reading your passionate/quirky/insert random word/clever entry and it was about a delicate subject i don’t usually fancy that much!!
i’m sure i’ll be back around soon so take care, à bientôt ^~