Social Media Platforms of the Past

MSN Messenger

Remember those embarrassing email addresses when you were 12? Do you remember logging into messenger after school, starting a conversation with your crush? It always went something like:
 
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
“What’s up?”
“Ntm, u?”
“Ntm.”
“So who you like?”
 
                                                                    

Not to mention using an emoticon after everything you said. It’s now nothing more than a slightly embarrassing (yet fond) memory, since MSN Messenger no longer exists :( With the advent of smartphones, we lost interest in using messenger on the computer. Why stay stuck to a giant, immobile piece of hardware when you could pick up your phone and instant message your friends from anywhere? Poor MSN Messenger got left behind as we all grew up, logged out, picked up our phones and went out with friends.
 
Blackberry Messenger

After MSN Messenger came BBM. For a while everyone’s fingers ticked away at the keyboard of the latest Blackberry model (a new one like every week). Our phones were constantly pinging and the new pick-up line was, “Can I get your BB pin?” But as other smartphones got more features – let’s face it, the only reason you bought a Blackberry was for BBM – and the company that made Blackberries resisted this change by refusing to put BBM on other devices (at first), it was only a matter of time before people left BBM behind. The final nail in the coffin came when people developed new messenging apps like Whatsapp and iMessage, taking away the last reason to buy a Blackberry.
 
MySpace

Before there was Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram or Snapchat, there was MySpace. In its time it was the coolest. It was super interactive, giving you space to talk about yourself in your profile (always fun) and space to highlight your favourite blogs, music, videos, photos, groups, etc. It even let you display your favourite friends. Choosing your Top 8 was like rocket science. It was a complicated and delicate balancing act, and many a friendship was strained or even broken by a Top 8 faux pas.

MySpace is still around, or should I say, it’s around again. It was revived in 2013, backed by the likes of Justin Timberlake, but even his celebrity wasn’t enough to return it to its former glory. It looks like MySpace will never be what it once was.
 

It's sad to see our favourite social media platforms fade away. They’re a place where we make and store precious memories with the people we love (or hate, or are ok with) and years later they’re a reminder of the person we used to be and the life we used to lead. But we have to admit that social media today is much more advanced in so many ways. And, unlike social media networks of old, they’re much better at keeping up in modern times.