If you were lucky enough to grow up in the early–mid 2000s, you probably took part in the wonderful chaos that was Myspace.com.
Alas, Myspace went the way of many other sites of the era, got a major (way less cool) overhaul, and vintage Myspace became a thing of the past. *Sigh*
Well, cut to me mindlessly crawling the internet like I do every waking hour of every day, and I came across a site called SpaceHey, which — for someone who spent the bulk of her preteen and teenage years on Myspace — looked pretty familiar!
As in, it's pretty much an exact replica/brilliant homage to the OG Myspace.
Right down to the logo and slogan, even!!!
I knew I HAD to make a profile, and when I did, the homepage basically took me back to my blue and lime green bedroom in 2007.
The mastermind behind SpaceHey is An, an 18-year-old student living in Germany who graduated high school in 2020. He developed SpaceHey as a web development experiment under a collective called Tibush, which he created with his sister after his graduation travel plans were canceled due to COVID-19.
"I was just a few years old when Myspace was around, so I never had a chance to use it! However, I heard a lot about it on the internet," An told BuzzFeed.
"I think that there's no platform compared to Myspace nowadays, so I came up with the idea to create a new platform, similar to the OG Myspace where everyone can be creative, and there are no algorithms around. Everyone should be able to express their creativeness and have a space to get to know new people."
Since Myspace was a bit before An's time, he did his research in order to create SpaceHey: "I watched a lot of old YouTube videos about MySpace, visited a ton of archive.org pages of MySpace and learned a lot from screenshots too! SpaceHey was heavily inspired by this OG design of Myspace. However, it
doesn’t strive to be an exact clone. I created most features
without knowing how they worked on Myspace exactly. SpaceHey is based on modern tech, and I’m constantly working on new features."
One of the new features An mentioned is SpaceHey Layouts, which allows users to share and apply custom layouts to their profiles, much like on the OG Myspace but without having to scroll through countless sketchy websites to find the perfect design. I went ahead and applied a cute layout with sparkly clouds to my profile!
SpaceHey currently has over 120,000 users, according to An. "I see that there are a lot of people joining
who never used Myspace, as well as a lot of Myspace experts from back in the day! Another thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of artists of any kind — bands, singers, graphic designers, poets — and it’s really amazing how diverse the overall demographics are!"
An told BuzzFeed that he looks forward to growing SpaceHey as well as his many other development projects. "I’m always looking for ideas to bring SpaceHey to the next level! I hope that SpaceHey continues growing and stays a friendly and open community for everyone. The key goal of SpaceHey is always to have a friendly community!"
Personally, I'm obsessed with SpaceHey and can't wait to see how it evolves! Also, if you're wondering, An hasn't had any contact with Tom from Myspace yet, but we'll let you know if he does. (;
You can create a SpaceHey profile and relive the glory days here.
