The Class Divide on Facebook and MySpace

So I take note when boyd publishes something like “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.” boyd notes that she’s not sharing the results of academic research, but her own observations as a member of both communities and someone who speaks with many people at conferences, meetings, and informally in her own travels. So this is not a finished thought piece—a piece of peer-reviewed research that might be published in a professional journal. But besides sharing her observations, boyd is also making a point about the value of peer feedback and the network effect of exposing work in progress to the network.

At one point, she suggests, MySpace was a fairly democratic place, where teens of all classes were welcome. But as Facebook expanded beyond its initial audience of college students [and remember, it was founded at Harvard]—and MySpace became demonized by the press and mistrusted by parents, there’s been a shift. I’ve heard about this from teens that I’ve talked to and other commentators have noticed it. A migration to Facebook, with MySpace becoming less popular among certain teens.

These are teens that boyd terms “hegemonic” teens. They are:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

The achievers, in other words. And who’s staying on MySpace? The “subaltern” teens:

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

This class divide plays out in a variety of ways, even in the military, where grunts and enlisted persons use MySpace and officers use Facebook. Guess which one the military just banned?

At the end of her piece, boyd brings this all back to RL. What does this say about the current state of teens in our society? And she offers opportunities to participate in the discussion of her thoughts here.