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Tag: MySpace

  • Is MySpace Back? 1 Million People Now Using Clone Version | Entrepreneur

    Is MySpace Back? 1 Million People Now Using Clone Version | Entrepreneur

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    A MySpace clone site called SpaceHey passed the million-user mark last week.

    Its founder, 22-year-old student Anton Röhm, began working on the website during the pandemic when he was just 18 years old. The pandemic’s restrictions kept Röhm from traveling the world like he originally wanted to before starting university — so he turned to coding for fun.

    “I thought hey, why don’t I build something like MySpace back then, but just new and with the basic functions, the creative freedom, and additionally solving the problems that I see on social media nowadays,” Röhm said in a 2021 talk in Hamburg, Germany. “And that’s how SpaceHey came about.”

    Related: I Tried Airchat, the Hottest New Social Media App in Silicon Valley — Here’s How It Works

    Röhm, who wouldn’t have been old enough to sign up for MySpace when it first launched in 2003, wrote in a reflective post that he created the initial version of SpaceHey in about 3 weeks.

    SpaceHey has the same look and feel as MySpace, with profile pages, blogs, and instant messaging. It differs from the original in that users can fully customize their profiles with HTML and CSS code, share posts on other platforms, and embed content like YouTube videos.

    Röhm launched the website in November 2020 as “MySpace from around 2007 with a modern tech stack” and it organically gained traction on Product Hunt and Hacker News. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian even made a profile in November 2020.

    Last month, the platform surpassed one million users.

    “There’s no algorithm on SpaceHey, no likes, no feed,” Röhm told Fast Company in a Thursday interview. He added that he’s trying to differentiate the platform from other social media like Facebook and X by not having “content sucking you in all the time and demanding your attention.”

    Röhm tapped into anti-algorithm sentiment previously voiced by the likes of then-Twitter, now-X founder Jack Dorsey. Dorsey stated in June that “we are being programmed” through discovery algorithms and that the real debate was not about free speech but free will.

    Related: Jack Dorsey Says Social Media Has an Algorithm Problem, and Elon Musk Agrees: ‘We Are Being Programmed’

    Röhm’s app also joins a growing list of mainstream social media alternatives. The anti-AI app Cara, for example, gained more than half a million users within a week in June by banning AI art. Part of the reason for its momentum is Meta saying that it could use photos, art, and posts across its platforms to train its AI; Cara was an anti-AI Instagram alternative at an opportune time.

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    Sherin Shibu

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  • Roslynn Alba Cobarrubias, media entrepreneur and pillar of Filipino community, dies at 43

    Roslynn Alba Cobarrubias, media entrepreneur and pillar of Filipino community, dies at 43

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    Roslynn Alba Cobarrubias, a media entrepreneur, radio DJ and music promoter who advocated for Filipino American artists and was instrumental in growing the MySpace Music platform, died Sunday evening, according to family members.

    Cobarrubias died in her hometown of Walnut, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office, which has yet to determine a cause of death pending further tests. She was 43.

    “She was passionate and dedicated to the Filipino American community worldwide, and would spend both her personal and professional life celebrating and uplifting it wherever she could,” her family said in a statement shared with The Times. “She played a pivotal role in collaborations between acclaimed international artists and rising Filipino talent, helping guide them into the music industry spotlight.”

    Cobarrubias was born March 12, 1980, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. While growing up in Walnut in the east San Gabriel Valley — a short drive from the music studios and venues of central L.A. — she developed a love for music. In elementary school, she played her favorite songs for classmates, calling herself “the lunchtime DJ,” she recalled during a TEDx talk in 2017.

    Later, she buzzed between record stores and hip-hop clubs, finding new artists and their music and playing them for friends at parties. She was devoted to the music channels that dominated TV in the 1990s and 2000s, including VH1 and MTV. Her dream was to become a video jockey, hosting the shows she’d religiously watch and traveling the world to promote new music and interview her favorite artists.

    But her family had other plans. Feeling the pressure as a child of immigrants from the Philippines, Cobarrubias enrolled in 1999 at UC Irvine with plans to study political science and become a lawyer.

    Still, she held onto her dream job.

    Without telling her family, Cobarrubias drove to Hollywood for a video jockey audition while still a freshman in college. She stood in line for three hours before ultimately landing a spot as a finalist.

    “And at the last casting agent’s office, she looked at me and she said, ‘You’re too short. What are you gonna do, hold the microphone over your head? You’ll never be on television; you should try radio,’” Cobarrubias recalled of the agent’s suggestion that she instead be a radio DJ.

    Crushed, she hopped back in her car and while sitting in traffic on the 10 Freeway pondered the agent’s words.

    “I thought, OK, I’m just gonna go back to UCI, study political science, be a lawyer my mom from the Philippines will be proud to tell her brothers and sisters about. Coming from a third-world country, you want a lawyer, not a DJ in your family,” she said.

    But eventually, Cobarrubias took the agent’s advice to heart. She started working at KSAK-FM 90.1, a station based out of Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. Soon after, she transferred to the community college from UCI and started a hip-hop show, Third Floor Radio. There, she interviewed acts who influenced her, such as A Tribe Called Quest and Talib Kweli.

    As her show’s popularity grew, she started promoting it and other artists on the then-new social media site MySpace.

    After graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a bachelor’s degree in communications, she caught the attention of MySpace co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, whom she met through a colleague, Cobarrubias said in a blog post. DeWolfe and Anderson wanted to grow the site as an online music platform, filling a void left by file-sharing site Napster, which had dissolved several years earlier.

    Cobarrubias eventually became a marketing head and led artist relations, growing the MySpace Music platform and making it easier for artists to share music and connect with fans on the site — a novel idea at the time. The music feature became a staple on the site as users delighted in customizing their profiles, which included compiling playlists of their favorite music. Major artists such as as Sean Kingston, Adele and Calvin Harris owed the launch of their careers to MySpace.

    “The people that really launched MySpace were the … artists,” Cobarrubias told iHeart Media podcast “Main Accounts: The Story of MySpace” earlier this year. “You start with the artists; they bring their fan bases. You start with the DJs; they bring their fan bases. The way we created was for creators.”

    While promoting the work of high-profile artists such as Drake and Justin Timberlake, Cobarrubias also promoted up-and-coming Filipino American artists during her work with Philippines-based media giant ABS-CBN and through her marketing brand, 1587. According to her family, the company’s name stems from the year a Spanish galleon with Filipino crewmembers arrived in Morro Bay — widely accepted by historians as the first Filipinos, and Asians, to set foot on what is now the continental U.S.

    Cobarrubias’ projects stretched beyond Los Angeles and music. She helped build basketball courts with the Clippers and the Manny Pacquiao Foundation throughout the Philippines, including in her family’s ancestral home, Olongapo.

    “I love our 1587 family so much because not only do we push each other in the entertainment and music industry — but we constantly remind each other how we have to always give back and move in mission and purpose,” she wrote in a social media post. “We worked hard to be blessed with these opportunities by the universe and God that sometimes it feels like a dream.”

    Cobarrubias also sponsored Filipino American heritage nights at Clippers, Dodgers and Kings games. Her company promoted Filipino American acts at the events, including rappers P-Lo and Guapdad 4000, Power 106 radio DJ E-Man, Real 92.3 DJ Nico Blitz, as well as Saweetie and EZ Mil, both of whom threw first pitches at Dodger games in the last two seasons.

    Oakland rapper P-Lo and L.A.-based indie artist Yeek were among those who expressed condolences Tuesday as news of Cobarrubias’ death spread online. Both shared an old photo of them posing with Cobarrubias and other Filipino artists.

    “RIP Tita Ros,” P-Lo said in his Instagram story.

    “Thank you for always believing in me. You were such an impactful & influential person in our community,” said Yeek.

    Filipino American YouTube singer AJ Rafael shared a musical tribute to Cobarrubias, “to bring comfort through music, something she loved so dearly.” He added: “You truly cared for me as a person and not just an artist.”

    Notable Filipino American figures outside the music industry also mourned Cobarrubias’ death. Author and professor Anthony Christian Ocampo wrote in a tweet that he was “in complete disbelief,” calling Cobarrubias “an iconic figure in the Filipino American community.”

    Jason Lustina, who is behind the popular Instagram account SoCalFilipinos, said Cobarrubias was among the first supporters of his platform. “The community is mourning your loss but you have left your mark and will always be remembered,” he wrote.

    Alba Legacy, a clothing brand founded by Cobarrubias’ cousin, celebrity fashion designer Jhoanna Alba, said in a statement on Instagram, “Ros made an immense impact in our community and worldwide. She loved intensely while enduring unfair suffering. Her presence in our family is irreplaceable, and her absence is unimaginable.”

    Black Eyed Peas member apl.de.ap praised Cobarrubias as a humble advocate throughout his career. On Wednesday, he was struggling to find photos of her.

    “And that’s because Ros was always there — around — but almost never in front of the camera,” he said in a statement shared on his Instagram account.

    Apl.de.ap, who was born Allan Pineda Lindo Jr., credited his well-documented love for Honda Civics to Cobarrubias, who would drive him and bandmate will.i.am, when they were both still young up-and-comers, around L.A. in her own Civic.

    He credited her with boosting his group’s career during her time at MySpace.

    “I never gave her the flowers she deserved for putting us on MySpace when it was at its peak and helped propel us,” he said. “[Black Eyed Peas] is made up of more than the guys you see onstage, and it’s people like Roslynn who made this all possible.”

    In 2016, he took Cobarrubias and other Filipino American entertainment figures, including comedian Jo Koy, on a trip to the Philippines to get in touch with their culture.

    “It did something for her that I had always hoped,” apl.de.ap said, “and from that trip on she spent a considerable amount of her time giving back and wielding her power to help our community grow.”

    Cobarrubias is survived by her mother, Maria Evelyn Alba; three sisters, Rheeza Alba Cobarrubias McMillan, Rachelle Alba Cobarrubias and Chrystal Alba Fujimoto; and several nieces and nephews, whom her family described as “the loves of her life.”

    Times Assistant Editor Ada Tseng contributed to this report.

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    Jonah Valdez

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  • Madison Beer Retreats to the “Sweet Relief” of the 2000s, Corroborating That There’s Little Relief in the Present

    Madison Beer Retreats to the “Sweet Relief” of the 2000s, Corroborating That There’s Little Relief in the Present

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    As is the case with most of “Gen Z pop culture,” it’s usually grafted from the 2000s. The latest addition to that truism comes in the form of Madison Beer’s “Sweet Relief” video (marking the sixth single from Silence Between Songs). In many ways, it picks up where “Spinnin” left off, in terms of offering viewers a suburban milieu that Beer inhabits/generally frolics through. This time around, however, things are much brighter (and less desolate) than they are in “Spinnin.” For a start, the sun is actually shining for most of the video, save for during the “requisite” shower scenes of Beer (who seems to want to channel a bit of Miley Cyrus in “Flowers”), which serve no real purpose other than for her to memorex her “hotness” for future generations. 

    However, when she’s not parading her soaped-up body for the camera, she’s actually playing the part of a “nerdy” shy girl. Which, of course, per “2000s law,” simply means donning a pair of glasses. And, if anyone had a doubt that this “little narrative” wasn’t meant to be set in the 00s, one of Beer’s besties proceeds to take photos of the group in Beer’s room with her Canon digital camera. The fact that Beer and her friends are just hanging out in her room together also harkens back to videos of the 00s, when “room culture” was at a peak (see also: Mandy Moore’s “Candy,” Britney Spears’ “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” and Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love”—all released on the brink of Y2K). Not to mention that just about the only thing to do in suburbia is hang out in your room…unless you have a car, in which case, you can proceed to do donuts in an empty parking lot. 

    So it is that Beer and her friends, often inexplicably holding stuffed animals (like a teenage Britney for her 1999 Rolling Stone shoot), keep taking “prehistoric selfies” with each other, employing what would later be called a “MySpace angle.” Trying on clothes and putting on makeup—the usual “girlie things” that women in their teens (and beyond) are supposed to do when they congregate—it seems they grow bored enough of that to switch locations to another classic suburban backdrop: the yard. Complete with a trampoline and tire swing. And also—gasp!—boys. Some of them even smoking—double gasp!—cigarettes. And that’s also how you know this is supposed to be the 00s: no one is vaping. In fact, Beer has her “dweebish” eyes on the smoking dude as they all sit in a circle in front of the white picket fence (here, again, the Del Rey influence on Beer is present). And this is where the chorus of “Sweet Relief” applies to the “secret” glances being made as she sings, “It’s just something only we know/Baby, I can’t help myself/I’m seein’ you everywhere I go/I don’t dream of anyone else/All I need, sweet relief [obviously, a sexual euphemism]/It’s just somethin’ only we know/Something only we know.”

    Or so they would like to believe. But at the next cliche suburban location change—the parking lot of a mall—the two are talking in such an obvious “I like you” way that it would be hard not to notice the attraction. Plus, Beer has taken her glasses off so that he can suddenly “really” see her. The moments of fucking around in the parking lot (including Beer being pushed along on a skateboard) channel many a 90s video (see: The Smashing Pumpkins’ repertoire). Not to mention the parking lot driving scenes from Lana Del Rey’s “Bartender” portion of the “Norman Fucking Rockwell” video. And then there’s even a dash of Madonna’s 1983 “Borderline” video as the two talk in front of a sign post together…except that Beer has more luck than Madonna at endearing her love interest to her in this particular scene. 

    The picturesqueness of it all stems from the simplicity of a group of youths actually doing things together, however seemingly banal, that don’t involve the distracting prop of a phone. Because sure, plenty of teens had cell phones “back in the day,” but never used so pervasively as they are now. After all, there weren’t even enough options on a phone to warrant being sucked into it so readily (unless you count playing Snake on a Nokia).  

    And yet, beneath the surface of this being a “quaint” town in the middle of nowhere, the reality is that the group is roaming the streets of North Hollywood. Getting ice cream as night falls, the innocence of that act is mitigated, to the trained eye, by the fact that they walk past a dance studio called Ararat. Conveniently located just across the street from VIP Gentlemen’s Club…which makes for a perfect transition for the little girl taking “dignified” dance lessons to eventually transition into the nearby strip club. Because, as David Lynch has taught us repeatedly, anything “innocent” is always belied by a seedy underbelly. Especially in California. 

    Getting slurpees at a convenience store and “messing around” at a car wash then serve as the precursor to the “grand finale” of the video: jumping into someone’s pool while fully clothed. All of these “millennial” activities (though the latter trio of scenes smacks more decidedly of Gen X) seem to further emphasize that maybe Gen Z kind of hates it here, in this era. Even in spite of constantly mocking those who are even five years older than them for being “boomer.” Sure, every generation tends to romanticize the time period of the one that came before it, but something about this feels different. As though Gen Z inherently knows they got the fuzzy end of the lollipop with regard to experiencing youth. Like, actually experiencing it…instead of just seeing it acted out on their phones. 

    And so, like most Olivia Rodrigo videos, Beer’s “Sweet Relief” offers yet another clear case of hauntology in pop culture. Not just because capitalism creates the conditions in which nothing can ever be new, but because it’s never been more apparent that, as Francis Fukuyama would say, we’ve reached “the end of history.” Or, perhaps more accurately, the end of human history, with nothing new left to say or do, as made increasingly evident by offerings like “Sweet Relief.” Yet even with the AI infusion that’s been infiltrating (and likely to infiltrate all the more) art, the “bots” are only repurposing (e.g., getting AI versions of singer’s voices to sing songs by other musicians) just as much as Madison Beer, or anyone else of her generation. Those who are caught between showing contempt for the narrow-mindedness of the past while still romanticizing it because the present is so utterly dystopian.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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