Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
Researcher Danah Boyd studies youth culture and social networking websites. Her research, which is largely anecdotal and observational, has identified that socioeconomic class is an indicator of what social network sites a teen is likely to use. No real surprises here, because Facebook was originally founded as a tool for college students, but “hegemonic” kids who play sports, do their homework, and go to college tend to favor Facebook. Non hegemonic kids tend to favor Myspace.
The report, while not up to high academic standards, is interesting and definitely worth printing out for the train ride home.
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.
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.
