Social Media Meltdowns: The Rise and Fall of MySpace, the Teetering of TikTok, and the Twitter Apocalypse

Welcome to the "Social Media Schadenfreude" episode, in which Shane and Duncan delve into the misfortunes of the fortunate.

First up: MySpace, the has-been of the social networking world. Next: TikTok, the latest all-singing/all-dancing/all-spying flavor of the month. And last but not least, the endless stream of drama and chaos that is Twitter, from its beginnings as a 240-character bullhorn to its current incarnation as the pet project of a billionaire in freefall.

~

Support the show by becoming a Midnight Minion, Menace, or Maniac, and unlock exclusive bonus content over at PATREON

~

Join the MFFI community and vote on episode topics via DISCORD

~

In this episode:  

• Primitive Social Media
• Samuel Finley Breese Morse
• Morse Code
• Telegraph Chat Culture 
• The Rise of the Internet 
• BBS
• CompuServe
• CB Simulator
• CBIG and the Rise of Online Dating
• America Online
• AOL's Disastrous Merger with Time Warner
• Classmates.com: The Proto Facebook
• Sixdegrees.com: The Proto MySpace
• Friendster: Proto MySpace #2
• MySpace: The First Juggernaut
• Tom Anderson, Everyone's Friend
• Lord Flathead
• The Top 8
• News Corp. Acquisition
• Specific Media and the Justin Timberlake era of MySpace
• The Ascendence of Zuckerberg 
• Odeo Spawns TWTTR
• The Founders: Noah Glass, Biz Stone, Evan Williams, & Jack Dorsey
• Backstabbing and Drama at Early Twitter
• Twitter's Big Break: SXSW
• The Myth of Musk
• The Elon Era at Twitter
• Crashes and Burnings
• Trashfires Galore
• Is There a Rock Bottom?
• ByteDance Spawns Douyin
• Douyin Spawns International TikToks 
• Trump v. TikTok
• Government v. TikTok
• TikTok is Shady AF
• The All-Powerful Algorithm
• "Toxic" Content
• The Current State of the Socials

~

Join the Midnight Masses!

Become an Insomniac by dropping a review, adding us on social media, and contacting us with episode ideas. 

And we now have Midnight Merch! Show your Insomniac pride and pick up a tee shirt or coffee mug to spread the word! 

Midnight Merch

 ~

Leave an Audio Message!

~ 

Instagram

~

Podcast Website

~

Episode Transcript