Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Anderson to Star in 'Outsiders' Remake

Well what do you know, turns out Facebook really is MySpace for people who actually made it through college. According to a bit of exploratory research coming out of the School of Information Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, the two popular social-networking sites seem to be dividing themselves around stereotypical socio-economic class lines. In “Viewing American Class Divisions Through Facebook and MySpace,” ethnographic researcher Danah Boyd suggests that Facebook is the network of choice for the privileged in-crowd, MySpace for the outsiders:

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. Teens who are really into music or in a band are on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

“The goody 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.”

Ah. So it’s “socs” and “greasers” all over again, is it? And the fact that Facebook membership was originally restricted to folks with a college or university email address doesn’t have anything to do with it? Just wondering …