Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote in The Atlantic, “Whereas Facebook aimed to bring everyone and their mother online, Tumblr was the opposite: an online underground, a place where your mother, in particular, would never see you.”

While Facebook’s market cap soared to $1 trillion, Tumblr was sold to Yahoo in 2013 for $1.1 billion and then to Automattic in 2019 for just $3 million.

Myspace, like Tumblr, put customizability front and center. Then Facebook came along and stamped out individuality.

You’d want to be radically different from all others. And that was the real value of Myspace. When people talk about missing Myspace, they miss customizing their profile.

New social platforms are ripe to be built, each emphasizing creativity and customizability. Three areas that interest me are:

3D creative expression

Memes

Pseudonymity

There are opportunities to create 3D spaces that are purpose-built for social and that are more customizable for your everyday user.

Memes are how ideas move between people via culture and—as with all forms of communication—the internet dramatically accelerated the speed and scale with which those ideas move.

Memes are the language of the digital natives: people who grew up online innately understand and communicate via memes, and new tools make memes easier to create and share.

Over the past 50 years, there’s been a massive shift toward individuality.

We used to give our kids popular names so that they fit in. The goal was to conform. The name Mary was the most popular girls name for all but six years (!) from 1880 to 1961.

In 1880, 32% of kids got a top-10 most-popular name; by 1950, it was down to 28%; and by 2020, it was 7%. The pendulum of culture has shifted from the collective to the individual. We now give kids distinctive and unique names so that they stand out.

People no longer want to have the same online persona as everyone else—people want to stand out. Platforms that allow self-expression, often by allowing you to adopt a new online identity, will thrive in a world built for the individual.

Your identity becomes not a form you fill out on a profile, but something you choose.

The best online spaces feel like this: entire new universes where anything is possible.

One interesting trend over the past few years has been the return of Y2K culture, as Gen Zs embrace 90s and naughts fashion and music and aesthetics.