Lately I've been wrestling with some extreme boredom as my wife works nights, and like any modern-day geek I've turned to the interweb for salvation. I'm probably a bit late to the party but I signed up with the gi-normous community site MySpace a month or two back, joining the ranks of the approximately 27 million other hopelessly young and immature teenage morons and idiots who like to "pretty up" their profile pages with the gaudiest, ugliest graphics and sounds they can find in an ode to web design faux-pas circa 1996. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it's a site like this - with a median age of about 16, a median IQ of about 65 and a hopelessly small age distribution curve - that will eventually force me to admit that the future of our country is doomed.
Yes, it took me about five minutes to get utterly sick of this site. Now, it is true that MySpace has grown so popular that you can literally meet people from practically anywhere in the world, and there's something to be said for that. And once you venture off the beaten path and actually seek out those beyond our borders, you will meet more normal people than you'll ever find in the high schools or malls of America. The problem is these people, like me, seem to get sick of MySpace real fast, and once you start to build up a little circle of friends you'll likely find it disappearing just as quickly as the normals drop off from lack of interest. Unless you just fill up your friends' space with a bunch of random jerks in a vain attempt at being the "most popular on MySpace!" like most people do. MySpace boasts a huge number of members and just looking through the profile pages will confirm that, but dig a little deeper and consider how many of those people haven't logged on in months and the story is a little different.
It's also a site that anybody can join, so probably a large minority (if not a majority) of its members are someone other than who they say they are. Sure you're talking to that hot 18 year old with a picture of herself spreading wide? How naive can you be? Heck, I had Natalie Portman ask me to be her MySpace friend. Real? Possible, I guess... likely? No.
Now, as we all know, everything's better in Japan. After slugging it out in the ghetto of MySpace for a while, my wife sent me an invite to Mixi, the better, stronger, faster Japanese equivalent. Mixi is an invite-only service - sorry, my fellow dumbass Americans, if you want to join you'll just have to make a real Japanese friend somewhere. Most people on Mixi have their real friends as their Mixi friends for this reason. It's a nicer place, with more thoughtful people, and the age range is a bit wider. It doesn't technically have as many members as MySpace, but I've still managed twice as many profile views there as I ever got on MySpace, in half the time. Who knew?
Mixi does have English-only communities and it does have both westerners and English-speaking Japanese as members. So it's not inaccessible for a foreigner. It just takes an invite...
To sum up -
MySpace: big and stupid. Typically American.
Mixi: smaller but smarter and more fun. Just what you'd expect from the Japanese.
Update: This post has been getting a sizable (and growing) number of hits from people coming in through Google searches. That's great, but please don't ask me for a Mixi invite either in the comments here or by email. I'm not going to delete them or anything like that - I believe in free speech (mostly) - but I'm not going to give you an invite. Think about it - everybody on Mixi was invited by somebody, which means everybody on Mixi knows who on any given profile page was invited by that person. That means that, unlike MySpace, people with lists of random "friends", who may or may not be behaving well on the site, are viewed quite negatively by others on the site. Given that most of my Mixi friends are real-life friends (one of the benefits of an invite-only system), and that their friends are also real-life friends of mine, I am not interested in having a stigma attached to my Mixi profile.
So, while I can appreciate your interest in Mixi, and I might have even been responsible for stoking the fire a bit with this post, you'll have to find an invite elsewhere. Sorry.
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We are Japanese student organization at the University of Iowa.
ReplyDeleteOur graduates are spreading in the U.S. or in Japan.
It is very hard to keep in touch.
Therefore, we have been thinking that if we could make a alumini community on SNS.
If you could consider inviting us to mixi, we will be pleased.
Thank you
Japanese Cultural Association
jca@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
www.myspace.com/rx7_craig
ReplyDeletego there and add me
This might sound competely random, but could you invite me? My e-mail address is bluefolders007@yahoo.com.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
-Julia
Does anyone have an extra mixi invite? Thank you.
ReplyDeletepinjapan@hotmail.com
Kind regards,
Paul
would you be my mixi friend too? turnkit '@t' gmail.com
ReplyDeleteI am interested in learning more about Japanese culture and meeting people there.
hey i was just wondering if mixi is like a myspace but japanese version .. well i just got back from a vaca in japan so i wanted to jus check up on latest fashion and all that good stuff so i thought mixi was something like that ... aritey if anything message me ..
ReplyDeletemyspace.com/heyjoy
thanks.
teambeast_1@msn.com....
ReplyDeletecould you invite me... ill be your best friend. :D
I'll be more than your best friend please invite me, i also speak japanese "invite me please" m(_ _)m
ReplyDeleteerik-val88@hotmail.com
I live in Japan, today Maxi entered the TSE and the stock skyrocketed. I never heard of Maxi until I read it on Mainichi online and NHK. I wonder how native English speakers can start their on group on Maxi? Any ideas?
ReplyDeletewould love an invite. for those who are in and letting others in.
ReplyDeletekenny.owens@gmail.com i will invite to gmail if asked.
we're a bunch of undergrad japanese majors wanting a mixi to help us with our japanese skills and increase networking when we go abroad. If you could send an invite to
ReplyDeleteksadiyasoup@gmail.com
we would be so greatful!
aloha,
ReplyDeletei’m a german guy living in new york. i’m play with the idea to move to tokyo next, would love to be in mixi.
anyone has a invitation for me?! thank you sooo much in advance
kartus@gmx.de
I study Japanese at university and I think this would be a great opportunity. I'd love to be invited on mixi...
ReplyDeleteThank you!
moonbaby@hotmail.com
Unfortunately, you can only join Mixi now if you have a Japanese-based cellphone. You have to confirm your account by PC and cellphone email.
ReplyDeleteI just did it today, but it was a bit tricky to confirm by cellphone. You have to allow the phone to transmit it's manufacturer code.
Despite public perception, most MySpace users are over 35, according to a release today by ComScore. The stat-tracking company says that as MySpace continues to grow, its user base is skewing older - teens accounted for around 25% of users in August 2005, but now only represent 12% of the audience. Almost 41% of MySpace are aged 35 to 54 - a big increase since last year. THIS IS DATED Oct of 2006
ReplyDeleteI don't have mixi although I live in Japan and my friends use the site.
ReplyDeleteBut, I believe I heard once that you need a japanese email address to register. =/