For millions of internet users, MySpace wasn’t just another social media platform.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!It was where playlists announced your personality, profile pages reflected your knowledge of basic HTML, and moving someone out of your Top 8 could cause more drama than a relationship status change.
Now, more than 15 years after its heyday, the people who own MySpace say they aren’t ready to give up on it just yet.
Chris and Tim Vanderhook, whose company acquired the once-dominant social network from News Corp in 2011, have confirmed they are actively planning another attempt to bring MySpace back.
Speaking in Tommy Avallone’s new documentary Myspace, Chris Vanderhook made the company’s intentions crystal clear.
“We still own Myspace. We are stewards of the Myspace brand at this point, and we are going to relaunch Myspace,” Avallone says, via PEOPLE.
He also admitted that patience is part of the plan, adding: “We’re just waiting for the right time to do it. And if that one doesn’t work, we’ll do it again.”
It’s a bold promise considering MySpace has already attempted one major revival — and it came at an enormous cost.
The Bizarre Justin Timberlake Plan That Actually Worked… For A Bit
The Vanderhook brothers’ journey to buying MySpace began in an unconventional way.
According to the documentary, News Corp wasn’t interested in selling the platform to them, forcing the brothers to come up with an attention-grabbing strategy.
“We heard that News Corp were going to sell it and we started to strategize how we got in there, because they weren’t calling us and they did not want to let us in. We knew we had to have a different angle to get their attention,” Chris explained.
For Tim, there was one thing worth saving above everything else.
“For us, it was all about the artist community that was the heartbeat that we saw, that we wanted to resuscitate,” Tim said.
The pair then settled on an unusual idea: “The name we settled on was Justin Timberlake. He had just completed The Social Network, which we just loved the parallel there, and we thought it would be pretty cool.”
There was just one problem; Timberlake had absolutely no idea.
“Chris and I wrote a fake press release about Justin Timberlake and the Vanderhooks acquire Myspace from News Corp,” Tim explained.
However, the stunt worked well enough to get News Corp’s attention, although not without raising some eyebrows. Tim recalled the executive responsible for the sale confronting them directly, saying: “He says, ‘You better not be f***ing lying about Justin Timberlake.'”
At the time, they were.
The brothers then scrambled to turn fiction into reality by reaching out through industry contacts until they eventually secured a meeting with Timberlake and his music manager, Johnny Wright.
The gamble paid off.
After meeting the singer in a closed New York restaurant, Timberlake agreed to come onboard as an investor.
Why The First Comeback Failed
Despite the excitement surrounding the acquisition, the relaunch struggled almost immediately.
The brothers say they rebuilt the platform from the ground up.
“We built an entirely new Myspace,” Chris explained.
But Tim believes they inherited a company that had already lost too much momentum.
“We really tried to modernize it, but it was a different company at that point. It wasn’t the same Myspace.”
Chris added that by then the platform had already gone through repeated leadership changes.
“By that time, they had been through four other sets of management and CEOs,” Chris said. “We were going to be the fifth ones, and I think that there were a lot of the people who were really just done.”
The timing also worked against them.
Facebook had already established itself as the dominant social network, advertisers had moved elsewhere, and MySpace no longer held the cultural influence it once enjoyed.
Chris admitted the problems began almost immediately after the deal closed, saying: “The minute the deal closed, things just started unraveling.”
Tim added: “Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. Every advertiser cancels. They like Facebook.”
The financial impact was enormous.
“We lost a little over $150 million,” Chris revealed.
“Incinerated,” Tim replied.
Could MySpace Actually Work In 2026?
No launch date has been announced, and the owners haven’t revealed what a new version of MySpace would actually look like.
But one of the platform’s original founders believes today’s social media landscape may be creating an opportunity for something different.
Chris DeWolfe told PEOPLE that modern platforms have become dominated by algorithms designed to maximise engagement.
“I do think the algorithms have a lot to do with the addictive nature of social media,” Chris said. “Everything’s programmed to you and what you’re going to like, with the complete and total notion of increasing the amount of minutes that you’re going to spend on a particular social media site.”
Reflecting on MySpace’s early years, he added: “It wasn’t [about] the whole FOMO aspect of life.
“That’s what’s making people feel poorly and giving some people lower self-esteem on some of the current social media sites.”
Whether a revived MySpace leans back into music discovery, profile customisation, artist communities or even the iconic Top 8 remains unknown.
Can nostalgia carry it?
The internet has changed dramatically since MySpace ruled social networking.
Platforms are now built around recommendation algorithms, short-form video and endless scrolling, while many users have become increasingly vocal about wanting greater control over what they see online.
Whether that creates an opening for MySpace remains to be seen.
The Vanderhook brothers, however, aren’t giving up.
Even after investing heavily, watching the first relaunch fail and admitting they “Incinerated” more than $150 million, they’re still convinced the story isn’t over. As they have promised to “relaunched” the beloved platform… seemingly no matter how many times it takes.
Featured image credit: WorldManual/Myspace (screenshots)
