Tom was Tom Anderson, one of MySpace’s co-founders. Somehow, Tom managed to become an exception – besides being as unavoidable as that time Apple snuck a U2 album onto everyone’s iTunes, he was the only real person among a crowd of fictional names. The first name + last name combination was practically banned. The platform’s most famous figure was Tila Tequila – and “Tequila” was surprisingly not her real last name.
Back then – which feels like both yesterday and a thousand years ago – the internet was a far cry from today’s “digital twin” of reality. Apart from basic work functions (like email and a few news sites), the WWW (there were no apps!) was an imaginative space where we could lead a “second life” with people who often lived far away. It was exclusive, not a global directory like today. Connections were slow, very few people had phones with internet access, and if you had one, it was mainly for checking email – not for goofing off. Data was expensive, and there was no sleek, intuitive iPhone 16.
