MySpace’s owners want to bring it back. But does it belong in 2026?

We might get MySpace before we get GTA 6.

Anyone aware of the internet in 2006 knows about MySpace, the music-driven networking site that arguably pushed the world into our modern era of social media (and made sure everybody had at least one friend thanks to Tom). In its heyday, MySpace had over 100 million monthly active users and was getting more traffic than Google.

Then Facebook went big, and MySpace passed into obscurity.

That is, of course, a very truncated version of what happened, but it’s also accurate. Though Facebook lacked MySpace’s deep relationship with musicians and tools for music discovery and fandom, it had newer-tech networking features that lured millions of people who just wanted to make a page for displaying their daily activities, interests, and friends.

But unlike, say, Vine, which also relaunched this year (kind of), MySpace never truly went away.

In the years since its traffic crash in 2008-2011, MySpace has changed ownership multiple times. A faulty server migration in 2019 cause it to lose all content posted before 2016, but the site remained technically usable until 2024, when it was placed in read-only mode.

Now, owners Tim and Chris Vanderhook say they’re going to bring it back.

Bear with us for a second, this will get complicated: The Vanderhook brothers first took a stake in MySpace in 2011 via their company Specific Media Group, which they later renamed to Viant. That $35 million acquisition also brought in Justin Timberlake as a co-owner. Then, in 2016, Viant was acquired by Time, Inc., which was subsequently acquired by Meredith Corporation in 2018.

Viant appears to have since spun out on its own, and is apparently in control of MySpace.

The Vanderhooks dropped their relaunch news in Myspace, a 2026 documentary directed by Tommy Avalone.

“We still own Myspace. We are stewards of the Myspace brand at this point, and we are going to relaunch Myspace,” they said. “We’re just waiting for the right time to do it. And if that one doesn’t work, we’ll do it again.”

The Vanderhooks have already tried and failed to revitalize MySpace once. That attempt, in 2013, ended up losing them “a little over $150 million,” Chris said in the documentary, adding that MySpace struggled to retain advertisers who by then were committed to Facebook and were exploring platforms like YouTube.

Their goal with that relaunch was to “modernize” MySpace and turn it into “an entirely new” site, but it “just became an onslaught of losses,” Tim said.

So what would their goal be with a 2026 (or 2027, or 2028) version of MySpace? The brothers didn’t say–but whatever their plans are, they’d be facing steep headwinds. When MySpace started, it was a continent with a commanding presence, one of the largest places for people to connect with one another online.

These days, it’d be a speck in a solar system. It would have to set itself apart from the vast number of platforms available (including TikTok, which has a major musical component) and contend with almost two decades of added regulations and standard policies for social media. There’s also music licensing to handle. And that’s before we get into AI.

While it might be frustrating to hear the Vanderhooks drop vague promises with no concrete plans or timeline, we kinda get why they’re hesitant to commit. Bringing back OG MySpace as it was might be a hit with nostalgia cravers, people who want a break from the constant deluge of the modern world. Would that time capsule hold enough people’s attention long-term, though?

Seems like MySpace might have to find ways to “modernize,” but what would that look like? What would it become?