A recent survey of 18- to 30-year-olds has revealed that six per cent STILL use MySpace, once the most popular social networking site in the world.

The music-discovery site had 50 million users, and was relaunched by Justin Timberlake in 2013. Meanwhile, Bebo (where you can post blogs, photographs, music and videos), a 10-million strong website once loved by UK teens, has recently announced its own relaunch.

After years in the shadow of Facebook (which now has 1.2 billion users), is retro social networking on its way back into fashion? We open the antique treasure chest of the Internet, and take a look back at the sparkle-covered highs and lows of the MySpace era.

1. Use all the sparkles!

Like it or not, it was seemingly impossible to spend time stalking MySpace, circa 2005, without a heavy dose of blinding screen glare from all those sparkly stars and love hearts. The more blinding unicorns and rainbows, the better, it seemed. And who was going to prove us wrong?

2. Chain mail had us genuinely worried

‘If u send this message to all ur contacts, then press F7 and your crush’s name will appear on screen!! If u don’t you will have 7 years bad luck!’ The arrival of one of these chain messages in one’s Hotmail inbox invariably sparked dilemma and mild panic. We couldn’t be entirely sure, though –– so we sent them on anyway.

3. Customise, customise, customise

Sites like MySpace and Bebo were gloriously customisable, be it glittery pink fairies or boy bands with more hair gel than a Hollister advert. Particularly memorable was my ‘I <3 BEER’ theme, which brought instant street cred –– despite the fact that I’d never drunk it in my life.

4. The birth of oversharing: All those questionnaires…

Back in the 00s, we were happy, for some reason, to share everything and anything with the Internet. Anything. Whether it was allowing people you’d never met to find out your deepest fears and dreams with ‘10 truths about me’, or finding new and inventive ways to waste time with ‘silly band names’, the Internet and procrastination went hand in hand before any of us could even spell the word!

5. MySpace’s ‘current mood’

For all those times when you were ‘pissed off’ or ‘moody’ and wanted everyone to know it and wonder why: because everyone liked being a little mysterious sometimes.

6. The Internet had its own language

For anyone who grew up with the web, words that are now ridiculed then seemed the height of kl. Lol’ing at a gr8 PJ with ur bffes was, like, super jks bbz. So was iNserTing RandOM capS. ROFLMAO.

7. The Internet could be stressful

Particularly when it came to deciding on your ‘top 8’ MySpace followers, or which of your 4,000 friends would be your ‘other half’ on Bebo.

8. The all-important email username

Nothing summed up existence quite like one’s email username, in an era when addresses like couch_potato118 or the_edster (joyfully, still in use) were de rigueur. Try applying for jobs with one of those.

9. Share the luv

On Bebo the hardest daily decision was who to ‘Share the Luv’ with. Because nothing spells insecurity like a lack of Internet ‘luv’.

10. That 400-photo sleepover album

Because nothing says ‘here are two best friends having a super awesome time’ like 400 near-identical shots that commit every crime against photography ever. Particular classics included: the beard stroke, the peace sign, the bathroom mirror selfie (with or without flash), and the overhead shot. Hours spent editing the brightness, writing captions, and uploading to MySpace was time well spent.

Text: Edward Millett

What do you miss most about the MySpace era? Tell t2@abp.in