- Shakira is gifting internet-users with a recreation of one of her biggest memes.
- The singer has posted an updated version of the iconic photo of her typing at a computer that isn’t on.
- The recreation comes just in time, amid renewed interest in the future of MySpace.
Since MySpace is plotting a comeback, Shakira is getting nostalgic.
The Colombian superstar has picked the perfect moment to delight fans with a little blast from her past by recreating her computer meme, which has become synonymous with the defunct social media site.
“I have a feeling I’ve seen this before,” Shakira captioned an Instagram photo of herself sitting at a desk. “#letscreatetogether.”
The photo is almost identical to one taken decades prior, which saw her seated at a desk in front of a bulky ‘90s computer, posed as though typing and smiling at the camera. In the recreation, Shakira sits at a desk in front of a printer, poised to start typing.
Shakira/instagram
The original photo — which was reportedly taken in 1997 in the newsroom of Colombian newspaper El Heraldo — was captured at the start of Shakira’s rise to fame. It’s only in recent years that fans have noticed that the monitor the singer is seated in front of is off, prompting internet users to use the picture when cracking jokes about outdated technology, office work and the early days of social media.
While the picture predates MySpace, it is frequently paired with jokes about customizing a MySpace profile and arranging the platform’s “Top 8” friends list.
In that regard, the timing of Shakira’s recreation is quite fitting because MySpace is back in the conversation following the release of a documentary exploring the platform’s cultural impact. At one point in the film, current MySpace owners Chris and Tim Vanderhook, reveal that they are planning to revive the site — it’s just a matter of when.
“We are stewards of the MySpace brand at this point, and we are going to relaunch MySpace,” director Tommy Avallone says in the doc, per PEOPLE.
The brothers — who bought the company in 2011, nearly a decade after it was first founded in 2003 — previously planned to revive the social media site as music-focused. But while it was one of the defining websites of the mid-2000s digital age, MySpace has been left behind by the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other sites that have vied for the top spot since the late aughts and 2010s.
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
“We really tried to modernize it, but it was a different company at that point. It wasn’t the same Myspace,” Tim said of their past attempts.
Looking ahead to a potential relaunch, he added, “We’re just waiting for the right time to do it. And if that one doesn’t work, we’ll do it again.”