NEED TO KNOW
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Shakira shared a nostalgic meme, recreating a famous picture she took nearly 30 years ago at a computer desk
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The singer’s new picture comes as MySpace co-owners Chris and Tim Vanderhook recently opened up about their intention to relaunch the site in a new documentary
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The film explores MySpace’s history and its cultural impact before Facebook and Instagram dominated social media
Shakira is joining in on the nostalgic fun.
On Tuesday, Aug. 3, the “Whenever, Wherever” singer, 49, also looked back at past technology.
“I have a feeling I’ve seen this before,” she captioned an Instagram photo of herself sitting at a desk with a printer, adding, “#letscreatetogether.”
ShakiraCredit: Shakira/instagram
Her photo was almost identical to one taken decades earlier that showed her in the same pose, seated at a desk as she typed at a computer and smiled for the camera. The photo has since become a nostalgic meme. One Instagram page captioned the photo “Https don’t lie,” a playful take on her 2005 hit “Hips Don’t Lie.”
The original photo was reportedly taken in 1997 at the newsroom facilities of the newspaper El Heraldo in Barranquilla, Colombia, near the beginning of Shakira’s rise to fame.
In the years since then, the image has turned into one of the internet’s favorite memes, specifically for talking about MySpace — the now-defunct social networking site. While that platform didn’t launch until Aug. 1, 2003, fans have used the image to mimic someone arranging their “Top 8,” customizing their profile song, checking messages, or other fun features specific to the popular site.
“Love, thanks for updating the meme 🫶🐺,” one fan commented. Another wrote, “HAHAHAHA THE BEST MEME OF ALL TIME.”
Meanwhile, MySpace’s current owners shared their hopes to bring the social networking site back in a documentary.
Brothers Chris Vanderhook and Tim Vanderhook are the current owners of MySpace after acquiring it from News Corp in 2011. They appear in filmmaker Tommy Avallone’s new documentary, Myspace, which debuted at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto on April 27.
“We heard that News Corp was 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 in the documentary.
“For us, it was all about the artist community that was the heartbeat that we saw, that we wanted to resuscitate,” Tim added.
stock image of myspace icon displayed on a laptopCredit: Martin Keene/PA Images via Getty
Elsewhere in the documentary, the siblings shared that they became the fifth owners of MySpace after the ones before them tried unsuccessfully to bring back the social site that dominated the internet a year before Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok were launched.
Myspace co-founder Aber Whitcomb, who is also featured in the documentary, opened up on why he thinks MySpace had a huge initial impact.
“With Myspace, they may have spent that time on Myspace — they may have spent a couple of hours on there, but they were usually learning about music or actually socializing,” Whitcomb said.
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“It wasn’t the whole FOMO aspect of life,” he continued. “And I think that that’s really the primary negative. And that’s what’s making people feel poorly and giving some people lower self-esteem on some of the current social media sites.”
Chris also confirmed that he and his brother still had plans for the social networking site that united generations of fans.
“We still own Myspace. We are stewards of the Myspace brand at this point, and we are going to relaunch Myspace,” he said. “We’re just waiting for the right time to do it. And if that one doesn’t work, we’ll do it again.”
Read the original article on People