MySpace Tries Comeback Despite Past Relaunch Failures

By Brittany Hayes 13/08/2026 3 min read 14 views

The current owners of MySpace are planning yet another comeback for the once-dominant social media website, according to a new documentary. CNBC detailed that owners Tim and Chris Vanderhook do not lay out a specific timeline for this relaunch. They acknowledge that the last attempt to revive the brand in 2013 did not turn out well, resulting in losses estimated at $150 million.

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

A Platform in Limbo

The current state of the website is dire. A visit to the main page produced slow load times. The design consists of rows of pictures of musical artists with the word “News” in the bottom left corner. Sometimes when users click on one of the pictures, nothing seems to happen.

The sign-up page directs visitors to “Sign in with your Facebook account to find friends who are already on MySpace!,” a request that seems oddly circular given the site’s current lack of activity. Despite these technical issues, the owners believe a new beginning might be right around the corner.

This persistence signals a belief that cultural cycles eventually favor the familiar. As the internet matures, the novelty of algorithmic feeds wears off for some segments of the population, creating a potential opening for platforms that promise simplicity over engagement hacking. It is a gamble that the market has not just moved on, but has become so complex that the chaotic, uncurated nature of the early web feels like a feature rather than a bug.

The Nostalgia Factor

According to CNBC, excitement about a potential relaunch reflects a nostalgia for a largely defunct social media brand that originally launched in 2003. “Excitement about Myspace’s relaunch reflects nostalgia for a more analog time, when algorithms were less dominant in our lives,” Kate Winick, a principal analyst at Forrester, told CNBC.

Winick noted a shift in user behavior. “We’re seeing this in recent moves by both brands and users towards smaller, more private social experiences that feel less built for the algorithm and more personal to the individual user, like the explosion of growth on Substack and private communities on Discord.”

Competing with Giants

However, the data suggests that users are not actually leaving major platforms in droves. A study by the Pew Research Center indicates that adults in the U.S. using TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reddit have grown in recent years.

TikTok enjoyed relatively robust growth, with 37 percent of adults saying they used it in 2025 compared to 21 percent four years earlier. Meanwhile, social media stalwarts YouTube and Facebook remained at the top in terms of usage with relatively stable user numbers.

“The question for Myspace isn’t will it eat Facebook’s lunch twenty years later, but can it relaunch as a small ads platform and still be profitable,” Enders Senior Research Analyst Jamie MacEwan told CNBC. The Vanderhooks remain determined to try, regardless of the odds stacked against them.