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Music

Kesha's MySpace Profile from 2008 is Better Than DJ Khaled's Snapchat

I do not joke when I say it is the Mona Lisa of our Internet's Glory Days.
Emma Garland
London, GB

Once upon a time, nobody was cool on the internet. That might be hard to believe now that we’ve become accustomed to treating our social media platforms like insignificant little museums, displaying only the best and heavily-edited parts of our lives that make ourselves feel better and other people worse. “Look at this VSCO-filtered picture of my neurotic cactus arrangement, you basics,”—this is you, by the way, uploading something—“Look, here’s my hand resting casually on a coffee table book about the history of nautical tattoos.”

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These days, social media pages are just like farts: insufferable unless they are your own. A decade ago, though, it was a different story—a more innocent story. The only troll you knew was Grendel, we had no self-awareness, and there was only one major platform to over-share it on, and that platform was MySpace dot com.

We uploaded 15 identical top-down selfies featuring a greasy fringe obscuring one eye, a lip piercing, and a polka-dot vest from H&M revealing a chest-piece that read “spread your wings.” We crammed X’s into our names and added “core” onto the end of every word possible. We published six personality quizzes a day and used phrases like “sex hair.” We all looked shit, chatted shit, and it was wonderful; an absolute golden era. The best part about it was that famous people did it too.

These days it feels like celebrities shoot out of the womb and straight onto our timelines, where they appear impeccably dressed, shaking hands with Obama. It’s easy to forget that someone like Tom Hardy, for example – a man built like a brick shithouse who has become synonymous with the words “smouldering” and “stoic” – once wrote melodramatic things like, “My head is like a dangerous neighbourhood I should never be in it without an appropriate adult” in his ‘About Me’ section, that Kim Kardashian took shit selfies, and that highly respected genre-spanning singer-songwriter Conor Oberst referred to himself as “Conizzle Obizzle”.

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Kesha, as Kat George wrote for Noisey, is the “quintessential unruly woman.” She’s the independent stay-out-all-night and crash-home-at-6-AM-woman who brushes her teeth “with a bottle of Jack” and handles her own hustle. She is a master of recklessness who has also spoken openly and defiantly about sexuality, depression, and eating disorders. It’s not often someone is able to maintain their personality and image as they progress throughout their mainstream career, but Kesha is strong as hell. Kesha has always been strong as hell. And, as we just discovered, even her MySpace profile from 2008 is strong as hell. Here’s some thoughts…

HER LAYOUT IS A GODDAMN MASTERPIECE

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Behold! A customised template called “Gold cash" built on pimp-my-profile.com, whose sole feature is dollar signs upon dollar signs upon dollar signs. Her URL is ‘keshaishot’ and in the bit where most people put “Female, 21 years old” or whatever she’s written"k$.damnit.wit afog machine&lazerlight show." If Alien from Spring Breakers had a MySpace account, this is exactly what it would look like, and I mean that as an absolute compliment. It is the single greatest collection of creative decisions since Gerhard Richter designed Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation cover.

It’s also worth noting that under “Band Members” she’s written “eddie murphy” and nothing else.

HER ABOUT ME SECTION IS NOW THE THING YOU'LL TELL YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR BEFORE BIG MEETINGS

This bio opens just like a Slipknot concert and only gets better from there. Who, in their heart of hearts, isn’t about the bj’s and trash-stash? Who wouldn’t brag about working with “a lot of hot bitches”? Who hasn’t, at some point, secretly hoped to be related to a Hall of Fame rock star? What is this bio, if not a list of things we all wish were true for ourselves but are too afraid to say?

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“My music is rad”; “I’m fucking rad”; “I’m taking over”: This page is full of more affirmations than Kanye West’s discography. It is the inspiration for Shia LaBeouf’s “Just Do It” speech. I’m going to go ahead and state that Kesha was the DJ Khaled of 2008 and probably lowkey still is. Also, it concludes with a picture of a kitten hiding in a toilet. So, there’s that.

HER LIST OF INFLUENCES INCLUDES JAWBREAKER, BUTTHOLE SURFERS, AFRIKA BAMBAATAA, AND IS ONE MILE LONG

It’s refreshing to know that someone else once copied their entire iTunes library into their ‘Influences’ section too. In my case, I was in the throes of my formative years and hadn’t discovered my “people” yet so I just put ALL the things I like out there at once and hoped my soul mates would come to me (still waiting, guys). But Kesha doesn’t have time for an identity crisis like that; instead it's a fucking musical encyclopedia. This list is so extensive I had to zoom out all the way just to get a screenshot and even then I needed two just to get most—not even all—of it. Jawbreaker, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, and Ornamental Wigwam? These are not the haphazardly thrown-in references of somebody trying to appear cool. These are the confessions of a pop star who spent their teenage years alone in their bedroom, fully immersing themselves in all the weirdest, saddest, most left-field corners of music they could find. Show me another artist who has had a Top Two Billboard single in the last four years who cites Butthole Surfers and Afrika Bambaata as inspirations, and I will show you an empty seat.

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Kesha, please come to Noisey’s staff music quiz next Christmas. You’ll probably win.

HER COMMENTS SECTION IS A TIME CAPSULE OF WHAT THE INTERNET COULD HAVE BEEN BUT ISN’T

There is not a single mean comment on Kesha’s MySpace page from 2008. Not one. That is literally mind-blowing given that one of the biggest talking points of the last year has been women artists hitting back at all the cry babies hurling abuse at them from all directions. Just a few days ago a black metal artist had to close her Facebook messages because of how much abuse she was receiving. Perhaps this says more about the evolution of social media and its relationship with misogyny than it does about Kesha specifically, but look at this and imagine if we still lived in a world where the majority of people who bothered to interact with you online were those just checking in to say that you’re peng and your music makes them happy and they DON’T hate you.

This phrase has been thrown around a lot recently but never meant as much as it does when talking about MySpace: what a time to be alive.

Simpler times.

Simpler HAIMs.

THIS BIT

Not many people know this but Kesha actually filled in on boner-joke duty while Blink-182 were on hiatus.

Well, there you have it. Shout out to Kesha for always keeping it real.

Follow Emma on Twitter.