134: Myspace
| Myspace |
 Title text: It's like they got together and said 'what do we miss most from the internet in 1998? that's right, embedded MIDI!' |
Explanation
Oh, dear... Have you ever visited a website that, not long after the page finishes loading, suddenly plays a song? Such an event is already startling when alone, but others near your vicinity would also get affected. The five seconds to which the computer in the comic refers are the approximate time required for you to successfully stop the music (finding the "pause"/"stop" button, muting the computer audio...)
Since [MySpace] allows wide customization for one's page, embedded music players (that can even play automatically) are a (sad) possibility. While MySpace seems to have faded, automatic embedded players live on in [Tumblr], another site which allows heavy customization of one's blog.
The title text refers to the fact that pages of old also allowed one to embed an MIDI (an audio format) file in the page so that the page would play the file upon loading. (This gets worse with the fact that the MIDI file can be set to play continuous, requiring either closing the web page or manually adjusting the volume of your computer.)
Transcript
- [Computer screen showing a myspace page]
- Oh man, you and everyone in earshot are gonna LOVE the first five seconds of this song!
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It should be noted that MIDI files don't necessarily have terrible sound quality, they are just a lossless wrapper around a music sheet. The player therefore is where the sound quality is the issue. 108.162.217.23 19:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Not sure (because this machine has no audio, and I'm accessing an archive of the site) but the Yvette's Bridal Formal site was always an examplar of... well, loads of things, but definitely including music. Bagpipe music one page, IIRC. Anyway, it had disappeared, last time I checked, but I have the link http://web.archive.org/web/20110718150459/http://yvettesbridalformal.com/ (might need to be better URLified with %3A%2F%2F or whatever it needs in there) that at least gives the visual... experience? 178.98.31.27 00:58, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Could this also describe the fact that often only samples of a few seconds (usually more than 5, though) are available? --Chtz (talk) 11:10, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I still get thrown back, when I hear the song that my first girlfriend had on her Myspace profile in 2007-2008, as I visited it regularily and the song became heavily connected to her. The profile was abandonend at some point in 2008 but still exists, including clichee smooching photos of us. I am not sure if the autoplay also still works. --Lupo (talk) 08:07, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
