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Tom Anderson (born November 8, 1970^[1]) is the President of the social networking website, MySpace. He is one of the people identified as a founder of the site, along with CEO Chris DeWolfe. Since newly created MySpace accounts include Tom as a default "friend," he has become known as the face of MySpace. As of December 18, 2007, (11:51 EST) Tom has 214,988,621 "friends", a number which is constantly increasing due to new MySpace accounts being created.

Anderson attended the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and English. He then attended the University of California, Los Angeles and received a master's degree in film - critical studies. In 2003, he and a few computer programmers set up the first pages of MySpace and the site grew from there. It is currently the most popular social networking website on the Internet, and is the most popular website for teenagers as well, consistently performing among the top sites in United States web traffic rankings.^[2]

Role in founding

Main article: MySpace#Controversy over corporate history

The corporate history of MySpace has been a matter of some public dispute. When MySpace was purchased by News Corp. they also gained control of the editor's account (the Tom Anderson profile) from which all service announcements are made. Such announcements are not from "Tom Anderson" personally but from the corporate owned identity. It has even been claimed that Tom Anderson's role and image as MySpace founder and "first friend" is a public relations invention. This 'image invention' has been criticised for its similarities to George Orwell's Big Brother.^[3]

Another aspect of MySpace's origins that turned out to be misrepresented was Anderson's age. Supposedly 27 when the site was first created, the age stated on his profile followed this information, adding a year with each birthday. It was subsequently revealed that Anderson was five years older than his profile claimed. Speculation on the reasons focused on the benefits in reaching the youth market, by positioning the founders as hip young entrepreneurs instead of "30-somethings".^[4]

MySpace parodies

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Due to his notoriety on MySpace, Tom has become somewhat of a phenomenon in recent years. Being the most widely recognized face on MySpace has made him the subject of parody among its users, who set up real MySpace accounts oriented around a comical theme or a character stereotype using Tom as the basis, generally featuring a Photoshopped (or sometimes simply decorated using Paint) image from Tom's MySpace profile, with satirical comments entered in the "About Me" section.

Cultural references

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• Comedian Lisa Lampanelli made reference to Tom during the 2006 Comedy Central roast of William Shatner, calling a fellow comic "so unlikeable, that on MySpace, Tom won't even be his friend."
• In the song "New Friend Request" by the band Gym Class Heroes the lead singer Travis McCoy depicts how he met a girl on MySpace with the lines "My man Tom introduced us but I was too shy to say Hi".
• On an episode of MTV's Yo Momma, contestant Harp made a joke about his opponent's mother's promiscuity by suggesting that her Myspace profile has more friends on it than Tom's.
• In the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "White and Nerdy", Yankovic's character mentions having a "totally pimped out" MySpace page. In the video, Tom can be seen in the friends section, among Napoleon Dynamite, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates.
• The character Frank on the FX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia only has one friend on his MySpace page, Tom.
• The British comedian Russell Brand personally thanked Tom for all his help and "being there from day one" at his exclusive MySpace gig in London
• On VH1's 40 Greatest Internet Superstars, Tom placed 9th in the list of stars. He was referenced throughout the segment as the creator of MySpace.
• In his song "MySpace", the English comedian Mitch Benn says: ' damn you Tom' and 'Tom, if you're, like, everybody's friend, could you turn round occasionally?'.
• In a song by Bay Area rapper Yukmouth called "Myspace Anthem" he speaks about myspace problems and in his open line he raps "If Tom ain't told you Imma let you niggas know now/searchin for Yuk is like a million different profiles"
• In Episode 301 of Mitch Clem's webcomic "Nothing Nice to Say", Tom is mentioned to have "always been there" for Phillip, a character in the comic.
• In the song "The MySpace Song" the singer of the hardcore-punk band Good Clean Fun claimed Tom to be the responsible of the end of his relationship, accusing him to have created 'a monster' where his girlfriend met another guy. The song describes the end of the relationship, but has a highly humorous tone.

Notes

External links

• Tom's MySpace account