Makeoutclub.com was an early social networking website, the first that catered to youth and indie music culture. Launched in 1999 by Gibby Miller, Makeoutclub introduced features and concepts (such as customizable user profiles with photos and interests sections) that later became standard in social networking sites.

About

The MVP/beta version of the site was launched in August 1999. This version of the site was hosted privately, the URL given to friends to "leak" for testing purposes before launch. In the beginning, the site was simple, and featured member pages divided by "Boys" and "Girls" with each user able to maintain a "Profile Card", stream on a cams page, interact on site forums, and contribute news for the homepage. News on the site was typically music-oriented, or focused on youth culture, fashion, and internet gossip. Because member pages were rendered chronologically, users took pride in having an "early page number". Makeoutclub was intended as a platform to bridge the distance between like-minded individuals in the music and youth subculture scenes when the internet was populated with early adopters. The site said it was "for indierockers, hardcore kids, record collectors, artists, bloggers, and hopeless romantics." Makeoutclub was among the first social networking sites whose members experienced firsthand the stigma associated with meeting others online. Makeoutclub grew to add fully featured user profile pages, image galleries, message boards, blogs, private mail, private galleries, and "crush-lists" (an early matchmaking feature). Despite its name, Miller insisted during the site's infancy that it was not a dating site, but a place to make friends. This assertion has been challenged many times. Makeoutclub was featured in Time, The Face, Spin, Rolling Stone, and several television spots on MTV2, G4, Much Music, and more. It was the focal point and inspiration of Andy Greenwald's book about youth and the emo movement Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo as well as Leila Sales's book This Song Will Save Your Life. The site was named after the song "Make Out Club" by the band Unrest. Since its inception, Makeoutclub was linked to the hipster, emo, and indie subcultures.

History