Cast Off Your Shackles — Break MySpace! [FIXED-READ UPDATE]

Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred.
This error has been forwarded to MySpace’s technical group.

Here I am, with yet another lame MySpace trick. This one however is absolutely not useful and the result is the following: you will not be able to navigate any MySpace page having to do with you, friends on your list will not be able to view the “status updates” page, friends who use the new layout will not be able to access their MySpace home pages until you’re cycled from their update window (the more friends/more often they update the quicker they will be able to access it). Lastly, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FIX THIS. Though I despise MySpace, I e-mailed them about fixing this problem and they have not, so you will be at their mercy if you decide to do this. I take no responsibility for you doing this either.

This all began out of boredom one day, I was viewing the source of MySpace’s “Status and Mood” in hopes of uncovering an undocumented mood that I could impress the ladies with (the invisible ones, ladies that is).

Turns out each mood is associated with an integer between 1 and 228. I noticed there is no mood 50 nor 94 nor 135. I decided to set my mood to good old 94. I expected that I would not simply be able to set the mood to 229 (which is outside the range) but it’s a possibility that it will result in the same effect, I did not try it. So how do we change our mood to these unlisted numbers? The many methods of editting HTML is beyond the scope of this tutorial but I will walk you through how I did it.

If you’re using Internet Explorer, shame on you, you shall be left out in the cold. I use Firefox and the addon “Web Developer” though a lot of the internet uses “Firebug“.

• After installing Firefox and Web Developer browse to http://friends.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.friendmoods while logged in to MySpace.
• From there click “Miscellaneous” from the Web Developer Toolbar and drop down to “Edit HTML”

• When the edit HTML window pops up at the bottom, scroll down until you see the moods, they will be easily noticable.
• Change the value in any one you want to one of the three numbers (50, 94, or 135) and optionally change the description/name of the mood. I got creative and changed it to “DIE MYSPACE!” Do not close the Edit HTML box when you’re done.

• Now in your browser go on and update your mood, you’ll notice that if you changed the name of your mood it will now be in the box. Select it and click Done and your MySpace will be all but useless!

• If all goes well you will be greeted with a lovely error message upon logging in

Enjoy your newfound freedom from MySpace, go join Facebook until I find a way to break that too. Sigh, I really have to get a new hobby.

UPDATE

MySpace has fixed this so that you can’t change your mood to non-existent ones anymore. They haven’t fixed my profile yet, but they’ve prevented you from breaking your MySpace… Sorry!