I think you and others are really being overly sensitive about this. Yes, they probably shouldn't have called your favourite browser outdated, but it's obvious that it was an oversight, and consequence of taking an informal tone with giving a message. A message necessitated by choosing not to support the major browser with the smallest market share in their "preview" release.
I like it when larger, more corporate sites go for an informal tone, even if they don't completely nail the humour they might have been striving for. It's a better direction overall than a stuffy PR-speak message, and getting bent out of shape about it just seems like an overreaction.
There is a middle ground, it is called a simple, straight forward message, something like "We don't support your browser". No shark needed, no suggestions that the user "doesn't use the internet much" or are "at their parent's house". Though the idea of MySpace trying to put on a hipster front is hilarious in the irony. Really? MySpace still exists as an actual thing?
Except that many IE8 users don't even know what a browser is. That isn't an euphemism, they literally don't know the word "browser". There message as displayed conveys the message better than "We don't support your browser" to those people, and there are more of those people than there are Opera users.
My point wasn't that as soon as you say the word "browser" their brain's are going to shut off; with the message as presented you don't need to know anything about the word "browser" or even what a browser is or does to understand what they are saying.
Obviously they could have written a paragraph of text explaining that, but just saying "something you are using is so old that it is lame (in the duck sense, not in the teenage slang sense), here's how to fix it" gets the job done in one sentence.
This isn't a business website, this is a social network that gets most of their traffic from bands now. I can't fathom how the smallest amount of snark about IE8 being old on a product like this is raising so much anger on the HN community.
People don't appreciate being needlessly insulted, I can't fathom that you don't actually understand that. Your "big paragraph explaining a browser" is a strawman. They already say browser, they don't need to elaborate. They can still suggest browsers they do support, the shark just gains them nothing. You honestly think someone seeing the message they have is going to think they are cool/clever/funny/hip? When a course of action gains you nothing and has the possibility of offending potential customers/users the decision seems pretty obvious to me.
I expect most people would not care at all, with the remaining minority either grinning or groaning. I'm not surprised that you think it was ill-advised, but for so many people on HN to be offended or feel insulted because of a lousy attempt at humorously calling out users of out-of-date browsers is just a bizarre concept to me.
I like it when larger, more corporate sites go for an informal tone, even if they don't completely nail the humour they might have been striving for. It's a better direction overall than a stuffy PR-speak message, and getting bent out of shape about it just seems like an overreaction.