Social Media Is Dead

Social media is changing, but not dead. Maybe the idea of what we “want” social media to be, is dead.

There will always be a demand for social status. And, as long as there is sufficient demand, there will be supply. Eugene Wei[1] has written a lot about how online social media operates in the economy of social status. It applies to TikTok and LinkedIn alike.

[1] https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service

I quit social media early. Mostly, my various feeds of stuff became a ridiculous mixture of calumny and claver. I lost interest. Chin wagging is best left to the AFK world. HN here is the closest thing I get to social media these days and this is far more similar to a forum than it is to social media.

I feel like I could write a blog post about the issues with this Vice article if I were so inclined, but my biggest problem is that it selectively casts social media as trending towards "YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and an endless number of streaming platforms" because apparently YouTube is a brand new site, Twitch is doing well rather than being in decline, and Discord, being an ad-free chatroom service, obviously doesn't even exist.

Also for an article that says somewhat positive things about Mastodon/Fediverse, the author sure hasn't used it, because the only accounts I can find from them are two non-functional Twitter mirror bots.

Been hearing about Mastadon.

But issues with it, too, in terms of moderation and other stuff.

I don't think there can really be a social media. Someone is always offended by something.

Another journalist in desperate need for clicks

Feels like we’re in cyberpunk 2077 with all the options to be honest

That title is (unfortunately) not true.