Social media is on the decline. Instagram is all ads. No one’s posting on BeReal. TikTok is for influencers. The new place for sharing: group chats.

    • MentalEdge@ani.social
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      Like for real!! I was a semi-lurker on reddit. Posted a couple times a year.

      I just passed 500 posts on Lemmy.

      • Weslee@lemmy.world
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        I’ve found lemmy to be alot less hostile, don’t care about downvotes, but attacking people because of opinions doesn’t sound like a fun time to me

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          The absence of a running karma total is a surprisingly powerful difference. I do still look back at old posts, and it’s nice when there’s votes, but without the little number next to a name or when I mouse-over a profile, there’s no motivation to be the first in a thread to repost a cliche joke or to ragebait for fake internet points.

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            I hated most of those cliche jokes. Here I am looking for real conversation only to be met with thousands of not witty low effort jokes.

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              There are some starting here too, I swear to god if I see one more, “Good bot” reply to a fucking bot account I may stroke out. I don’t know why, but that one really grinds my gears.

              • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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                I think that on some bots it is meant as feedback on its performance but to have 10 users give the same feedback is kinda annoying. Maybe Lemmy can have a feature were humans can approve/disapprove bot performance that doesn’t involve upvote/downvote. It would only be available to bot accounts in the site’s UI. Could possibly expand it’s functionality to something more useful. Or just use the voting system because it’s already in place.

        • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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          Lemmy definitely has a more chill, human vibe than I got with Reddit, given how overrun the latter was with vast armies of shills, bots, alt right trolls, etc.

          Not that it’s all rainbow-pooping unicorns frolicking through flowery meadows here but at least the dick comments tend to be much rarer and often a one off for the person making them.

        • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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          Opinions are fine. Being disingenuous/an asshole at the same time as having an opinion definitely provokes smackdowns, even on lemmy.

        • pjhenry1216@lemmy.world
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          Profiles are rarely accurate. I viewed the same profile from two different instances (yes the same profile, not the same username from two different instances) and they didn’t even have the age of thr account the same. One was 2 years, one was 2 months. So I wouldn’t trust that. I’d only trust it if you’re logged into that very instance.

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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            In this case it’s more likely to be because that’s one of my alts. This is my main.

    • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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      Part of the reason is Lemmy’s default sorting algorithm for comments, “Hot”, addresses reddit’s biggest flaw, which is that earlier comments snowballs with upvotes, so it buries late-comers to conversations, leading to the rat-race of everyone trying to get their funny one-liners in as early as possible for maximum karma (which also isn’t a thing here.)

      The “Active” default sort for posts also means that comments are a lot more concentrated to what people are actually talking about and posts tend to be stickier. (also, botting upvote is a lot harder on Lemmy, since it’s easy to bot upvotes, it’s a lot harder to fake real conversations in comments. )

      In fact, it is pointless to comment at all past like 4 hours on any post on reddit since it will just sit unread for hours, but here you can comment 1 day after a post and still have people talking to you.

    • Uranium3006@kbin.socialOP
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      for me, I was motivated to make this my first post because I want to help solve the death of content issue we still have. it’s gotten quite a lot of attention. I think that anywhere bigger, anything of relevance would have already been posted by the time I see it

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        Also, for me, it’s the fact I do not feel my data and privacy are being siphoned, sold, and fingerprinted on this platform. Another factor is that I feel the people and interactions are pure and authentic, rather than astroturfed and ambiguous. That may change as the fedicerse grows, but for now it is bringing me back of the older days of the internet.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        You bring up one advantage I see from Lemmy. Even though I’ve seen this article posted before (I think by L4Sbot in this technology community), the nature of de-centralized content means that cross-posting onto various servers is actually encouraged to get input from a variety of users from different communities and configs (for example, people who have disabled viewing bot-account posts).

        On Reddit, people would be quick to say “boooooo repoooost”, but I’ve not seen that too much of that, just a few complaints of “there’s too much orange guy and muskrat in my feed”.

      • Sunforged@lemmy.world
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        I just want the communities I post in to grow. Just trying to do my part to keep people engaged and encourage others to do the same.

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      Absolutely, I post much more here because I know actual people will actually read it and may actually respond like they would to an actual human. It’s like the old days of the internet.

      • landsharkkidd@aussie.zone
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        Yeah look I don’t get slurs thrown at me or people abusing the “send help” button. So that’s a bonus.

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            It’s great that they have that. But man it got abused so easily, and it felt kind of silly that you could actually block it. I remember getting it after saying the most middest of takes.

            • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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              I honestly don’t know whether it’s good that they have it or not.

              There must be a myriad of ways that reddit could support the mental health of redditors which would be more effective.

    • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Hey me too! Just the Lemmy side (was never into twitters whole thing) but I actually post stuff here, even if it’s just cross posting.

      I always used an alt to post on Reddit and did so very infrequently. I think I posted maybe 3 things on the 4 years on Reddit?

      I comment a lot more, and have posted a ton more (even without removing the posts! And yea, 5 is a ton more since it’s in the last 2 months rather than 4years!)

      I don’t even clear my comment history as a compulsive thing (I changed me behavior somewhat, to allow for this) because I don’t want to remove activity from the platform. I know it needs me to contribute so I do!

    • c0c0c0@lemmy.world
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      I do, too, but it’s out of duty and I’ll stop when other people pick up the slack.

    • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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      I mean I think it’s a fine career, it’s the name that’s dumb.

      For the most part they’re just entertainers. The “influencer” name suggests way more than should be.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        Entertainers are supposed to be entertaining though.

        These people have all the “entertainment” value of a late-night infomercial at best. “Oooh, watch me get excited about unboxing this item. Whatever could have Disney sent me this week?”

        The worst problem is that these influencers do gain huge amounts of followers, but rarely fact-check or do hard sciences needed to ya know, give information to viewers? See Linus Tech Tips and the whole crap they’re into right now.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          You are watching the wrong persons on youtube.
          Aaaand: The thing you think is unfunny might be the funbiest thing since forver for another.

          • veroxii@aussie.zone
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            Exactly. And the fact that people have large amounts of followers mean that plenty of people find them entertaining.

        • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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          I mean, they’re mostly indie and could probably easily be compared to stand-up comedians.

          Which if we look at it’s history is a very crash-and-burn career itself. I think a lot of them are entertaining. But it’s certainly a saturated market where it can feel like a needle in a haystack at times.

          And really, the issue with LTT, is an issue. But keep in mind on the internet we largely mock news sites in general for being uninformative and many being glorified blogs. It’s not as uncommon as we unfortunately may think.

          But basically a lot of what is souring you on influencers, either has already happened in other careers or is currently happening to others as well, just we don’t think about it as much.

        • TheAndrewBrown@lemm.ee
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          Well “entertaining” is subjective. If these people weren’t entertaining, they wouldn’t have so many followers.

          There are absolutely a ton of people out there taking advantage of certain people and manipulating them as opposed to actually being entertaining, but that’s not an “influencer” problem, that’s just a people problem. That happens in every industry with human interaction.

          Plenty of influencers just post content they think their followers will like and use that following to make money as well. And a lot of the time, their followers actually enjoy the things they advertise.

          And the great thing is if you don’t like the concept, you can just not follow them.

        • pjhenry1216@lemmy.world
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          If you were objectively correct and that folks didn’t find them entertaining, there wouldn’t be the industry and they wouldn’t have their followers. It’s the same phenomenon that makes reality TV such a big money maker.

          • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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            Reality TV is a money maker because you barely need any writers.

            Reality TV was a reaction to the (repeated) writers strikes. Content, no matter the quality, sells eyeballs. Quality almost doesn’t matter in practice. As such, shitty TV that is poorly written makes money because their costs are so low. Not necessarily because people find them entertaining.

            They’re the McDonalds of Hollywood. Low effort, low cost content designed to fill up televisions but keep audiences with “something” between the major shows people watch.


            And no. Reality TV isn’t “real” either, its just unscripted, low effort television. Its roughly WWE where characters (and their actors) are given much leeway into the shots / script because they don’t want to pay real writers to make an actual script.

            • pjhenry1216@lemmy.world
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              It has a lot of eyeballs. That’s the whole point. They were extremely popular shows. I don’t understand how you’re just swiping that part under the rug as if it didn’t matter. If no one watched them, they’d stop. They watch them because many people found it entertaining to watch. I can’t believe you’re trying to create a conspiracy that a bunch of people watched a show because they… didn’t enjoy it?

      • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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        Like they could be a video journalist or a nature photographer or a lifestyle model. All those would be more descriptive than just influencer.

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        I prefer "content creators. " Sametimes they can be very educational or entertaining. (I watch a lot of comedy, travel, and home workout content.)

    • pjhenry1216@lemmy.world
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      It’s a double edged sword. I do like some of the niche content the industry has created. I like coffee and I get a lot of indepth coffee analysis from folks who likely wouldn’t be able to spend the time doing so if they needed “real” jobs. I think it’s the ones where there’s no actual valuable content that is what gets people annoyed. I don’t understand how someone can just play video games in front of a camera. Or where they’re famous for their personality.

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      Why though? You don’t have to be their customer. But clearly lot of people are.

    • Klystron@sh.itjust.works
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      Hey, I take offense to that! I’m going to write a vitriolic response to your seemingly-normal-but-different-viewpoint-than-mine opinion where I’ll use non-applicable slurs and misinformation and then call you dumb if you post a sensible reply!

      • Poggervania@kbin.social
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        tfw you just stand on the sides and then meme on what’s happening with a lame joke instead of contributing your two cents on the socioeconomic practices that are happening in the US that are currently choking its working class to death

        lmaooooooo gottem

      • moistclump@lemmy.world
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        Hey, I take offence to your office! I’m going to write a nonsensical response that parallels your comment where I’ll use no sources and not really make any point whatsoever!

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    I’ve seen the birth of it in my lifetime, I’ll see the death of it in my lifetime. Way to go, evolution!

      • cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works
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        I was in college and I still do not understand it. My friends were like dude there’s girls on it and you can poke them. But there’s girls out in the real world. Now it’s the reverse where meeting people on the internet is more normal than meeting IRL.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    Social media in general is in the following stage of Enshitification:

    • Launch
    • Growth at all costs, user focus
    • Use size to bring advertisers
    • Gradually shift focus to advertisers and money bringers
    • Ensure users are way too invested to quit
    • >> Sell out <<

    It’s no surprise that people only end up seeing “carefully curated” content, it’s what “sells”, or rather, ensures people stay in the stupid app. From TFA: “While sharing has tailed off, consuming content hasn’t slowed”

    I have an Insta account for some of the part time 3D printing I do, but since I’m not a “content creator”, my stuff has almost zero reach. Whenever I open the app, it’s roughly 1:1:1 posts of “recommended”, someone I actually follow, advert. 2/3 of everything shown to me is stuff I didn’t ask for, not to mention when the advertises are actual scams or fucking pyramids

    • Aderyna@sh.itjust.works
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      This is really interesting to think about. On my photography IG the one users who are still having good reach are the ones who are promoting their patreon/presets/editing services, are constantly trying to earn money in some way and are posting a million reels every day.

      More casual photographers like me are getting zilch. I used to get 1000 likes on 95% of my stuff with some going viral. Now I get 200 if I’m lucky, my reach in general is in the hole and I refuse to spend hours editing reels and begging for the algorithms attention. I’m close to shutting it down but I help mod a page right now so I’m hanging on for a bit yet.

  • zxo@sopuli.xyz
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    The fediverse, while still social media, has a level of authenticity unrivaled by most major social medias in my opinion. Hopefully it stays that way!

    • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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      Has any communication system managed to do that? Once certain types of people catch the scent of profit, they tear the medium apart searching for every penny of it.

      Letters became junk mail. Email became spam. Newspapers and magazines became mostly ads and shilled content. Television became for-profit news and reality content.

      That authenticity is just going to make it more appealing to astro-turf.

      • R51@lemmy.world
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        we need to shitpost more. a neighborhood that is high in crime does not appeal to advertisers. like north korea, they live in paradise whilst convincing the rest of the world that it’s a shithole.

    • Mighty@lemmy.world
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      ah i guess that’s in the process of changing. you can see this happening right now. more right-wing memes, more “look at this cool movie/toy/outfit… i found. it’s really me, a normal human being just like you!”

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
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    I also noticed how my social media usage (even on Lemmy and Mastodon) is consistently declining, I haven’t opened the clients I use for either platform in days (or possibly more than a week). It’s bad because I was pretty invested in the fediverse, but it’s good because now I can actually do something productive, or even go outside.

    • salton@lemmy.world
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      I hadn’t been on irc in over a decade. The issue is I don’t know anymore where anyone actually hangs out. Sure there are plenty of niche servers for software projects but as a general use sort of thing I really don’t know where to start again.

    • webhead@lemmy.world
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      Discord is better than IRC imo. I used IRC for a VERY long time and Discord was the one that finally killed it for me. We’ll see if it lasts. I guess if they kill themselves (and they keep trying to), IRC will still be there waiting. Used to be on Rizon!

      • anotherandrew@lemmy.mixdown.ca
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        Discord is sooo awful imo. Every server has annoying “rule bots” or people constantly changing the look/feel of the channels or trying to engage you with @all or @channel (which you can ignore but it’s still annoying)… even the more technical ones have the same vibe. IRC is so much easier to communicate in IMO.

    • acr515@lemmy.world
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      BeReal is pretty popular with a lot of the people I know- you might not be in the right social circles who know about it

      • Da Bald Eagul@feddit.nl
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        I believe it’s an app, where you randomly get a notification and mist poat within then and 2 minutes. It takes a pic of both the front and back cameras on your phone. The idea is that you can’t make yourself look good, like with Snapchat filters, or even Instagram where you can find a nice angle or whatever.

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          It feels like it has a similar stance to what BeMe had but is somewhat successful. Less about you attempting to look perfect and more about every day life. The BeMe idea was to set your camera to record, hold it to your chest to record what ever you were looking at, and before you knew it the video was uploaded to the servers.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          I’m having trouble imagining a worse social media experience and I’ve used both Facebook and the new Reddit site.

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    No app better defines the changing nature of social media than Instagram. The app started as a digital scrapbook — a place to keep up with real-world connections, close friends, and family. While other networks had more users (Facebook) or generated more news (Twitter), Instagram seemed to define the ideal form of this era of social media. Instagram became a verb, an aesthetic, and a generational signifier.

    huUURP! BLAAaahhriifgghhh. . .

    Garbage marketing platform dies horribly. Thousands of clueless “journalists” bereft.

    • sndmn@lemmy.ca
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      Insta-gram

      I thought it originated as a marketplace for single servings of drugs.

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    I still visit Reddit but I no longer engage in any way, other than reading comments. No up/down voting, not commenting, no reporting spam. Nothing but reading with multiple layers of ad-blocking.

    PS: the overall quality/value has dropped precipitously

    • FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca
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      I deleted my main Reddit account but still find myself going back there occasionally for specific topics. For example, I haven’t found a goof place on Lemmy to ask travel questions.

      • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        place on Lemmy to ask travel questions.

        Good luck. One poster would ask if you like sex and travel, then tell you to “Go and get fucked.”

        Another would accuse you of being a bourgeois lib who is killing the planet with your capitalist excesses.

        Another would go on a rant about privilege and how your very ability to ask such questions in a public space speaks to your total lack class consciousness and your ignorance of “The Movement” or something like it.

        In short, check out Vang Vieng in Laos and have a great time.

    • mycatiskai@lemmy.one
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      I read AITA on Lemmy via a bot, that is the last vestige of Reddit I haven’t dropped.

  • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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    Also, if no one is posting on social media, then what the hell are we all doing right now then?

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        The internet has been almost entirely enshittified by large corporations and government overreach. I really do wish there was a way to get back to Web 1.0 of mostly user-generated, self-hosted content, without the slow internet speeds or crappy web design motifs.

        Might be possible if everyone is forced underground due to adblockers possibly getting killed off.

        • pjhenry1216@lemmy.world
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          Web 2.0 was the advent of user generated content. Web 1.0 was not. It was site-generated content for the most part. Some forums possibly. But it was extremely static and was very poor way to find user generated content.

        • R51@lemmy.world
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          I blame javascript. If it weren’t for people fucking with the time travel machine WE’D be the ones in the original timeline, and no one would have to suffer in this timeline where javascript got invented.

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      My Facebook is only memes, only from the large meme pages, not the ones I like that I have to check manually since they’ll never end up in my feed. And news articles.

      It started with Facebook just hiding what your friends are posting. It still happens that someone shares a photo once a year or so, but I will never get shown it. I just browse my friend’s profiles manually.

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        1 year ago

        That was extremely dissatisfying about Facebook. I’d see an endless stream of crap from people that I barely knew and didn’t care about at all, and then when I’d look at a profile of someone I actually knew and did want to keep up with, I’d see posts about significant and interesting things that happened in their lives which Facebook never showed me. I tried to get them to stop showing me irritating posts about politics - unfollow people, block people, mark “show less posts like this”, then it would come up with more political posts from people I didn’t even recognize. Meanwhile, oh, colleague got married…. sure, just never show me that post and show me 15 idiotic political memes instead.

        • R51@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          and we’d voice our opinion AS THESE CHANGES WERE HAPPENING and people would cry “things change you just don’t like change hur durr i’m so progressive”

    • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I don’t consider this or reddit social media. I don’t know anyone, nor do I care to.

      Instead it is like a collection of forums since forever like in the bbs days.

      I pick and choose what rooms to go in and learn something. But it isn’t about me, or staying connected. You know, the social part.

      • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This and Reddit are 100% social media. Right now, writing this, we are socializing on this media.

        Maybe I’m wrong, but this is how I’ve viewed it for years

        • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          No, I don’t think so. Not in the sense that social media became defined. Web forum, and bbs rooms, existed long before the term. The key difference and turning point was removal of anonymity, and the concept of self promotion. I know they are similar and overlap, but the evolution from one to the other did occur. Reddit and Lemmy still have more in common with news aggregation and forums than say a Titter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Most of the content here is in reference to something else, end then discussion are on that.

        • R51@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          nah. Social Media has a sort of implied entertainment attached to it, which is not a good description of, e.g., this very discussion. This -can- be social media if you’re just lurking, but for us conversing here this is now a forum. We’re sharing thoughts and discussing.

        • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          No, I don’t think so. Not in the sense that social media became defined. Web forum, and bbs rooms, existed long before the term. The key difference and turning point was self promotion, and the removal of anonymity. I know they are similar and overlap, but the evolution from one to the other did occur. Reddit and Lemmy still have more in common with news aggregation and forums than say a Titter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Most of the content here is in reference to something else, end then discussion are on that.

          If you look up the history of the term the turning point is definitely the change to having real personas and real people connect. That is where the “social” part comes from. The term “social networking”. But we are not social networking here. Do you actually know anyone here? Do you want to?

          • R51@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            preach. If anyone wants an example of what is meant by “forum” if you’re too accustomed to modern takes on it, visit places like news.ycombinator.com or just browse reddit using old.reddit.com and go in some less “popular” subs that aren’t just people posting random pics and videos.

      • pjhenry1216@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s basically how most of Instagram works and is what the article is about. No one knows folks on those platforms either. They aren’t “social” anymore. No one shares anything personal, it’s all “content” created for millions of followers by influencers and the like. This is probably more like social media than current platforms are. It’s closer to what social media was when it started.

    • andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun
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      1 year ago

      I’m assuming you’re just here studying nerds for your next blockbuster where you’re playing Ada Lovelace or something.

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      1 year ago

      This is why I hate when “journalists” write titles like these because they’re just stupid bullshit. Why not just say “social media use is in severe decline”. Oh, because it’s not clickbait, that’s why.

  • Mighty@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    it’s interesting how many comments show that people like to read the headline and are content with that to form an opinion. literally the first paragraph says that it’s not “THERE ARE NO POSTS” but it says that the “feed is swamped by a combination of perfectly curated photos and professionally created content.” - the problem is that the paid content creators have become GOOD. so many of them really look like they are just opinions and casual mentions of movies/clothes/…things. viral marketing is really at a point where so many fronts that have been established have been broken down in the guise of “irony” or “sarcasm”. “I’m only buying the Barbie merch ironically” etc.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      it’s interesting how many comments show that people like to read the headline

      I read articles about India landing on the moon, ancestors of humans nearly dying out, tech employees being dissatisfied in Austin, etc. I don’t care about social media enough to read an article. That’s probably a lot of people here.

      • schzztl@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Are those articles shown to you by Google News (the thing built into Android) by any chance? I’ve had those exact ones recommended to me in the past few days and it’s a little unnerving seeing someone else mention reading them all lmao.

        • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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          I do check Google News daily on the web from my computer. And I also read news stories posted to Lemmy. I also have a bunch of RSS feeds on my phone, but that’s typically nerd computer stuff unless someone happens to comment on a news article on their blog.

    • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s not just about content creators becoming good though, the article also explains how the algorithm pushes that content over others.

      Granted, the quality of the content is still a big part of it, another point it makes is that people refrain from posting things because it’s not “good enough” compared to others.