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.
And yet, after joining Lemmy and Mastodon, I post a lot more.
Like for real!! I was a semi-lurker on reddit. Posted a couple times a year.
I just passed 500 posts on Lemmy.
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
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.
Same goes for 9gag but that site is different
Huh, when I clicked on your profile it says 0 posts…
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.
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.
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
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.
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”.
I comment about as much as I did on reddit, but I feel like I see less negative replies. It doesn’t seem to matter what I’d post on there, somebody somewhere would have something shitty to say. It’s not my fault society can’t accept my seal clubbing hobby.
If you want to go clubbing with 90s phenom and signer of the hit song “Kiss from a Rose”, then you go for it! You are accepted here ❤️
Because people here are nice
Yeah look I don’t get slurs thrown at me or people abusing the “send help” button. So that’s a bonus.
Oh yeah the reddit care team. Fuckers.
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.
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.
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.
I do, too, but it’s out of duty and I’ll stop when other people pick up the slack.
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!
Found the bot /s
The concept of “influencer” as a career needs to die a quick death.
it’s fancy speak for “salesman”
Ooo it’s the equivalent of “side hustle” just being a 2nd job.
Fancy speak for “cheap salesman who has a large network” /0.5s
I call them peddlers
Wha…What?! So you’re saying I’m not a BOSS BABE?!
I’m glad I don’t really get these references. Tells me I’ve avoiding some of the right bullshit.
You were never either one of those
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.
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.
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. It’s not as uncommon as we unfortunately may think.
You are watching the wrong persons on youtube.
Aaaand: The thing you think is unfunny might be the funbiest thing since forver for another.Exactly. And the fact that people have large amounts of followers mean that plenty of people find them entertaining.
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.
Like they could be a video journalist or a nature photographer or a lifestyle model. All those would be more descriptive than just influencer.
I prefer "content creators. " Sametimes they can be very educational or entertaining. (I watch a lot of comedy, travel, and home workout content.)
You don’t like the Z-list celebrities?
Why though? You don’t have to be their customer. But clearly lot of people are.
Talking to real friends more interesting than arguing with strangers? Shareholders flummoxed! News at 11.
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!
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 deat
lmaooooooo gottem
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!
… real friends …
I don’t understand.
Like text but with noises and fleshy.
Edit: sometimes they congratulate you on the anniversary of exiting your mother’s birth canal.
Gross. And Gross.
Flummoxed is such a choice word
It’s kinda fetch
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.
I deleted all 6 of my accounts. I can’t upvote or comment and I like it that way. Reddit no longer values me as a content producer by eliminating my fav apps, so I no longer value Reddit.
I have used it just a handful of times where adding “Reddit” to the end of a search would get me what I was looking for - usually “peer reviewed” options on some topic.
1 time I went for commentary on a niche reality tv show to feel validated in my hate for the designated villain.
I am not logged in and don’t interact any further
I deleted my main Reddit account but still find myself going back there occasionally for specific topics. For example, I haven’t found a good place on Lemmy to ask travel questions.
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.
Where the fuck are y’all hanging out?? All I see are memes and Star Trek…
oddly specific, but go on…
People like this infuriate me. They don’t clue in that travel decreases the fear and antipathy toward other cultures.
Did you not enjoy your tenth fight video of the day?
I read AITA on Lemmy via a bot, that is the last vestige of Reddit I haven’t dropped.
Those platforms are business media now, not social media anymore.
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.
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!
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.
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!”
Lol I would bet the majority of that crap is from just normal people.
yes. normal people getting paid to post that.
Anyone who disagrees with you is a bot amiright?
… wait, am I a bot?
Seems extremely unlikely. There’s very little reach on here compared to elsewhere. It’s not easily quantifiable nor can it be easily verified. It’s extremely easy to hack metrics. There’s no business sense to pay someone for posts on the fediverse. Don’t be paranoid and don’t become conspiratorial.
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!
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.
Also, if no one is posting on social media, then what the hell are we all doing right now then?
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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.
Lemmy is one of the ways back to internet 1.0.
Let’s focus on Rampart.
No. Only MY movies are allowed to be promoted on Lemmy.
Not during the strike they’re not…
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.
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.
I’m assuming you’re just here studying nerds for your next blockbuster where you’re playing Ada Lovelace or something.
… I don’t know what you’re talking about.
On a purely coincidentally note, how likely would you be in watching an Ada Lovelace biopic? No reason, just asking.
Depends. Is it written by Sydney Padua?
🤐
You’d better make this happen or some anonymous nerd on the Internet will be marginally disappointed, and I don’t think you want that on your hands.
With you playing her? 100%.
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.
This is literally social media lmao
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?
I see your point, but I only used Reddit for a long time and the difference was the anonymity, so it’s social media but minus the personal brand.
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.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE&
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Lemmy isn’t social media, it’s content aggregation, like reddit used to be
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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
I first heard the term ‘enshitification’ on the last episode of On the Media. Perfect description
I redownload insta like a month ago because I thought fuck it. Other than reels from old friends from highschool, it’s all adds and the same regurgitated memes and stand up comics.
It was creepy that after nearly 4 years of being inactive it knew that I liked golf, and drink too much.
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.
Insta-gram
I thought it originated as a marketplace for single servings of drugs.
if someone posts on social media and nobody reads it … does the poster even exist?
I too enjoy yelling into the void. Sometimes it yells back 💪😎💪
Trees in forests breathe quantum sighs of relief
…or do they?
It’s the sound of one hand clapping
Wtf is bereal
Bereal is great, you get a notification and take a picture, front and rear camera, that’s all you get for the day, then you can see what your friends are up to.
By far my favorite social media.
I get it but man, I’d never want to post pics of myself on the Internet for anyone to see. I also don’t think anyone would wanna see me anyway. ¯\(°_o)/¯
Default is only your friends see. You opt in to make it public.
You don’t actually have to take a photo of yourself. If you’re quick enough you can just move the front facing camera to take a photo of the ceiling.
That’s what I do on days I don’t want to take a photo of myself.
This sounds so bizarre to me. “If you’re quick enough”? What happens if you aren’t? What kind of insane, voluntary 1984-esque nightmare is this app?
If you’re not quick enough you just don’t post a pic that day.
I mean like you take a photo with your rear camera and once that’s taken it’ll load up your front camera to take a photo but you can move it so it doesn’t take a photo of you. Kind of like a countdown timer.
Prove to me you’re still alive today.
The principles are cool but none of my friend wants to bother with another social network
My thoughts exactly… This might be why nobody is posting there
We’re just to old, my niece and nephews in their teens are all using it.
I’m 24 and a lot of people in my friend circle are definitely using it. I’d say it started off niche but it’s becoming mainstream.
It’s the only social network I don’t hate right now
Give it a year or two
It’s a breakfast food item that you pour beer over.
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.
It’s not bad… it’s actually healthy. I think that feeling that you must post on social media isn’t really good for the head.
Go on social media when you feel like it, but it’s best if the default is to not use social media.
Agreed, this experiment should be able to last by itself without feeling obligated to post something. If that’s the case then it’s failed.
I almost never use Facebook anymore because whenever I’m on it, all I see are posts from groups I’m not even in, ads, videos, and interspersed in all that algorithmically chosen content, the occasional post from people I actually follow and know. Social media isn’t social any more.
Even fricking tumblr now has videos on it, and you can only shut “tumblr live” off for a week at most before they come back.
I didn’t think anyone used Tumblr any more since they got rid of porn.
A solid amount of new memes I see are from Tumblr posts. A lot of people went back prior to Twitter changing ownership, and then many more after that too.
There was a bizarre transition to “other page” content on Facebook. It realised nobody posts there anymore, and tried to transition to a quasi Reddit. But the content it displays is pure garbage.
Facebook now fills half my page with the worst boomer memes. Then something updated and it scrolls the page right while I’m reading something. I don’t know why I even bother anymore.
God yeah Tumblr is so frustrating now. Like I get that a site needs to make money and I’m not even opposed to the gimmicks they have. But changing the look of it (which has been changed before but at least it made sense a lot of the time) to what is essentially a clone of Twitter. It’s frustrating to see a site I love so much, decide to kill itself and for what?
That and also the fact that they allow racism, transphobia, homophobia to fester. You’d think that a site that is pretty popular with the LGBTQIA+ crowd, they sure like to keep people around who would harm us.
No one’s posting on BeReal
Nobody has heard of BeReal
What is BeReal?
Rapper in Cypress Hill. Oh, no, that’s B-Real.
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.
What if I’m taking a shit???
