Millennials: It’s ok to mourn the death of social media::Wired writes how “first-gen social media users have nowhere to go.” Ouch.

  • BedSharkPal
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    255
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m just excited the internet is in part going back to its non corporate backed roots with Lemmy mastodon and the like. The internet started that way, and thanks to the enshitification it will hopefully slowly revert back to it

    The idea that corporations were involved in social media was insane looking back. The results were exactly what one would have anticipated

    • VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      90
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I remember when I first started using Reddit and there was so much weird and crazy shit that it really did feel like there was a sub for everything. Now it’s so sanitised that it’s nowhere near as diverse in its content and subs, hopefully Lemmy/fediverse can have as many different instances as old Reddit and the active community too.

      • Corgana@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        45
        ·
        1 year ago

        What I don’t understand is who is moderating the big subs and why? When r/funny, r/holup, r/publicfreakout, r/damnthatsinsteresting (and I’m sure many others) are all basically the same memes and short videos, what kind of “community” is that? What kind of person signs up to clear the spam out of what is essentially 9gag 2.0 for free?

        There are many smaller communities that would probably be happy to move to the Fedi if it were easier and bigger, and I hope Lemmy evolves to the point where those can be absorbed. Reddit can keep the endless meme scrolls.

        • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s only the smaller ones that I really miss in the fedi. Like, my pipeline for memes is doing fine, I doubt i’m missing any cultural touchstone moments, but on the corpo-net if you needed info specific info about your window box AC unit, not only was there probably a sub, but there was a larger sub just for general AC that would probably ban your post and say something like “hey post this in windowAC.”

        • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          In many cases I believe SOMEONE is paying these supermods.

          It’s more about controlling public discourse than it is any sense of moral compass IMO.

          It’s a fairly cheap way to control the narrative on just about whatever you like if you can steer acceptable speech around hot button issues on such a large platform.

          • Corgana@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            idk, I was in a Discord with many of them during the vaxxhappened protest and I didn’t get the impression any had particularly strong backbones. Not saying it doesn’t happen but I really have a hard time picturing most of the “powermods” as having the will to control anything. They (largely) seemed pretty afraid to rock the boat or upset Spez.

        • cole@lemdro.id
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          this is why r/Android moved to [email protected]. We even made our own instance dedicated to technical content. The reason most people I’ve been around mod is because they want to either fix a perceived quality problem or maintain a community that they enjoy frequenting.

        • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Power hungry douches that have nothing better to do with their lives. Some of these people actually consider it a job, even though they don’t get paid.

          • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            This is why our society is so fucked, someone with community spirit wants to help maintain a fun community which is free to access for everyone in the world and what do they get? Nothing but hate and abuse.

            • Corgana@startrek.website
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              People who don’t appreciate moderators but also don’t like unmoderated places like 8chan are like the “No take only throw” dog.

      • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        BreadStapledToTrees had me so confused the first time I found it. It still confuses me. Even though I have only been active on Reddit for the past 5 years, even I saw a massive change in it.

        When I first found GoneWild and the like I was like “Mother of God, this is amazing…” and now 85% of the porn subs are just OF advertisements.

        • FangedWyvern42@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I remember that sub. I’m pretty sure there’s a sub with a similar name that is used for furry porn, for some reason.

      • Wahots@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        This, every time I see a post in the frontpage here where someone has taken a picture of a pear stuffed up their ass (etc etc), I breathe a sigh of relief knowing no advertisers or asshole CEOs are ruining this place. Feels like the old days of the internet, roughly. Sure it’s small, but it feels real, not sterile and clean for advertisers and shareholders.

      • Renacles@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I use old reddit from time to time to check specific subs and it’s wild seeing how boring they’ve gotten.

        • scottywh@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          Because they ban people for “harassment” now for using the word fuck (or anything similar) in any context that might hurt some twit’s feefees.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s not it. Swearing doesn’t create content.

            Reddit is boring and dumb because they insert a million sponsored posts. Plus the karma farmers are going overboard. It’s just karma farmers and advertisers now.

            • scottywh@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Disagree

              Editing to add: banning people for stupid shit reduces the pool of people creating content… Also, I still use it on occasion with a revanced app so I don’t see any of their ads… What I do see there is overly zealous and sensitive moderation dampening discussion (which is content)

            • scottywh@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              Example:

              *"If you really want to improve yourself, stop concerning yourself with what pronouns others use for anyone or anything.

              Failing that, just shut the fuck up about it regardless of your concerns and you’ll have improved yourself tremendously."*

              Someone I know recently got a ban for that verbatim as a reply to someone who said they wanted to accept criticism and “improve” themselves after saying stupid shit about how important it was to refer to unknown animals as it instead of they.

              If you don’t think that’s overzealous I’m not sure what to say.

      • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        Mastodon has rich media features and such that it could be considered a replacement for modern Facebook.

        Now for the legacy Facebook that was more focused on the Facebook wall, homepages, and etc. There really isn’t a replacement but nobody can use Facebook for that now.

        As for a replacement for Facebook groups, kbin or Lemmy can do it. Kbin does both the microblogging/status updates and communities.

        Someone else mentioned frendica. But I don’t have any experience with that.

      • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        Facebook does a lot of things. Depends on what exactly you’re looking for. Facebook allows you to follow friends and organizations (= Mastodon), it also allows you to participate in groups (= Lemmy), and then it has a few other features too.

      • Corgana@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Bluesky is not really decentralized like Mastodon. It’s more like crypto where the bigger you are the more influence you have over the network. There is zero incentive for someone to host a server off of .social since they will control it. Having a BS server does nothing besides provide Jack Dorsey and co with a little free hosting.

        • sucricdrawkcab@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I use both and mainly curious because it doesn’t take as much as Mastodon to show you what you want to see. Or maybe I think that because I came from Mastodon to Bluesky, but I understand what both are. People know what Bluesky is but when I bring up Mastodon people are not really interested. Jack Dorsey is also no longer involved.

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m hopeful that long term, AtProto and ActivityPub end up merged into one future standard. But even if they end up separate, it’s not the end of the world since they’re both open and bridges already exist.

        It’s kind of like Atom and RSS. Soon, users won’t have to care or know the difference and eventually, code libraries will make it so even developers don’t have to know the details.

  • grue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    101
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    If by “mourn” you mean “tap-dance on its fucking grave,” then sure!

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      1 year ago

      I just moved to Miami and don’t know where to meet groups of like-minded people. There is nothing on MeetUp, but there are groups on Facebook. I hate that I had to sign into that garbage fire for the first time in years. My whole feed is filled with “suggested posts” of people I don’t know nor things I give a shit about.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, the other day I had to wade past fucking stacks of junk that doesn’t apply to or interest me, there was a whole wall of stuff that makes no sense at all for me, adverts for services I’ll never use and even study areas that I’m not ever going to need because I’m not at school! Fuck libraries we should burn them all down, how dare they don’t serve and cater to me and me alone!

    • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      92
      ·
      1 year ago

      I only mourne reddit, that website was a lifestyle back in the day. Thats why i’m here lol. God I miss the good oll’ days.

      • Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        48
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, it is a bit strange. That was a central hub of where I got news, jokes, stayed connected with internet culture. That’s mostly gone now. So many things feel splintered anymore. I’m old so I don’t keep up with the latest games, but that feels all over the place—too many games, too many communities. Streaming/TV stuff—very few people I know watch the same things I do, and I miss the joy of watching something new and then talking about it the next day moments. Worse now is that most people can’t even access the same content since there are too many services. Music is strange now too. Partly, I’m just not connected to pop culture, but also everyone is listening to VERY different stuff (referring to college-age folks—most other millennials I know just listen to NPR, podcasts and 90s mixes). There doesn’t seem to be any monolithic music culture at all anymore. Everyone has super customized spotify playlists. I know a big part is just millennial aging, but also reddit kept me connected to broader things, and now its just like everything else and enshittified and disappearing. sigh … get off my lawn I guess :(

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          20
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That was a central hub of where I got news, jokes, stayed connected with internet culture. That’s mostly gone now. So many things feel splintered anymore.

          Its returned closer to what the internet was BEFORE reddit. People cultivated lists of bookmarks for sites they’d visit for their daily special interests. Lemmy is still a larger audience than what we had before. For jokes you might go to fark.com or somethingawful.com. These were the user driven humor aggregators of the day.

          • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I would love to see someone born into today’s internet landscape try to entertain themselves with lowtax’s poorly written essays about hentai and his beginner knowledge of ww2 tanks.

        • Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          There doesn’t seem to be any monolithic music culture at all anymore. Everyone has super customized spotify playlists.

          I’ve noticed this too. In some ways it makes it harder to find new music.

          • datavoid@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            16
            ·
            1 year ago

            Makes it harder to find popular music, but way easier to find music that appeals to you personally

            • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yes, when I come across something I am not familiar with I have a preset playlist of enough things to really get a feel for the style and know if I like any of it.

        • z500@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Honestly I’m probably just going to keep mining the 60s-00s for music like I always have. Now that I have a job and less time to find music I’ll probably never run out lol

      • Tat
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        fuck reddit, shell of its former self

    • DerisionConsulting
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      Looks like a small formatting issue:
      ~~strike through~~ = strike through
      ~subscript~ = subscript

    • DaCookeyMonsta@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Idk. I feel mentally healthier off social media. But its been around since I was in high school and I have no idea how to socialize with people outside my immediate circle now. My social muscles have atrophied.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Facebook was actually awesome back in the late 2000s. I had an account when it was just 4 year universities, that was it’s hey day.

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      You mean traditional media owned and controlled by people like Murdoch? Or rumors and innuendo spread by word of mouth in pubs?

      I know you were le born in le wrong generation like every other hipster complainer on the planet but you’d have hated wherever was popular at any time in history because it’s not about finding a balanced and sensible view it’s about hating whatever is popular.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          I grew up on those and they were all awful, take off the rose tinted glasses and you’ll see those chat rooms were basically twitch chat with more sexual predators.

          And forums still exist and they’re still awfull, having to read fifty stupid comments of people saying totally off topic ‘yes Bob, we got our cat six years ago’ but it fills the entire screen because he’s quoted the entire script of life of Brian in his signature. Finally you find someone replying to the question you were interested in but it’s only to ask another question do you got fifty more comments from poorly replying to questions in the OP which have been answered hours ago but they didn’t bother reading the thread before posting.

          And there’s a million great messenger apps out there, of course none of them are as good as they used to be because they don’t have my childhood friends on, or if they do they’re all to busy with kids and carers to come ride bikes.

      • Flambo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Hey, I’m fully on board with your defense of social media, but I think in this case the commenter is just saying “i miss the social media we had before they started calling it ‘social media’”. Even 2004 facebook fits this description, and I’m inclined to agree. I miss social media when it felt more like IRC and craigslist, when facebook was a glorified personal guestbook, etc.

  • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    72
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    As someone who was on the internet before social media existed, please let it die in a fire.

    Everything now is curated and cultivated by corporations and political entities to weed out any “unacceptable” discourse and content that doesn’t support a particular agenda or narrative.

    • Adalast@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      100% agree. I was learning networking and internet coding back when Javascript was new, web 2.0 was going to revolutionize our lives, and Macromedia was releasing a little animation software called Flash. As an elder Millenial I can confidently say that the death of social media would be the absolute best thing that could happen for our society as a whole. The society was not mature enough for it, still aren’t. Maybe next time it is invented we will be ready and someone will remember to keep the damn corporations out of it.

    • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      TBH I’m right there with you when it comes to wishing corporate social media a fiery demise.

      And yet, I’m happily using decentralized/non-profit social media that I’d very much like to see flourish. The thing I don’t like about social media today is that it’s billionaires selling personal info to people that want to direct advertising or propaganda to intellectually defenseless people, I really think democracy can’t withstand the firehose of bullshit that now empowers bad actors to lie at scale that used to require traditional media or state resources.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        In of the opinion the term social media needs to be broken into two groups. Ones where you’re yourself by name and one’s where you’re an online handle. The “personal” social media are all garbage, but there’s some alright “unpersonal” social media, like Lemmy for example. BBSs would mostly be the later, but probably would be social media if the term existed when they were popular

  • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    68
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Mourning? More like dancing on its grave. With the fediverse being everything social media 1.0 was and more, there is no need for the legacy platforms. I just hope that the fediverse can get some more traction with folks outside tech circles and we can normalize cooperation and free social platforms as in free speech not as in free beer.

    • kent_eh
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      That was my thought.

      I don’t mourn it’s death, I celebrate it.

  • j4k3@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Social media is like a public toilet; anyone is free to use it, no one should drink from it.” -Llama2 70B by Meta

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Forums are social media as well, though. They just have different features. “Social media” are all websites and applications which allow sharing of content between users.

      I think a forum was just less anonymous. I never remember any name on Lemmy, for example. On the forums ~back in the day~ I actually got to know the people. We even had forum meetings in real life.

      • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        I miss forums. Even on technical forums for a software, there was usually an off topic or random section to hang out in

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I fear those sections would look very different today. I watched that unfold in an Otaku forum which was quite nice and peaceful for years. It got radicalised by hateful people until the owner shut it down. The same happened with a gamer forum and several other communities I frequented.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I feel like it should read, “Millenials, remember to drink water in between your champagne glasses while you’re toasting to the death of social media.”

  • Cowbee@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    The worst is the ever-shortening of content into an addictive format. It reduces mental clarity.

  • Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    1 year ago

    The thing that threw me off Facebook was the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, even though I ran a popular meme page. I thought I found a sanctuary on Reddit, but looking back everything major on it was shilled to advertise or sow political discord. I thought Google Plus had a lot of potential, but nobody I knew would join and y’know, Google’s privacy record.

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      So you are willfully participating in spreading cancer? Because Lemmy is social media.

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Such a simplistic and frankly dumb take, have you really thought about what you’ve said at all?

      Regularl people shouldn’t have a voice, all media should be run and distributed by an authority of some kind? If you’re not rich enough to own a newspaper company then you don’t get to express yourself? Only the likes of Rupert Murdoch should be allowed to set trends and influence people?

      Or did you just mean ‘some women are popular on social media for doing things that don’t interest me and therefore influencers and all of social media is evil and I hate it’ because that’s what it always seems to boil down to with kneejerk anti haters.

      • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        You seem to think that social media is about giving people a voice. It isn’t. Most social media is set up either to harvest users personal data to sell for profit or to sell products to and push ideas on users. In most cases, both. It has become the primary method of distributing propaganda and influencing public opinion generally.

        Cancer

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          you’re basically Alex Jones with that level of paranoid delusion, they’re just a service that exists not a communist plot to turn frogs gay.

          And yes of course people attempt to control narratives on social media, you think it was better when Murdoch could just print anything he liked? and if even if you could prove it’s bullshit the only thing you could do was moan about it to some dunks down the pub.

          Social media isn’t perfect but your characterisation of it is absurd and based on nothing but kneejerk hatred of change

          • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            If propaganda comes from Fox News it’s easy to identify as propaganda, but when people you know are citing seemingly well written and researched studies it’s more complicated. Propaganda has become more believable and widespread because of social media.

            But even if you ignore the propaganda, social media is still used to push products with targeted advertising and harvests data to sell to whoever will pay for it. It’s not a conspiracy at all it’s just how capitalism works.

            Even if you remove money from the equation all together, you’re seeing the highlights of everyone’s lives which has been shown to lead to depression and feelings of inadequacy.

            Not to mention that half the posts and comments on Reddit aren’t even made by humans. Lemmy might be a bit better, but honestly not much.

            Literally the only thing social media is good for is memes and even that distracts people from what they’re supposed to be doing and have been shown to be an effective method of spreading disinformation.

            Social media is cancer.

            How about instead of getting pissy over a valid criticism of companies that you have no duty to defend, either explain why any of the above isn’t true or come up with some positive aspects to social media.