What counts as social media?

[glitchlynx]

What do you think 'counts' as social media?

I've been thinking about this recently, specifically in regards to substack and substack notes. I've been using substack for a little while to post fiction, and I occasionally check in on the 'notes' section, which, for those who don't know, is essentially the same format as twitter, threads, mastodon, etc. Many people on substack would say that substack is better than social media, and in some ways I agree but also... it is still social media right? Substack notes definitely is. You could make the argument that the newletters are as well, what with their visible follower lists, like buttons, and comment sections. But then where is the line between a social media site and a blogging platform? Does having these features push a platform into that category?

On the other hand, if we define a social media platform as being social... many of these platforms actively discourage that. They encourage either lurking or posting like its your side hustle. I'm not sure what's happening over on tiktok, but I don't think its socialization. And then, if social media is defined only by being online and social, is any online community with their own domain a 'social media'?

Probably this question doesn't matter. I just have a negative connotation with the phrase 'social media' now, and I end up trying to avoid anything that starts to look or sound too much like it...

I've had this pet theory for a while that the technology closest to actually being 'social media' was snapchat. I used it for a couple of years, it was an easy way to make group chats, I'd check it for a few minutes a day to see my friend's 'stories'... it was just a messaging app with bells and whistles and felt like an actual 'social' piece of tech. I only used ever it with friends and acquaintances from my real life. Or at least that was my experience. I deleted it a couple of years ago, so I have no idea what the app is like nowadays.

[tallyhall]

to be completely honest, im… not really sure?? you bring up a lot of really good points, & i think that i would use social media to describe a lot of the sites i use if it werent for the negative connotation associated with the word. there are sites i use that i definitely dont consider social media, like toyhou.se. sure, you can socialize on the forums & in peoples comments & dms, but its character/art storage first & foremost. this is a hard question & im very confused thinking about it hmmm

[VelvetSoul]

I think personally it's as simple as "media that is intended to be created for a community" though I admit I also view the term as a very vague and broad thing. I don't think you can necessarily give it a super defined definition given how many things classify as "social media" these days.

I've noticed that people use various sites for far different things, to someone a website like tumblr could be social media; to someone else it could be nothing more than a personal blogging site. Because the difference comes down to the use-case per user but the ability to use it as both applies, I'd argue it could be called "a social media site" or "a personal blogging site" depending on who's using it and neither individual would technically be incorrect per se.

I do agree however that social media has sort of become more of something people do as a side hustle, if not just... a job.

Everything from popularity, to note farming; communities aren't about being social and talking about a topic of shared interest anymore. Not after people found out that popularity brings power, and that power ranges from social hierarchy power to even financial power. If I'm popular enough, people won't want to disagree with me out of fear of being ostracized from the community, so my word becomes law even when I say something completely crazy, because my opinion becomes the popular opinion. If I'm popular enough I can ask people for financial compensation for things, like saying I have a patreon people could join for access to my discord or some such. This in my opinion is what primarily lead to people sort of seeing social media as a ladder of social hierarchy to climb rather than a platform with which to share media with others.

Even this forum to me could be classified as social media, if we count things like writing, photos, videos, projects, programming, etc. as "media" and the act of sharing that media with others makes it social. I'd argue you and I are socializing right now, me talking to you, having read what you posted and now you reading my response; it's a sort of conversation even if it's not immediate. However I think this really depends on your idea of media.

Youtube used to be social media when it first launched, you could actually leave video responses to videos that were uploaded to the site and back in the day there were entire channels that used this as a sort of gimmick for vlogging to one another as a group or team. People would post videos back and forth as a form of essentially "socializing via the media they made" and I feel like at it's core, that's what social media is; media with the intent to be social. Though I fear I'm speaking in circles as I'm prone to do so I'll leave it off there.

[PurpleHello98]

As VelvetSoul said, it really depends on the person. For example, I feel like I tend to use Tumblr as part-blogging, part-fan forum site, with maybe a little bit of social media thrown in, but I wouldn't put it in the same category as Twitter or Instagram. I think the modern social media culture is an important part of defining what is and isn't social media---Reddit and Tumblr, for instance, seem to have different enough cultures that I'd at least categorize them differently. But then again, you could also argue that some people could use Instagram as nothing more than a photoblog. I think it really is case-by-case.

[ManicRaccoon]

I'd argue that what make a media "social" is some kind of profile.
For example [auto redacted] (the word seems to be censored but I think you get which one I'm talking about) is a message board, not a social media.
Another thing that makes a media "social" for me is the possibility to send PMs to someone cause if you can't communicate, it's not social
That's why for me a blog, or even a blog platform like overblog is not a social media but twitter which is, at his core, a microblogging website is social. Even forums like this one are social media but in a form more like reddit, which is itself some kind of big forum

[glitterpigeon]

i think its a sort of continuum? there isn't a strict line you can draw. it's like mountains. its really tricky to tell when it's a weirdly shaped single mountain or actually just 2 mountains. everything is a spectrum. but i take "social media" very broadly. if it's media sharing with notable social aspect, i think it counts. i would argue forums count for this. i think the negative associations with social media are something we should get over. its nit an inherently bad format and it can even be very good for certain contexts, the problem is corporations, not the basic format. and the corporations would mess anything up.

[caracalled]

This is such an interesting thread, I read through what you all wrote front to back!!

I do agree that it depends on the way the user uses it but more so how many users use it/what the culture of the website is like. I feel like based on the features of the website Tumblr for example could also be a social media but people use it for blogging frequently (like PurpleHello98 also said!!)

I was thinking of websites that are social media but not quite to me! So far I have Flickr, Tumblr, Reddit, Anilist, toyhou.se, substack like glitchlynx said? (more to be added probably)

These move in a weird in-between space for me? I think it's a difficult topic because of the negative connotation social media has become for me as well.
I used to "go on the internet" and not "look at social media" on my phone/laptop and I seek anything that feels like "going on the internet" again. I feel like exploration makes the difference for me and the algorithmic nature of social media. On twitter/insta etc I am shown content whereas on forums etc I seek it out. I think that's also where the use-case argument comes from. Using instagram as a photoblogging website for example foregoes the algorithm entirely. I think instead of being social media these websites are often more like content recommendation places.

[glitchlynx]

I really like the idea of 'social media' being the way a product is used and not the product itself. That's going to be rattling around in my brain for a while. It makes a lot of sense - someone using facebook just as a tool to promote their business is doing a much different activity than someone scrolling.

i think its a sort of continuum? there isn't a strict line you can draw. it's like mountains. its really tricky to tell when it's a weirdly shaped single mountain or actually just 2 mountains. everything is a spectrum. but i take "social media" very broadly. if it's media sharing with notable social aspect, i think it counts. i would argue forums count for this. i think the negative associations with social media are something we should get over. its nit an inherently bad format and it can even be very good for certain contexts, the problem is corporations, not the basic format. and the corporations would mess anything up.

I think you're right about it being a spectrum, and using the term broadly makes sense too. Where it starts to be a grey area for me is the fact that many features of the format (likes, infinite scrolling, etc) are the creations of the corporations. How many features like this can be replicated in a product with good intentions before it starts to go sour?  (or maybe that's just my own negative bias talking again whoops)