Social Media Paradigm
There are many posts on small web blogs that are about Twitter and how bad it is, because so many bloggers were formerly on the biggest blogging site, Twitter, and they have strong opinions about it. This is not one of those posts. I do not use Twitter, but I am interested in dissecting things like the jackass neutral third party that I am, so I’ll be looking through what social media is today and asking the question of what it’ll be tomorrow, looking through history and trends to land on the obvious conclusion that Tiktok is the next big thing.
Okay let’s start with what I consider the ‘beginning’ of Internet social shit and then gradually make our way to the present. This’ll be a bit of a biased view of history obviously, but I’m trying to consider the most general trends and the most popular platforms. If I’m missing something it’s probably less because it isn’t influential and more because I just don’t give a shit about it personally. This’d be way too long if I mentioned every little goddamn thing.
Self-hosted blogs/websites
Before there were platforms, there were websites. Like this one! People all had their old Geocities pages and what not where they were free to experiment with HTML in that goofy pre-CSS era where people actually used tables for layouts. Geocities websites technically aren’t self-hosted but they’re under the same umbrella basically.
This died for a very obvious reason: making websites is a pain in the ass. To make this humble website, it took me a lot of time considering what I wanted the layout to be, actually making it with my accrued HTML/CSS knowledge that doesn’t even extend to Javascript, and utilizing convenience in the form of a SSG that obscures the process to such a strange extent that many people who try it have difficulty wrapping their heads around it.
Consider for a moment that most people get confused at the concept of writing paragraphs in HTML and you’ll understand why most people just don’t bother. Only crusty cunts like me who demand you follow via RSS actually do it. In practice, you can see how Neocities and Nekoweb are both still fairly obscure underground platforms, in spite of Neocities especially existing since like 2013.
People just don’t wanna do it.
Blog Platforms
Blog platforms grew more in popularity, leading to the blogosphere. This is what social media basically was before Facebook, a bunch of disconnected profiles and platforms that vaguely worked together to try and connect. It was a giant pain in the ass to actually get with other people, and therefore a pain in the ass to get your word out, which is what most people want.
You really had to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself. There was no algorithims, aside from SEO, and as a result blogs could be quiet and lonely. The most popular among these sites was probably MySpace but I really don’t remember anything about it, or if it was really that much of a blogging site at all.
But, it was still more convenient. You didn’t have to design the HTML yourself, only change the CSS of the site when you wanted the layout to be different. These platforms handled all the bullshit on that part. But, people wanted more.
The first real big ‘social media’ site that every single social media site since has followed in the footsteps of. You could get on and connect with people far more instantaneously then on blogging platforms, and it introduced a bunch of shit like likes and profiles and what not.
It might’ve still been pretty big today had two things not lead to its downfall. First, it invited a lot of normie parents onto the platform. The boomers that eventually moved here would become what the platform is known for, and everyone else fucking hated that because it made the site seem lame. This isn’t necessarily a problem in and of itself, but Facebook did very little to help you hide from the boomer horde. In fact, because of the next reason it seemed to encourage it.
Second, it really, REALLY wanted to know your personal information. The level of intrusion platforms like this wanted around the early 2010s couldn’t be overstated, and this turned a lot of people off. It even asked for your real ID to verify your identity which it didn’t even need. To use Facebook, you essentially had to put your private information out on the Internet, the dumbest thing imaginable.
Tumblr
A bit of a detour, Tumblr was never the most popular social media platform but was still notable. In a way it was a sort of continuation of blog platforms, right down to being able to make your own CSS to change the look of your page.
Truth be told, I never understood Tumblr at all. I didn’t get how it was supposed to work and I didn’t understand any element of it. Everything was vague, weird, and disconnected, but for some reason it had a following. A following of real crazies. This following of crazies became what Tumblr was known for.
Most people know how Tumblr died: it banned porn after Yahoo bought it and literally overnight every single artist just up and left. It’s really amazing in hindsight, most things go out with a wimper and not a bang.
Now, technically Tumblr is still around, it’s just that nobody uses it. I assume it’s because most people are like me and think it’s way too complicated, especially compared to the platform that comes up next.
Twitter is the premiere blog platform. It still is. Its claim to fame was microblogging, creating posts in 140, later 260, characters. This made it incredibly easy for people to blog because you didn’t have to put ANY effort into the posts. Blogging was now as easy as commenting on Youtube. It helped that when it was made the rise of the smartphone was right around the corner, and Twitter’s design made it VERY easy for smartphone users to utilize the platform.
I can’t give too much insight into Twitter without sounding political. This was always a very politically charged website. So, I’ll give two basic ideas that any rant I’d write on Twitter would include.
- Twitter had REALLY shitty administration long before Musk, arguably they were even worse as far as morals go.
- Twitter is dying and always would’ve been dying, Musk or no. Bluesky is not a replacement and will fall victim to the same problem.
The reality is that microblogging just isn’t as popular anymore. Microblogging requires writing and writing is FUCKING LAME. Microblogging will survive, much like Facebook and Tumblr have, but it will become a grease trap for a specific culture much like Facebook and Tumblr are. Specifically, it and every other microblogging site will become a grease trap for stupid internet millenials to whine about politics.
Think about it. Would you recommend someone use Twitter? If you’re a Bluesky person, who exactly do you recommend USE Bluesky? Bluesky’s audience is just Twitter’s audience. The fediverse’s audience is just Twitter’s audience. Nobody who is not already within the grasp of microblogging is going to start microblogging today.
No, Twitter and Blusky are being replaced by what the REAL future, if not what’s already the present, of social media is.
Tiktok
Where we are today.
Many people will imply that this isn’t the case. Let me tell you about a “grandma on the Wii” moment I had with Tiktok.
I’m at the doctor’s office. Waiting room. Everyone’s on their phones except me. So, my eyes wander waiting for my appointment, and one thing is that I can actually see some of their screens. You know what ALL of those screens were on?
Tiktok.
I am at the grocery store. One of the employees was multitasking something on her phone while stocking shelves. What was that thing she was multitasking?
Tiktok.
There are new jokes and gags constantly spread throughout the Internet. The ‘zoomer memes’ as they get called. People obsessing over aesthetics. Phrases like ‘cap’ and ‘fr’. Where did ALL of this new shit originate, or at the very least become popular, from?
Tiktok.
Everything comes up Tiktok. Why is Tiktok so good? Well, it’s for a variety of reasons. As a platform, it gives shortform video content which gives you a lot of variety in very interesting bitesized chunks. This is very good if you’re on the go, you can watch a lot of stuff and still be able to put down your phone anytime.
Watching videos is easier than reading Twitter posts, and is often much more satisfying because Tiktok videos aren’t always complaining about stupid political shit. Many of them are made for happiness and pleasure, despite what you might think from Twitter’s doomposting.
Making videos is much easier and more varied than making Twitter posts. Noobs can quickly make a video of whatever dumb shit they like to do, pros can quickly edit a minute long video that will eventually find its audience. There are tons of subcultures within Tiktok already. It is easily the most slept on social media and the only reason this is is because people listen too much to Twitter millenials.
On top of this, Tiktok allows licensed music. They pay for their consumers to be able to use this music, something that people who make Youtube videos have been asking for for a long time now. You can use this licensed music in your videos, and even get monetized for it. It should go without saying that people like music and Tiktok is already setting modern music trends because of this.
Tiktok is today’s social media paradigm. It is the heart that pumps blood to the rest of the sphere. Even on places like Twitter and Discord the culture has already become primarily dominated by standards Tiktok has created. People consider this ‘cringe’ and ‘bad’ because it’s very powerful and threatens to wipe away everything else, as well as handing off tastemaker rights to an entirely new generation. And it will succeed, short of government intervention which isn’t necessarily an impossibility.
Is this a bad thing? I dunno, I’m an outsider to every single one of these platforms, otherwise I’d have never bothered making this site and would’ve probably been shitposting on whatever one I gravitated to the hardest. To me, they all suck. At best I would only be interested in these places from a marketing angle. A change in the social media paradigm is simply a change in what buzzwords people start to complain about.
Tiktok is no different. That being said, who knows what might replace Tiktok in the future. I think it has a very solid foundation, as well as having learned many lessons from the failures of its predecessors. It’s niche is tight and appeals to the most important audiences, its algorithim seems to avoid showing content the user wouldn’t want to see (a notable failure Twitter had), and its user retention and happiness are through the roof.
The only ones who seem to hate it are the ones who never used it to begin with. Those people are the ones with other social media addictions that are even more embarassing than being on the “brainrot platform”.
Social media is a truly fascinating sphere, because it never gets solved. It’s not like toasters, it’s always evolving and to this day nobody really knows what the people want, even if there’s some good ideas being thrown around. Whether or not Tiktok ‘solved’ social media is yet to be seen but the future looks bright for it and that’s something I can’t say about pretty much any of the other platforms.