The Solitude of Social Media
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The Solitude of Social Media

Byrichard

One of the unique things about Twitter in 2006 and 2007, especially during the first tweetups was that it was a network of strangers who became friends without meeting in person. The people I became friends with in 2006-2007 are still friends now, to some degree. I met them every week at tuttle events and tweetups.


At the same time Facebook was a network of friends from university, which then became friends from work, to friends from various activities. These were networks where, in the first case, you met new people, and in the second you consolidated personal friendships in the physical world online.


This morning I noticed a Fortune article titled ‘People are posting a lot less on public social media’: Creator economy investor says the old web is gone, replaced by ‘people who are professionally entertaining you’.


The entire reason for using social media is to connect with human beings, at a human level, and to develop friendships that go from the world wide web to the physical world. By being about influencers and other charletans Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and other social networks become worthless because it’s the cult of the amateur supercharged. The Amateur who pays to create content for free, so that others can benefit is absurd.


When social media was about human beings connecting with each other, getting along, and then finding the desire to meet in person social media was a pleasant and friendly place to spend time. That’s where social media outshines other media. Social media was about connecting people. Social media was about multiplexing. Social media was about our social networks being our social net worth to use some of the marketing terminology of the time.


“creators thrive when brands are happy to pay them to create content on platforms they’re creating content on,” Lee says.” On paper this is fantastic. On paper dehumanist content creators are creating social media content creators on a platform that undercuts the sense of self, and friendships. Plenty of content on YouTube is sensationalist rubbish. They might get sponsors, and their content might be monetised, but the content is mediocre, at best.


Instagram thrived when it was a network of friends sharing photos with friends. It became absurd when it put forward the impersonal influencer.


The paradox is that I’m curious about a lot of things. If I had found YouTube videos that were worth watching, about certain products, I might have watched them, rather than surfed to articles and blog posts. One of the issues that I find with TikTok, YouTube and other platforms is that the content creators are long winded and disingenuous. They write clickbait titles to force you to watch their content, but in doing so they get me to do the opposite.


I’ve been surfing the web since the 90s so I have seen three or four decades of clickbait by now. I’m tired of the clickbait content. Influencers rely on clickbait tactics to get views, and I find this exhausting. I often browse YouTube for content, but within minutes I usually give up. Everything is sensationalist clickbait.


Most reels on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are awful tabloid crap.


“The reason people follow social media creators, the reason they bother, is partly because of the authenticity,” Kaletsky says. “There’s nothing in the world that’s less authentic than an AI-generated character. So it sort of defeats the point in many ways.”

Social media Fortune article


That’s precisely why I switched away from Social Media. Sensationalist clickbait is not honest. Sensationalist clickbait is not genuine. Social media is so busy getting algorithms to push rubbish upon us that they forget that the reason we use social media is to see what people we know are doing, rather than strangers. The issue is that algorithms are showing content by strangers. That’s not influence. That’s clickbait. that’s spam. That’s irrelevant.


The entire raison d’être of social media is to be a way to see what your network of friends are enjoying and what they think of things. It’s about engaging online, and desiring to do things offline. By keeping people isolated social media is undercutting its entire reason for existing. Why should I use YouTube or Instagram if I am shown irrelevant content?


If I want to know what strangers think, I have the open web. I have search engines, and I have news sites. Since the death of Twitter I find myself blogging more, reading more articles, and doing other things. I reverted to pre-social media habits.


Social media had a reason for being, when it reduced isolation and connected people. Paradoxically Facebook groups do that. I have a deep dislike of Facebook, but that’s where it feels like I could still find an offline community that could lead to in person meetings.


And Finally


I’m tired. I am tired of reading about how influencers are being put forward. I am tired of seeing articles about how influencers are having to keep social media companies happy. I am tired of never seing articles about how social media companies ignore the Return of Investment for ordinary users. One of the consequences of this focus on ROI for “influencers” is that influencers use Mastodon and the Fediverse in the same manner, diminishing the ROI of being on Mastodon instances. The focus should be on connecting people.

Satellite Broadcasting and Broadband

Byrichard

Satellite broadcasting has been part of daily life for me for over a decade and a half by now. As a result of this, I have watched a vast amount of programs before they were released in the country where I was living. One effect of this has been that rather than watching American and English series on swiss tv months after they were produced I would catch them on satellite. The appeal of watching an American series dubbed in French is low.


Broadband is another tool that is changing the media landscape. Most of the content I consume on television comes from America therefore there is a lag between when the Americans view the television programs and when the English view that content. There is an even bigger lag between England and Central Europe. As a result, this is a perfect reason for people to test bit torrent like technologies. Rather than wait for months to watch a program they can watch it within a very short period of time.


When I was in the US for example I saw adverts for Dexter and this piqued my curiosity. I would have to wait a few weeks before the series was broadcast for the first time on American TV.  As soon as the content was broadcast on American tv the content would be torrented and as a result, I would be able to watch these programs without having to wait for BskyB to make them available.


As a satellite subscriber, the content is paid for whether I watch it via satellite when it is broadcast or whether I watch it a few weeks earlier by torrent therefore the broadcaster still makes the money. There is the added problem that we are consuming international media therefore there is chatter about the series we would like to watch but can’t because they are not made available yet. As a result, you will find spoilers spread around in a number of places which may spoil the enjoyment of programs. I read about plot developments for series three of the house, for example, therefore I knew what would happen before watching certain episodes. This was slightly frustrating.


The point that broadcasters and content producers have to understand is that we’re in a global community. Whilst America speaks about the BBC and its content Europe speaks about America and it’s output. Through the World Wide Web, both sides of the pond are talking to each other on a daily basis. It’s a globalised media discourse  and downloading torrents is so easy we’ll find more and more people doing it.


In Yesterday’s London Paper a large portion of the newspaper was left over to online video content as a result of the “iplayer” and the mixed reactions it is getting. They did a road test of “internet TV” and the software they tested were the BBC Iplayer, Zattoo, Bit torrents, alluc.org and peekvic.com, tv-links, Joost and Babelgum.


There are two key points to take into account. The first of these is that the tv watching audience is global with everyone knowing what’s going on as well in their countries as in that of others.  The second point is that the technology is ready for global distribution via the internet infrastructure now in place. I wish the European Union would put something in place which would allow us to get the content we want, where and when we want it rather than make us wait.

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Progression of satellite broadcasting

Byrichard

Satellite broadcasting has progressed since I was last able to watch a lot of television. The spacing of channels and the programs have progressed. I’ve watched France 24, Al Jazeera English and a few more channels.

As time is progressing so the channels are re-indexing themselves within the sky digital world. They are no longer organised by the discovery channel. Instead, we find that some of the documentary programs are included within specific interests. In particular, I’m thinking of travel documentaries. They are now cataloged within the travel section of the life and culture channels. It’s good because the travelogue documentaries are organised together. It allows for those dreaming of travel to visit these pages.

I watched Al Jazeera English and one thing that’s marked me is how many short features they have on a number of subjects. They have the everywoman program, the witness, and others. It’s a different take than that by BBC World. It’s interesting.

I want to travel. I don’t want to be stuck in uni anymore. I want to go to various locations and do some of these travel documentaries, see different parts of the world.

Maybe I will get to Australia in May.

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The future of the media

Byrichard

Over the next two weeks, I am working in part of what will become part of the new media landscape. I receive footage via satellite and edit short summaries to become video clips on the official site of the organisation. At the moment it’s not visible to the normal public but it is an interesting activity.

As part of my dissertation, I have to understand where the documentary has come from and where it’s going. It’s an interesting way to spend time and I’m learning about new things all the time. We’ll see what the landscape will be like once I’m working full time in the media again.

Paleo was really good fun. An average day consists of five hours of work, followed by at least two or three concerts, a multitude of conversations before ending with three or four hours of sleep.

The conversations have ranged from the passion that certain friends have for Nutella to driving Segway around one particular stand. With one friend we went through to the moshpit of one concert and there was a good ambiance. With another friend everything was far calmer, more relaxed, taking time to unwind and relax.

I have learned about long hours in the sun drinking ice tea whilst at work and enjoyed it greatly. It’s good fun because there’s a breeze, people come and go, and as they do your greeting varies. The variation in greeting is part of what makes the work so enjoyable.

When people pass they do so without wanting to take time to chat sometimes but as they have a badge you can read their name. In doing so you can greet them more personally. I read so many name badges over a number of hours that it was quite a challenge to remember everyone’s name. In fact, I could probably remember none. Faces… that’s what I remember all the time, not names.

On that note, I’ll stop rambling.