This has moved heavily into group chats and I’m not sure it’s coming back.
Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances.
Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into a hipper LinkedIn, where artists, musicians, and local businesses share career and business updates and advertise their wares.
Any way you cut it, "feeds" are more addictive. Your family and friends only post a couple times a day, but you have all day at work to look for some quick stimulation.
I watch my girlfriend devolve into this stuff. Waking up and scrolling endless feeds from reddit and insta; it's her entertainment. It's not so much worse than me waking up and scrolling Google News...maybe it's better, in that she gets less depressed about it. But it's fake. It's all fake.
In real life, it took me a whole year to figure out that the people at one particular local pub actually hate me and talk shit about me whenever I'm not around. I only figured out why they were so hostile because the people at my other pub told me. (It's that I'm Jewish, with Israeli family. Ironically, the nice people at the other pub who told me are Lebanese. We get along a lot better than I do with my old antifa "friends") This was a hard-to-get real world experience in how fucked up people can be for no reason. It's not something you can understand properly, ever, on any kind of social media. The media format just gets in the way of understanding other people as people; of understanding truth and factual reality; of differentiating between opinion and fact.
>Ironically, the nice people at the other pub who told me are Lebanese.
Why is it ironic that an Arab would be nice to you? Ignoring the racial/national assumption here, political views from diasporic Arabs, especially older ones who immigrated many years ago, are incredibly diverse and often more contingent on their local issues than world politics. People make the same mistake when assuming political views towards Mexico from Latinos (both Tejano and Mexican) in Texas, for example.
>my old antifa "friends"
Most antifa folks are gonna have a very clear cut moral stance on the state of Israel, even before Hamas' military began the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. Be honest now, have they distanced themselves from you because of your identity, or is it because of your opinions on the actions of the state of Israel? Because even the most hardline "antifa" types I know are more than happy to organize with the likes of SJP and similar organizations of Jewish and Israeli people.
> actually hate me and talk shit about me whenever I'm not around.
This happens virtually everywhere. It is extremely rampant. I have yet to find a place where there are humans and it does not happen, excl. friend circles.
Yeh, I know. It's a kinda sad fact about humans. You can handle it a few ways. The most tempting and easiest is to compete on the same level, sniping at other people. More difficult but similar is to take it a step further and be the biggest guy at the pub, deal some drugs, fuck more girls, act like a friend and then talk shit. Every bar has one... it's just a method. They learned it from the internet, or possibly from being abused as a child. My method in all cases, everywhere, is to be extremely honest and see what comes out of people. What I find respectable is someone who tells you honestly what they think, even if they're not your friend. The people who tell you the unfiltered truth as they see it. Those are the good humans. Making other people reveal themselves, so you know what you're dealing with. That's actually understanding the world.
I am mostly just a listener, and at times a mediator. It worked well for me in cases where I was liked by most. Sadly it does not work well even when it comes to family, they talk shit about me behind my back to people and so forth.
> What I find respectable is someone who tells you honestly what they think
I think. Hear me out. To be a good mediator is also to be brutally honest with everyone. And your takeaway isn't them liking you. If either side liked you, you'd be a shit mediator. lol
The good news is they'll respect you for something they can't get anywhere else.
Had a long-time friend group explode last year over this. Years of behind-their-backs shit-stirring lies by a couple members of the group finally got figured out and called out, publicly, which lit the fuse. Exact same behavior that was called out was immediately employed to try to spin that and get these people's "enemies" pushed out of the group, which was the bomb going off. About half the group survived with some scarring, the rest just shattered.
Toxic people gonna toxic.
> There’s always going to be a shot caller or instigator behind it and everyone else who is weak willed will get on board with it.
Yeah, a major factor was lots of people putting up with some real bullshit for years to try to keep the peace. That, and the ones who did try to do something about it approached the problem-people one-on-one, which just led to them being lied to ("oh no, there's no problem between us") and then smeared even harder to others, and marginalized, having no idea why any of it was happening.
I've gotten in the habit of straight out calling out these people, including throwing them out of my house when they start down this road.
They tend to have some form of serious mental illness and/or a major substance problem they're not interested in addressing, which leads to emotional dysregulation. So not exactly great people to have around anyway.
Have I lost friends over it? Yes. But that's fine, having no friends is better than having fake friends who undermine you.
I would not punish them for having a mental illness, I am understanding of it as I have, too, but it is completely fine if you, yourself, do not want to handle or deal with it.
I tend to call people out, too. I keep the ones that take it gracefully.
Yeah, I try to give people some grace but if their behavior is repeatedly disruptive over a period of months to years, eventually something has to give. Everyone needs to have some boundaries.
It’s not necessarily punishment, e.g. leaving an abusive partner is in most cases about self-preservation, and if intended as a punishment, very ineffective at that. That said, I think a lot of people who end up at the receiving end of it do tend to try to spin it as a punishment due to self-centered thinking and in order to frame themselves as the victim.
If the people in the pub don't show they hate you, they don't hate you. It might as well be the people in the other pub that are making stuff up about the others.
> It's that I'm Jewish, with Israeli family... This was a hard-to-get real world experience in how fucked up people can be for no reason.
Don't be too discouraged. IMHO it's as simple as there being a significant portion of the population who tend to talk shit about other people in their circle when those people aren't around. If asked, they'll often attribute this oddly unmotivated malice to some conveniently proximate reason but, in most cases, if that reason didn't exist they'd still talk some slightly different shit about that same person.
In my experience, these kind of people will, at various times and in various contexts, talk shit about around half the people in their relevant circle. And who's in the half varies over time and each shit-talker can have different individuals in their half. So how does one end up in a given talker's shit-talked half? It can seem almost random but definite contributing factors include the talker perceiving you as better than them in any way (even if you never imply that - and even if it's not remotely correct). It's enough that their insecurity gets triggered even if it's over something 100% imaginary. Heaven help you if you actually are slightly more attractive in some way, have a slightly better job, spouse, education, hobby, hairdo, car - it can be anything or nothing. It's them - not you. And if it wasn't that one thing, it would be about something else.
The truly strange thing is, in my experience, when many of these people shit-talk about their friend group it's unconsciously triggered behavior that relieves some internal psychological stressor. It's almost like some kind of bizarre Tourette syndrome. On another day, in another context, that same shit-talker would tell someone you're their friend, that you're a great person - and, strangely, in that moment they would sincerely mean it. In some ways, I'd almost prefer it if these people were two-faced liars who spend every moment secretly hating me but act nice to my face. While unpleasant, that's at least easy to understand. The reality that they're just socially schizophrenic and almost randomly acting out triggered emotional stress but without harboring any deep rooted animosity toward me is much harder to mentally model.
Once I gained an understanding of this. I learned to avoid not only the shit-talkers, but the people close to them who don't shit talk but listen to their shit talk passively. While the shit-talkers are flawed, insecure people, the regular shit-listeners are just weak and unprincipled. I decided I don't have time to waste on either type. It's also a good reminder to myself to avoid ever slipping into passive shit-listening. Whenever I'd hear shit-talk about someone else, I'd usually politely question the shit-talker on their inconsistent behavior. This pretty quickly ensures no one shit-talks about anyone when I'm around - and it often leads to being excluded from the group entirely. Which I consider an excellent outcome.
Note: Based on the broad circumstances you related, I'll also add a general reminder to always consider the motivations of whoever told you about the shit-talking. Obviously, that's an all-to-common way to stir up drama and/or deepen their relationship with you. Always remember, if they weren't considered a 'safe' shit-listener by the shit-talker, they wouldn't have heard the shit-talk about you. And, of course, exaggerating (or entirely fabricating) the supposed shit-talk they reported to you is another level of shit-stirring.
I do have a similar experience and it's almost impossible to find groups of people that value honesty above everything else. That's because truth hurts and is hard to accept (it can also cause all kinds of emotional reactions that may not be desirable).
I think you are attributing too much psychology nonsense on the matter; it's a pretty bad tendency of our times to try to make every behavior some sort of mental illness.
While part of the behavior might look schizophrenic, the reality is that it is that way for plenty of reasons, you being unable to understand/sense them doesn't mean they doesn't exist.
Before even going too deep, you can always assume it's some kind of power play or a cheap way to grab attention and support. The people doing this are always working "from behind", because the whole point of it is to gain power without risking a direct confrontation (that could in theory lead into physical altercation or have them loose much more than what they want to bargain for).
I don't like this behavior for many reasons but you can't go around and pretend its mental illness or some nonsense like that; summarizing it as shit talking is a mistake.
It's actually the whole point of politics and while you may have an autistic view of the world (no offense intended, I am one) it's how regular people work things out. Not everything can be a perfect competition or a science project with pure facts...
"Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into a hipper LinkedIn, where artists, musicians, and local businesses share career and business updates and advertise their wares."
This is spot on. Facebook proper has supplanted private email chains for a lot of older people. This is ironic because they are moving in the opposite direction as everyone else. Everyone else is moving into private communities, older people are leaving the safety of email chains and, often unknowingly, posting publicly. Facebook (probably intentionally) upholds the illusion that they are posting for their friends. I've seen Facebook actually provide a compelling service to my older dad who keeps in touch with a lot of his old friends on there. It's a much more active community of seniors than you'd guess.
Of course, they are subject to all the ills of Facebook at the same time. Overall I'd rate it as a net loss for society because of that.
100%. I got pulled into Old School Revival TTRPGs there. It was smaller and quieter, and in the sections I read mostly free of politics and other noise. I miss the "anti-social network".
The closest thing that I remember within a Google product was actually Google Reader's optional friend-of-a-friend visibility on shared items/comments. A lot of little circles-like communities that sprung up around individual people.
People love LinkedIn cringe on instagram and twitter - but on LinkedIn itself you have to confront the reality that these people, often colleagues / former colleagues etc. are being serious
A comedy act called 'Wankernomics' just showed up in my YouTube recommendations. I thought about booking a ticket to their show but its too close to reality.
> but on LinkedIn itself you have to confront the reality that these people, often colleagues / former colleagues etc. are being serious
I doubt many are being serious.
Business culture (at least in the US) is so steeped in lying and general fake-ness that in-group signaling as "real business person" involves public performances of bullshit.
It's what you're supposed to do in interviews: bullshit just the right way, to show you understand the game and are willing to debase yourself to play it. Otherwise you're "risky", either due to excessive commitment to ethical principles or to being too clueless or inept to play the game right. That's what's going on, on LinkedIn. "Humility" and "realness" even have to be faked just the right way.
That's probably one reason that business degrades over time. With that type of "requirement" you can't get anyone worth a dam to work for you, past a certain point.
"The baby's gotta eat" is a very strong motivator for people to do somewhat cringe things in the name of their livelihoods and future. Including $50/year subscriptions for PDF reader apps (dead serious).
I have made one post ever to LinkedIn and it was something I said as a joke in a 1-1 that I realised was perfect LinkedIn fodder. It did some pretty good numbers, and made me respect that site even less than I already did.
Well, serious in the same way cult members have to be serious.
If you crack and admit it’s fake, everything falls apart and it’s your fault. Expulsion out onto the street follows.
Even worse, now everyone else is going ‘how could you be so dumb to believe it’ and/or ‘you sure fucked up by admitting it was fake’ all at the same time.
I mean.. if you go into with the right frame of mind, it is harmless. It is starts being an issue when you take it seriously and someone ends up with back broken in someone's backyard.
Honestly, I'm really nice to the LDS when they drop by.
My experience has been that Mormons are generally self-aware, polite, and willing the engage in interesting conversation.
In contrast, LinkedIn influencers' eyes glaze over whenever you try to dig into the details of what they're purporting to talk about. Because, ugh, nerd stuff that's beneath them.
It's not because "nerd stuff that's beneath them" but because to a significant portion of the middle management class, the bullshit IS reality. The bullshit is how they get their job, how they function day to day, how they explain themselves to others, how they THINK about themselves etc.
It's much the same as the people who get books ghostwritten and say "I wrote a book". It doesn't matter if you understand someone else wrote it, if you say that in your head or out loud enough, your brain will treat it as reality and you will think it to be reality, and that will effect future thinking and feeling.
It doesn't matter if you are playing a character. Play it convincingly enough and it WILL bleed into your reality.
That's great if you are the kind of person wo is added into fun social group chats. But my group chats are mostly functional, like for hobbies, or parents groups for the kids' classes, and so on. There is one family group which sees annoying memes every now and then, and one group with friends from university which is also rarely used.
Old school social networks used to be this noncommital, low-threshold way to connect with others around you. It was really great if you were a socially awkward teen or twenty-something. It's no big deal to friend somebody on facebook (or MySpace, or your universities gamified campus management system or whatever) and see what they are doing, or strike up a conversation. I really miss that kind of network.
The best social networks i have are imessage group chats. One with my old college friends, one with my immediate family, and another with extended family. My kids have their own group chats with their classmates. They're much better than the social platforms.
The problem with Insta as a “hip LinkedIn” is I can’t even browse it properly without an account. Say I find an interesting business elsewhere and Ggogle them; their primary web presence is Insta; I find their page, but cannot browse their photos/posts.
So, it’s a pretty shit tool for a business to share what it’s about.
If there's a link to an Insta page that I'm actually interested in, I turn on the devtools and hide their modal pop up about logging in. That allows me to continue to scroll the page. Then instead of clicking on the item of interest directly, I use the browser's copy link which I then paste into a new tab. This avoids their attempt at getting you to login again. They'll let you land on any post without throttling the number of direct loads. It's a total pain in the ass, so I only do it for the rare account that actually looks interesting. After a couple of posts, I quickly realize that the account isn't actually worth all of that, and just close and move on.
Oh yeah, Insta wants me to join. But I quit Meta last year because the algorithms suck donkey bollocks and drive me crazy. I'm much happier for it, but it is annoying to find a restaurant or craftsman who only uses Insta (or FB or whatever else).
For some reason Meta destroyed Insta as a monetisation tool. The algo used to be good for self-promo for artists and writers, and they tweaked it to kill that. Now it's useless.
There was a mass exodus to Threads, which is now a weird toxic liminal space apparently tuned for woke-adjacent rage bait blended with LinkedIn-for-creatives. "I have an opinion, now buy my fan art."
My take on all of these is that huge corporations are all polluters. We think of pollution as chemical and environmental, but Meta and X are the world's biggest sources of mental and emotional pollution - outside of the MSM.
> A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances.
But sometimes I do, because saying something to one person feels like I'm demanding a response from them, but saying it to a broad circle of friends allows those interested to reply, and others to leave it. Back when I used Facebook, I was more likely to gripe (or brag) on the Facebook wall than in a personal text conversation with a friend.
(Friends in person are the best option, of course.)
While I never have used "social media" I recently changed my online viewing(news/reading) habit, to after work only, limiting myself to one or two forum comments before first coffee. And as a self employed person this has changed my whole day and work flow..,,.snappier.
Eh, I'd disagree on the Instagram front. If you look at the reels section, where most spend their time, it's just a more deplorable Tiktok. 80% of the content on there is soft core porn advertising one OnlyFans girl or another. The other 20% seems to be brain rot memes. I reinstalled it recently after 8 years of not having it, and immediately deleted it.
Here's the thing, Instagram figured it quickly that I might spend another second or two looking at an attractive lady, but that isn't my preference for what I would see in the feed. Merely because I have libido Instagram became absolutely unusable no matter how many times I tell it I'm not interested in insta-bitches showing skin, it knows I'll look, so Instagram is gone out of my life.
Too bad because other topics like woodworking and mountain biking we're interesting and less... provocative, but that's not good for Instagram.
That's hilarious, I got a bit of the same "problem" but with Facebook (I don't use Instagram), but it's generally pretty actress or (for some reason) ballerinas.
I'm not gonna lie, I kinda like it.
I have found out that the algorithm will adjust itself relatively quickly if you don't click on stuff (at some point it decided I was into foot fetish and it disappeared quickly).
With that I get stuff about philosophy, math (memes), science and technology stuff with a lot of animals videos.
The algorithm isn't designed to give everyone exactly what THEY want.
The algorithim is optimized for "engagement", and therefore optimized specifically to trigger addiction as quickly and effectively as possible. The lower level softcore porn and rage bait and brainrot memes are what triggers addiction in people prone to it.
It's exactly the same situation as slot machines. They are made by the same companies in many cases that made some of the best and most fun arcade and video games. But if you aren't prone to gambling addiction, they aren't fun, because they aren't optimized for fun, they are optimized for addiction. The same triggers and stimuli that are most effective at triggering addiction behaviors are LESS effective at being "fun" to non-addictive people.
"The algorithm" is literally not meant to feed people what they want. "The algorithm" serves only the interests of the company, which is to efficiently keep eyeballs looking at a feed in order to sell ads. Giving most people what they want is genuinely counter to that.
This definitely works. I have two profiles on IG: one for musical instrument related things and one for painting miniatures. I’ve been able to keep both profiles strictly on topic by aggressively using the “not interested” button whenever something not related pops up.
That's basically what I do on youtube, except not logged in, using browser profiles to keep the cookies separate. If you exercise strict discipline then you can make the youtube algorithm work for you. Slip ups ruin it quick though.
The problem is, I haven't used it in 8 years, so there's no way to know my preference. The email is also not tied to any other accounts than perhaps a few browser video game accounts from my youth (miniclips, runescape and the like). My guess is that it fills the feed with sexualised content because it's the most popular kind, and eventually repopulates it depending on subsequent follows. The problem is I only follow friends and family, not celebrities, so that would prove difficult to do.
WhatsApp has really taken on this role for me, now that mention it.
I have a channel for my neighborhood, another for the parents at my children's school, another for my extended family, another for work colleagues and another for a few friends.
There are also the loners whos complete social and emotional life is the feed who send that feed onwards into group chats as input, isolating them further.
iOS added more social network-like functionality to the group chats—like being able to name them, set a photo, etc. To me, this helped cement their popularity since you can create a bespoke “named thing” that makes it easier to return to. You don’t accidentally leave someone off when returning to the convo.
I have never used any of these features, I just see the names on the group chat - same as groups texts 15 years ago. I don’t want to hide that with a group name that might make me forget who I’m messaging.
Group chats are basically the Circles that Google+ saw the need for but could never get fully set up. A lot of people don’t want to share personal updates and photos to a broad swath of friends and acquaintances.
Meanwhile Instagram and Facebook keep evolving. Facebook is turning into a weird Reddit for older people. Instagram is turning into a hipper LinkedIn, where artists, musicians, and local businesses share career and business updates and advertise their wares.