On social media, basically nothing is worth doing, and everyone is only there because they’ve vastly overestimated the value that social media gives them.
Mostly correct and strong upvoted, although one aspect of it is that it’s also a pyramid scheme, like every other social phenomenon nowadays. The way it works is, social media companies
Hand out a relatively small amount of influence and prestige to an absurdly small fraction of users, the “influencers”
These “influencers” encourage their followers to see Twitter as a path to status, by dropping very occasional stories about how, as a top 0.01% Twitter user, they got introduced to ${high_status_user} once, or maybe a story about how they landed a job
Their unfunny readers think to themselves not “wow, I care about these hot takes so much”, but “wow, everyone else seems to care so much about this Twitter thing”, and also “man, I bet I could be as famous as ${high_profile_twitter_user}, his posts don’t look so hard to replicate”
Convinced that the shortest path to success is crafting viral content for FaceGoog (other paths, like earning a Nobel Prize or becoming President, being legibly difficult instead of illegibly difficult), the “grunt users” inadvertently contribute to the meme that everybody in their social circle cares about Twitter, and on it goes
In this sense you could compare it to, say, joining the mafia during the 70s and 80s. The mafia may in fact have provided an avenue to comfortable wealth and microfame for like, a dozen or so people. It was still one of the worst life decisions you could ever make.
Mostly correct and strong upvoted, although one aspect of it is that it’s also a pyramid scheme, like every other social phenomenon nowadays. The way it works is, social media companies
Hand out a relatively small amount of influence and prestige to an absurdly small fraction of users, the “influencers”
These “influencers” encourage their followers to see Twitter as a path to status, by dropping very occasional stories about how, as a top 0.01% Twitter user, they got introduced to ${high_status_user} once, or maybe a story about how they landed a job
Their unfunny readers think to themselves not “wow, I care about these hot takes so much”, but “wow, everyone else seems to care so much about this Twitter thing”, and also “man, I bet I could be as famous as ${high_profile_twitter_user}, his posts don’t look so hard to replicate”
Convinced that the shortest path to success is crafting viral content for FaceGoog (other paths, like earning a Nobel Prize or becoming President, being legibly difficult instead of illegibly difficult), the “grunt users” inadvertently contribute to the meme that everybody in their social circle cares about Twitter, and on it goes
In this sense you could compare it to, say, joining the mafia during the 70s and 80s. The mafia may in fact have provided an avenue to comfortable wealth and microfame for like, a dozen or so people. It was still one of the worst life decisions you could ever make.
This is actually not what I was referring to, but it’s very close and it’s also very helpful.