(Fisrt time posting on Lemmy, please be patient)
I don’t know if it was also like this before, but I feel like recently every social media is focused on getting comments, likes, views, people sharing your post, being popular, when the before that (late 199X- mid 201x) was more about being unique and just sharing your own creations and remixes. What makes me feel like this is that whenever I (rarely) open Twitter and go to the homepage most of the posts are something baiting the viewer into commenting or sharing. When your post doesn’t has many interactions or views, you’re deemed as “a failure”. It seems like the (anti)social media is empty with baits and overshared memes. Long gone were the days of being original without having to directly copy someone to have validation and recognition.
I think this is quite the popular opinion, even among people who enjoy social media. I feel many people just accept this is the current state of things. But yeah, the evolution happened as the stress to monetize increased, so anything to keep people on the platform.
If you post something that makes someone stay on platform long enough to see an ad or two, wonderful! The algorithm will bless you with exposure and the emptiness in your soul will be filled with likes.
Social media platforms want to make ad revenue, they need the audience to stick around and they will employ all kinds of psychological trickery to do so.
Are you sure the correct term is evolution? /j
Oops I mean “the creationism happened”.
/s of course
No, I meant regression.
Ah, no need for the “/j” then, that’s just straight up facts!
I think this is why Reddit/Lemmy is a great model. Even though “the algorithm” drives for engagement, it’s still community based. Pick the communities you want to see and it’s a radically different experience
And the algorithms for Lemmy seem simple enough in my experience. You sort by active to see what people are actually engaging in, sort by hot if you wanna see what’s building momentum (not sure if that’s actually it but that’s what it feels like) and sort by new if you just wanna basically see internet stream of consciousness