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Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

theatlantic.com

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Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#151

Post by purpleflame1257 »

mhb wrote: post #143
pavon wrote: post #124

Recently I was thinking about how I am completely out of touch with the culture of younger generations, and was about to laugh it off cause that's how it is with every generation, but then I realized that I don't even know how I would know. In the past if you wanted to know what kids were listening to, you change the radio station to that new loud one you normally skip, or watch that new TV show that people are going…

Reddit has a "front page"?

He means the default things you see if you don't log in and just hit reddit.com in the browser.

FWIW, it changes based on your IP location at the very least.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#152

Post by conradfr »

Dig1t wrote: post #36
segasaturn wrote: post #4

Maybe that's a good thing? I remember a few years ago when journalists were outsourcing their reporting to Twitter and we had headlines like "The Internet is Freaking Out About X" when it was really a dozen nobodies on Twitter. The death of Twitter and the re-fragmentation of the internet sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to the purple haze of the last decade's centralized web.

Traffic is up on X 22% YoY Not quite death, but certainly agree about news outlets no longer seeing it as okay to say that “The internet is freaking out about X” https://advanced-television.com/2023/12/18/research-x-twitte... >Using the data available on Google Trends as well as SEO tool Ahrefs, domain and hosting provider Fasthosts investigated the online presence of X since the announcement of Musk’s takeover and h…

These days the only persons who start to follow me, like my tweets or even advertise in my feed are those onlyfans, digital prostitutes or whatever. In fact it's the first time I have to use the block function on Twitter.

Is this the growth?

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#153

Post by conradfr »

boredumb wrote: post #17

Reads like an out of touch journalist with a vendetta against elon musk before I got pay walled.

I thought it was a good article.

One aspect no touched is how it seems on TikTok an artist/band can have a song getting very popular for a limited amount of time and that's it, it doesn't lead to anything else for him/her/them. No really new fanbase, etc.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#154

Post by saiya-jin »

JohnFen wrote: post #62
JohnMakin wrote: post #8

> The very idea of popularity is up for debate: Is that trend really viral? Did everyone see that post, or is it just my little corner of the internet? This is exactly it. Consider a scenario that's likely fairly common given experiments I've done in the last several years. Say a site people still use to talk to/keep in touch with friends sometimes like IG/FB decides a user is "toxic" and either shadowbans them, or s…

> It'd look like their friends were ignoring them, weren't interested in them, etc., possibly leading to depression If my friends seemed to be ignoring my tweets, I'd certainly ask them what's up with that through a different mechanism (in person, through texting, whatever). If the only interaction I have with a person is through Twitter, then it's a real stretch to call them "friends" in the first place.

That's... desperate. I mean good friends will be honest with you, but you will look really desperate for validation, and actually behave like it.

I'd say most folks who are not actually earning cash from being an 'influencer' seek some form of validation, but most will deny it, and most of those will actually believe their words. We humans are sometimes a bit weird, aren't we.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#155

Post by adolph »

makeitdouble wrote: post #109
steveBK123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would agree. Some old school journalists from NYT wrote about that phenomenon. Colleagues doing a lot of stories that were basically the groupthink of their friend group or what they saw on Twitter. Part of it is economics/incentives leading journalists to have to churn out a lot of content. Part of it is laziness as it's a lot easier than going out into the field and actually talking to people.

That sounds a lot like how "news" were sourced before that, with random interviews at street corners near the newspaper's office, stuff they heard at parties and from friends. I don't believe there has been a fundamental shift on how much people are willing to put work into their pieces.

“Random interviews”

Gregory F. Packer (born December 18, 1963), is a retired[1] American highway maintenance worker from Huntington, New York, best known for frequently being quoted as a "man on the street" in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts from 1995 to the present. He has been quoted in hundreds of articles and television broadcasts as a member of the public (that is, a "man on the street" rather than a newsmaker or expert). Although he always gives his real name, he has admitted to making things up to get into the paper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Packer

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#156

Post by mkl »

daveslash wrote: post #103

I'm going to get this quote wrong, but there was an author (Clarke, Bradbury, Asimov? one of those folks) who said something along the lines of " We were lucky to be the last generation to be able to read all science fiction that was published. But considering that 80% of what is written is garbage, perhaps we weren't so lucky "

Arthur C Clarke said at least the first half: https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/05/books/the-science-fiction...

> "We old-timers," Arthur C. Clarke remarked recently, "were able to accomplish something unique. We were the last generation able to read everything in the science-fiction field. No one will ever be able to do that again."

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#157

Post by autoexec »

pavon wrote: post #124

Recently I was thinking about how I am completely out of touch with the culture of younger generations, and was about to laugh it off cause that's how it is with every generation, but then I realized that I don't even know how I would know. In the past if you wanted to know what kids were listening to, you change the radio station to that new loud one you normally skip, or watch that new TV show that people are going…

> I feel like every decade of the 1900's had pretty distinct cultural trends and identity, and even subcultures and counter cultures of the past were more public, but now it's all balkanized. I have no idea if that is a bad thing, but it is certainly different.

I like it. Instead of sitting around talking about whatever the big media gatekeepers shoved down our throats we can get together and share what we've found and be introduced to something new and worthwhile that we'd never heard of before, then talk about those things.

We have fewer cultural touchstones, but they still exist in the form of things like major events (like Covid) or heavily advertised media.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#158

Post by idontpost »

itronitron wrote: post #132
karaterobot wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm eager for Twitter to fail because I think it's been a net negative influence on the world almost since its inception, but it has not seemed realistic to hope that it could go away until now. Certainly, it will be replaced by something, and that thing may be just as bad, but I'm happy for the possibility that it might be better too.

I recall reading an article about the genesis of Twitter, and it included one of the tweets from one of the founders who was tweeting 'just had Ethiopian for dinner' or something like that. My response to that, and to every tweet ever since has been, "yeah, I don't give a shit."

[dead]

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#159

Post by dist-epoch »

mhb wrote: post #143
pavon wrote: post #124

Recently I was thinking about how I am completely out of touch with the culture of younger generations, and was about to laugh it off cause that's how it is with every generation, but then I realized that I don't even know how I would know. In the past if you wanted to know what kids were listening to, you change the radio station to that new loud one you normally skip, or watch that new TV show that people are going…

Reddit has a "front page"?

Up until about 2016 it was pretty good and a popular reddit destination.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#160

Post by JohnFen »

woooooo wrote: post #133
chankstein38 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you love when people do that? lol "Trump and Musk aren't like the elites!" like oh I didn't realize your normal, everyday, average Joe could just leverage their assets and spend $44bn to buy a platform just to ~destroy it~ sorry, make it better by making sure no one posts there.

I think when people say this, they're using "elite" to signal a mentality rather a wealth level. Consider a wealthy, business-owning tradesman and a broke ivy league post-doc. Who sounds more "elite" in their mannerisms? "Professional/managerial class conformist" might be more precise but it's pretty clunky.

> they're using "elite" to signal a mentality

Given the nonsensical things I've seen declared "elite" and "nonelite", I'm certain that "elite" is just used as a synonym for "whoever I currently hate".

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