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Some notes on influenceering

lcamtuf.substack.com

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Re: Some notes on influenceering

#11

Post by Swizec »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

> the most informative content doesn't has fairly low reach and the highest engagement content leans heavily on entertainment value

Same observation here. I think it's because these channels are optimized for people looking to be entertained, not looking to be informed. There's an impedance mismatch between high value content and what people want while doomscrolling on the couch at 8pm or while on a coffee break at work.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#12

Post by Forgeties79 »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

My gut says - and this is very much gut - that throwaway content/posts probably tend to be comedic, and sometimes we just strike comedy gold. One good, funny sentence can ripple very quickly.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#13

Post by mycologos »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

Doesn't this kind of make sense? Stuff with high personal resonance, by virtue of being personal, has a specific audience. That sounds trite, but I at least tend to underrate how much the stuff I really like is just a weirdly shaped key fitting into a weirdly shaped lock somewhere in my brain.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#14

Post by soulofmischief »

boredemployee wrote: post #7
skilled wrote: post #5

The problem is that communities got replaced by algorithms who think on your behalf. The algorithm is by definition random , and yet for countless years now it is how most social media sites, including popular developer communities, operate. In the era of the feed and timeline, nobody bothers to check “Following” when you have “Recommended” enabled by default. The former requires effort , while the latter gives a fal…

>> In the era of the feed and timeline, nobody bothers to check “Following” when you have “Recommended” enabled by default. That's something I really hate and I feel pretty dumb that I found just some weeks ago that I can change X's feed to show me the posts people who I follow. I wonder if that's true for instagram as well because I can't stand to see random posts anymore. To be honest, I'm getting tired of it. i.e:…

As a counterpoint, I feel like my experience with platforms such as bandcamp, YouTube, private trackers, etc. replicate much of the serendipity of a record shop, while vastly increasing discoverability.

I love going into a record shop as much as the next guy, but I do find that I discover more new things which actually stick via the internet. I also find that I am able to rely more on network-based algorithms for discoverability if the community is well-aligned. Even better if I can navigate myself when the underlying data is exposed via similarity maps, tags and other hypertext.

Recommendation algorithms we see on corporate social platforms (Spotify included) generally suck because the underlying data is not exposed to the user. That would be bad for ad revenue. These platforms enjoy the profound level of mind control which they employ towards their users, and are loathe to surrender it.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#15

Post by ZephyrBlu »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

My experience on the internet suggests that high-signal information usually has very low memetic fitness. All the good sources of information I've found have been buried away and I've come across them serendipitously.

Not particularly surprising though, entertainment is the lowest common denominator so it's much easier for that kind of stuff to spread. High-signal information is the complete opposite: very few people can actually tell if it's valuable, and it's not particularly shareable.

To be fair, most people aren't really looking for super high-signal info anyway. Closer to the minimal amount of information I need, presented in an easily digestible way, or looking for infotainment around something they're interested in!

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#16

Post by TeMPOraL »

gowld wrote: post #9

Surely that throwaway "computer science" tweet only went viral because lcamtuf was already famous and had a high follower count because of their previous, substantial work.

Very good observation, and I strongly agree. A person's shitposting reads differently when they have some name recognition in the audience. Especially that of an expert - I find myself looking into deeper meaning in a throwaway comment that I wouldn't even notice if it came from some random Internet user.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#17

Post by brandall10 »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

I see this even on enthusiast discussion forums and subreddits where high value content is encouraged.

Very often someone will post some thoughtful, high value post in a thread that gets at least a handful of positive reactions. But if someone quotes it with some silly quip that's 5 words or less, it invariably gets 3-4x the response.

Yeah, sometimes it's a tdlr; situation, but it seems common enough even with just a few sentences.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#19

Post by nonameiguess »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

Eric Helms, an exercise physiology researcher out of New Zealand who runs a reasonably well-known but certainly not viral Internet coaching practice and podcast, both for weighlifting, made a comment to this effect on a recent episode. If he fixates on engagement metrics, he can see the lowest effort cheap shit is what gets the clicks and the eyeballs. Books he has published push nowhere near that volume, and he can only coach a few people at a time.

But what kind of engagement are you looking for? One of his coaching clients is a two-time world champion. Think about some of history's great teachers. Jaime Escalante directly ever engaged with what? A few hundred, maybe a thousand math students in his entire 40 year career? Sure, but he deeply impacted these people, and in some cases totally changed their lives for the better. Do you want to briefly amuse a billion people for a few seconds each or produce world champions and paths from the ghetto to the middle class?

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#20

Post by paulpauper »

luu wrote: post #8

> Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. One of my life’s crowning achievements is this: [witty, throwaway, quip tweet]. > In contrast, some of the work I put weeks or months into essentially lost the SEO game and gets nearly zero traffic ... Even though I don’t write for money, there is an immense pressure to produce clickbait — even if simply to add “hey, since…

This is why the stock market (specifically the Nasdaq) and real estate, tech jobs are so great for building wealth . none of this unpredictability of having to rely on user/reader engagement or guessing the whims of reader or publisher tastes. For investing, being successful is as easy as parking your money and watching it grow. The creator/engagement economy has vastly more losers relative to winners, which makes it impractical.
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