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Some notes on influenceering

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Re: Some notes on influenceering

#71

Post by OJFord »

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…

On a positive other hand though, I think some of that (engagement with the low-effort joke or whatever) only comes because of respect earnt with the higher effort content.

For example, I read the Money Stuff newsletter and follow its author Matt Leavine on Twitter as a result; I'd be much more likely to 'engage' on Twitter if he posted some joke (for other readers: a cartoon of him leaning forward into an email client after a holiday, say) than I would to reply by email with a well thought-out and in-depth response with additional information/correction on some technical detail say, even if I worked in the industry to have that information. But I'm only following him on Twitter because of the newsletter.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#72

Post by t0bia_s »

huijzer wrote: post #65
t0bia_s wrote: post #63

- Some of my most popular posts are throwaway quips and memes that went viral on social media. That is mine experience as well. Projects I've spent half year working on is barely noticed, while almost meme content is spreading quite fast. Thats why internet trends are driven by entertainment, not sharing a knowledge or making art in first place.

Same if you compare Linus Torvalds income with that of a famous singer or football player.

I don't know their income. Do you?

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#73

Post by huijzer »

t0bia_s wrote: post #72
huijzer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same if you compare Linus Torvalds income with that of a famous singer or football player.

I don't know their income. Do you?

The following sources are not the most reliable, but I guess they will not be an order of magnitude off. If you think about it, the numbers make sense. How many people have heard of Linus Torvalds versus Bruce Springsteen? I'm not saying the one person is better than the other, I'm just saying one receives more money than the other.

Linus Torvalds: about $10 million per year [1].

Taylor Swift: about $185 million in 2019 [2].

Bruce Springsteen: about $435 million in 2021 [2].

Cristiano Ronaldo: about $260 in 2023 [3].

[1]: https://www.quora.com/Did-Linus-Torvalds-make-money-from-Lin...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_the_world%27s_h...

[3]: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2023/10/14/highe...

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#74

Post by wasteduniverse »

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…

[dead]

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#75

Post by winternett »

jc6 wrote: post #53
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…

Michael Goldharber - People have limited attention to give anything, but unlimited capacity to receive attention. The Attention Economy has been inflated exploiting the above inequality. Bottom line is the social media is not designed to optimize allocation of limited Global Human Attention. It does a fine job squandering it. And people are begining to notice.

Social media destroys the value of intellect because it limits the initial exposure of posts strategically in an unfairly tiered manner based on popularity. There is no real way to reach others unless you cheat or pay for ads now.

There is no real logical explanation to it's utility any more, as it serves as a casino for scams and ads, it's really no longer a forum for delivering important information and developing reputation in my opinion, because the popularity garnered on these platforms can easily be bought, forged, plagiarized, and sold on the black market, and often if you're highly controversial.

Even the people getting attention these days know their popularity only lasts for seconds at a time, there is nothing durable, and most social media clout is also not very memorable in the long term. Eventually {hopefully} real life interactions will become more important again after the sheen of tech manipulation on art and news wears off.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#76

Post by ghaff »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #15
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…

Somewhat related is that the type of format that some people like to glibly dismiss as clickbait--how to..., 5 takeaways for $EVENT, etc. Whether they deliver or not there's at least a promise of practical advice or easily digestible information that doesn't involve working through 2,000 or 3,000 words to figure out what the key points are. I may appreciate a good New Yorker article but sometimes I just want some highlights.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#77

Post by immibis »

_xiaz wrote: post #67
baby wrote: post #32

> #1: It’s still a chore just use a static site if you can. I think I’m also stuck with an old stack and don’t have the time to move to a static site and I’ve been paying the price for years. All my new stuff is static, pushed on github, deployed by cloudflare pages. Worst was when a linux upgrade deleted a bunch of user content, fortunately I had set up backups! But spent the entire night fixing things. Now I do sta…

Any reason in particular for going with cloudflare pages instead of github pages? The latter has served me well for years, but I'm wondering if I'm missing out

Remember that both of these are giant corporations with your worst interests in mind, and they will demand payment or delete your site as soon as it's convenient for them, so don't rely on them too much.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#78

Post by ZephyrBlu »

ghaff wrote: post #76
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Somewhat related is that the type of format that some people like to glibly dismiss as clickbait--how to..., 5 takeaways for $EVENT, etc. Whether they deliver or not there's at least a promise of practical advice or easily digestible information that doesn't involve working through 2,000 or 3,000 words to figure out what the key points are. I may appreciate a good New Yorker article but sometimes I just want some hig…

Yeah 100%. We're all in that mode sometimes.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#79

Post by pclmulqdq »

immibis wrote: post #77
_xiaz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any reason in particular for going with cloudflare pages instead of github pages? The latter has served me well for years, but I'm wondering if I'm missing out

Remember that both of these are giant corporations with your worst interests in mind, and they will demand payment or delete your site as soon as it's convenient for them, so don't rely on them too much.

A $4/month VPS hosts my static site and a bunch of other convenience things for me. I can swap CDNs if cloudflare decides to kick me off (and this VPS can handle a shockingly high data rate with just nginx). 100% recommended.

Re: Some notes on influenceering

#80

Post by ghaff »

huijzer wrote: post #73
t0bia_s wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know their income. Do you?

The following sources are not the most reliable, but I guess they will not be an order of magnitude off. If you think about it, the numbers make sense. How many people have heard of Linus Torvalds versus Bruce Springsteen? I'm not saying the one person is better than the other, I'm just saying one receives more money than the other. Linus Torvalds: about $10 million per year [1]. Taylor Swift: about $185 million in 2…

Presumably Torvalds has other sources of income but the Linux Foundation pays pretty modestly by big tech standards. Certainly, some executives/founders make big money comparable to big name athletes and entertainers--often primarily through stock. But it shouldn't be a surprise that big name entertainers and athletes make a lot of money (while those on the other end of the scale make basically nothing).
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