Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds • Hacker News Board

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#71

Post by armchairhacker » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

trollbridge wrote: post #58

armchairhacker wrote: post #27

HN is social media. Social media is a spectrum. You can imagine HN like a documentary channel compared to Facebook’s reality TV, but even “documentaries” can be dopamine sinks that aren’t actually informative (or accurate). (But personally, I see lots of short and pure opinion posts here, documentaries are long and at least pretend to contain facts; so I’d hesitate to compare it to a documentary channel even with the…

I've never appreciated the low-effort handwaves of claiming that HN, old-school Internet forums, USENET, etc. are "social media", simply because they aren't. HN's primary medium is text, often headlined by a link to some other site. That isn't social media. HN makes it quite difficult (technically impossible, but you can link out) to embed media such as videos and pictures, which makes it fundamentally different than…

HN has comments which are social media. I don’t get why people care, because social media isn’t intrinsically bad; I always say “mainstream social media” or “toxic social media” to clarify what I’m referring to.

> HN makes it quite difficult (technically impossible, but you can link out) to embed media such as videos and pictures, which makes it fundamentally different than "social media".

What’s the difference? Submissions usually include at least one picture, sometimes videos or interactive content.

> HN has surprisingly little AI-generated content in its discussion threads, and links to AI-generated blog posts, etc. tend to get dogpiled on or simply not upvoted and don't get attention.

I’m sorry, but this isn’t true. HN has less AI than say Reddit, and many users try to combat, but I still frequently see top-voted (obvious) AI-generated articles and less frequently comments.

When something has lots of em-dashes and other https://tropes.fyi, I recommend checking on Pangram.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#72

Post by reactordev » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #3

Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…

I love me some knowledge forums and sites like HN that allow for general discourse. I’m afraid an entire generation doesn’t know what that is like.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#73

Post by shimman » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #3

Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…

I always delineated the two as one being corporate social media, I do wonder if there is a better word/phrase for it but IME if you use the phrase two describe it as such to those that were online pre-2008 they immediately grasp the difference; but these people are likely a minority.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#74

Post by masfuerte » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

p1dda wrote: post #43

[flagged]

What do you think it means? One meaning of anti-social is "hostile toward society". Do you think this doesn't describe social media?

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#75

Post by popupeyecare » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #11

Insanity wrote: post #2

Social media was never really “social” in my opinion. Reading updates from hundreds of people you have shallow interactions with offers the illusion of having a social life. So I’m not sure if this change to “fads” makes it meaningfully less social than it already was.

For a brief period it was social. Even if you had hundreds of people you had barely interacted with there were still people you continued to interact in real life from that lot. Getting updates helped me even to form friendships long after the first interaction where we had added each other, I'd see someone I had connected with visiting a place nearby, and could go grab a beer with them while they are around. Or the…

[flagged]

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#76

Post by j45 » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

As soon as devices inserted themselves as a barrier between people and called it social, when it was really the media in waiting, they could hide and direct the nature of interactions, and ultimately, attention.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#77

Post by hdhdhsjsbdh » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #41

A new game: determine when you meet someone if they use tik-tok or not without asking them. People's opinions are groomed and programmed. It's pretty hilarious how small minded people are.

What are the tells? Since COVID I’ve noticed that every new person I meet seems to harbor at least 1 or 2 oddball opinions. Conversation tends to veer into weirder places than it used to, creating a surreal sort of feeling of being in the world. I’ve felt that this is just a result of everyone being tuned by whatever personalized feed is amplifying or directing their base instincts.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#78

Post by everdrive » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #70

Why is nobody here defining social media, put down the clear criteria? "I say this, I am tired of people saying that" isn't productive if everyone has their own interpretation of what's being discussed.

In my case, I don't think most people who claim HN is social media are making a serious argument. They are taking two different things which have a few points of inter-comparison and using that as a basis to claim those two things are actually equivalent. This is done as a retort (eg, "you say you hate social media, but you're on social media _right now_") rather than in service of a larger argument.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#79

Post by AlfredBarnes » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #41

A new game: determine when you meet someone if they use tik-tok or not without asking them. People's opinions are groomed and programmed. It's pretty hilarious how small minded people are.

I could very quickly sus out what was on FOX news last night by the conversations my coworkers have.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#80

Post by stickfigure » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #70

Why is nobody here defining social media, put down the clear criteria? "I say this, I am tired of people saying that" isn't productive if everyone has their own interpretation of what's being discussed.

Because the people who say this like HN and dislike Facebook and their post-hoc rationalizations are transparent.