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I don't agree with the parent comment's characterization, but I see sites like HN and Reddit described as "social media" all the time. For those us whose Inter

I don't agree with the parent comment's characterization, but I see sites like HN and Reddit described as "social media" all the time. For those us whose Internet citizenship pre-dates Friendster and MySpace, the term "social media" has a particular meaning. But for many younger "social media natives", the term basically just means "any website or app where you can make posts or comments".

mercer 6y ago
Interesting observation. I grew up with shitty (but fun!) phpBB forums and the fancier vBulletin, but wouldn't categorize them as 'social media'. The first of those were probably cu2, MySpace, and eventually Facebook/Twitter/etc. When I think about it, it seems like a somewhat arbitrary distinction to make. I suppose the main difference is that the forums were self-hosted and I could have different identities for each one. And while I generally reused the same username, the fact that it wasn't just a matter of 'clicking on my profile' to see all my activity was something I really liked. Maybe to me the term "social media" has come to mean "social media /companies/"? That doesn't quite satisfy, but it really does feel like the primary difference is that on these forums I knew that they were generally not run for profit, and the 'gods' were just individuals who volunteered their time to host or moderate. It felt safer, and more personal.