4 ms·

Connecting people to other people, to life changing art, places and things that they end up loving and wouldn’t know about otherwise? That has to be one of the

by thorum 2y ago

Connecting people to other people, to life changing art, places and things that they end up loving and wouldn’t know about otherwise? That has to be one of the best uses for technology. I’d like to see more of it. I think you and others here are focusing on the stereotypical “influencer” faking authenticity for views but there are literally millions of human beings posting on TikTok about all kinds of things. A lot of them are pretty cool. Just click “not interested” on influencers and click like on the stuff you want to see instead.

corimaith 2y ago
I think it's fair to say after a decade or so social media does not "connect people to other people", what you are describing are parasocial relationships. People are lonelier than ever, not just in America but worldwide. Besides, for any hobby, recommendations are only really relevant for newcomers without solidified preferences and knowledge, after that the space of available content quickly dwindles as one seeks increasingly ambitious and avant-garde works to their preferences. Amateur stuff can be quite generic after all, what not with the lack of resources and experience. If you're still relying on an algorithm, I'd see it more as a vapid surface-level engagement with a hobby/medium than a genuine interest to dive further. Well, I guess that's what people want, but I'd argue that we're not better of it, that despite the greater size of it all, the culture of the early 2010s internet still produced far higher quality and authentic cultural products than today, hell alot of shorts I see today is just a rehash of well-known facts back then.
- snoman 2y ago
  > Well, I guess that's what people want, but I'd argue that we're not better of it, that despite the greater size of it all, the culture of the early 2010s internet still produced far higher quality and authentic cultural products than today, hell alot of shorts I see today is just a rehash of well-known facts back then. You’re just getting older. You’ve seen it before in another place, another medium, a different author, actor, photographer, director, philosopher, painter. You just haven’t realized that the internet isn’t just for you, and that reel you saw that just rehashed something well-known to you, was new info to someone else, somewhere. I can assure you, in 2010, there were plenty oh people bitching about bloggers retelling the same old things they learned decades prior. “Everything old is new again” is a centuries-old expression. Every generation tells their tales, and shares their cultural experience in their own way. Right now, people express themselves in short-form video. I’m curious to see what comes next - you and I probably won’t like it.
  - mullingitover 2y ago
    Everything invented up to your 20s is just the innate environment. Everything invented from your 20s-40s is cool, you accept it and will probably make a living with it. Everything invented after your 40s is a perversion of the natural order and must be destroyed.
    - mlyle 2y ago
      On the other hand, kids don't seem to have great mental health, attention spans, or academic attainment right now, and this type of social media is one of the likely factors behind this change.
      - lmm 2y ago
        One person's short attention span is another person's intolerance for bullshit. One person's poor mental health is another person's emotions appropriate to the actual state of the world. The kids these days are doing great in all the ways that matter.
        chabska 2y ago
        Put a short straight-to-the-point instructional video on youtube, gets praised for being the best of humanity, "You win the internet today sir". Put the same video on TikTok, suddenly it's brain rot.
        mlyle 2y ago
        > One person's short attention span is another person's intolerance for bullshit. If a student asks a friend a question, and then drifts off into space before the two sentence answer has been delivered, that's not great. > One person's poor mental health is another person's emotions appropriate to the actual state of the world. Perhaps being prone to anxiety attacks, panic, and self-harm are what we need to meet today's challenges head-on. > The kids these days are doing great in all the ways that matter. Hey, not everything is negative-- we live in a world with more interpersonal kindness and tolerance than a few decades ago, and that's great. But the kids aren't alright. Especially teen girls. It's impossible to escape curated content encouraging social comparison to edited, perfectly curated standards of perfection.
motorest 2y ago
> Connecting people to other people, to life changing art, places and things that they end up loving and wouldn’t know about otherwise? Does your opinion change if you understand that none of that is remotely real or actually exists? You have an app that is designed to feed you Potemkin villages, and here you are praising their real estate value. > That has to be one of the best uses for technology. I’d like to see more of it. That's like praising psychosis for being one of the best mental illnesses, and concluding that you'd like to see more of it.

by thorum 2y ago

corimaith 2y ago

I think it's fair to say after a decade or so social media does not "connect people to other people", what you are describing are parasocial relationships. People are lonelier than ever, not just in America but worldwide. Besides, for any hobby, recommendations are only really relevant for newcomers without solidified preferences and knowledge, after that the space of available content quickly dwindles as one seeks increasingly ambitious and avant-garde works to their preferences. Amateur stuff can be quite generic after all, what not with the lack of resources and experience. If you're still relying on an algorithm, I'd see it more as a vapid surface-level engagement with a hobby/medium than a genuine interest to dive further. Well, I guess that's what people want, but I'd argue that we're not better of it, that despite the greater size of it all, the culture of the early 2010s internet still produced far higher quality and authentic cultural products than today, hell alot of shorts I see today is just a rehash of well-known facts back then.

snoman 2y ago
> Well, I guess that's what people want, but I'd argue that we're not better of it, that despite the greater size of it all, the culture of the early 2010s internet still produced far higher quality and authentic cultural products than today, hell alot of shorts I see today is just a rehash of well-known facts back then. You’re just getting older. You’ve seen it before in another place, another medium, a different author, actor, photographer, director, philosopher, painter. You just haven’t realized that the internet isn’t just for you, and that reel you saw that just rehashed something well-known to you, was new info to someone else, somewhere. I can assure you, in 2010, there were plenty oh people bitching about bloggers retelling the same old things they learned decades prior. “Everything old is new again” is a centuries-old expression. Every generation tells their tales, and shares their cultural experience in their own way. Right now, people express themselves in short-form video. I’m curious to see what comes next - you and I probably won’t like it.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  Everything invented up to your 20s is just the innate environment. Everything invented from your 20s-40s is cool, you accept it and will probably make a living with it. Everything invented after your 40s is a perversion of the natural order and must be destroyed.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    On the other hand, kids don't seem to have great mental health, attention spans, or academic attainment right now, and this type of social media is one of the likely factors behind this change.
    - lmm 2y ago
      One person's short attention span is another person's intolerance for bullshit. One person's poor mental health is another person's emotions appropriate to the actual state of the world. The kids these days are doing great in all the ways that matter.
      - chabska 2y ago
        Put a short straight-to-the-point instructional video on youtube, gets praised for being the best of humanity, "You win the internet today sir". Put the same video on TikTok, suddenly it's brain rot.
      - mlyle 2y ago
        > One person's short attention span is another person's intolerance for bullshit. If a student asks a friend a question, and then drifts off into space before the two sentence answer has been delivered, that's not great. > One person's poor mental health is another person's emotions appropriate to the actual state of the world. Perhaps being prone to anxiety attacks, panic, and self-harm are what we need to meet today's challenges head-on. > The kids these days are doing great in all the ways that matter. Hey, not everything is negative-- we live in a world with more interpersonal kindness and tolerance than a few decades ago, and that's great. But the kids aren't alright. Especially teen girls. It's impossible to escape curated content encouraging social comparison to edited, perfectly curated standards of perfection.

motorest 2y ago

> Connecting people to other people, to life changing art, places and things that they end up loving and wouldn’t know about otherwise? Does your opinion change if you understand that none of that is remotely real or actually exists? You have an app that is designed to feed you Potemkin villages, and here you are praising their real estate value. > That has to be one of the best uses for technology. I’d like to see more of it. That's like praising psychosis for being one of the best mental illnesses, and concluding that you'd like to see more of it.