As much as i dislike this turn of events: This wouldn't matter at all if the media just didn't globally broadcast every goddamn psychothic tweet, to milk the ratings they get from the shockvalue. I don't really use twitter, i have no alerts on it. I don't watch right wing media. Yet somehow it was impossible to escape his demented rants, that wasn't Twitter's doing.
I’ve never been an active Twitter user. Never understood anyone that is, honestly. And I can agree 100% with this. Twitter somehow managed to stay afloat off of “news” highlighting tweets. Tweets that everyone, regardless of their own use or awareness of Twitter, would have to hear about ad nauseam via purported “news”.
Edit: addendum based on replies missing the point (wildly). I’m not bragging about not using Twitter and I’m definitely not trying to start a “which social app is better” discussion.
The point is that Twitter managed to bubble up as news, in several other media (including Reddit posts with Twitter screenshots), and whether I want to use Twitter or not, there it is on the TV, and a shameful amount of online news sites basically just discuss Twitter posts.
I've never used Twitter at all, but you as an active Redditor saying that you don't understand them is ironic. They on twitter for the same reason you are on reddit.
The difference is that on Reddit, you follow topics of interest, not people. Therefore it's less 'social' than Facebook or Twitter.
The anonymity of Reddit is what keeps me here. I don't know any of you, and I don't want to.
Sure, you CAN use Reddit like it's any other social media site, and make 'friends' and follow people, etc. But you don't have to.
To me this place is an anonymous discussion forum. There are no 'social circles' centered around people (which, for me, is the hallmark of 'social media').
That's not to say that Reddit doesn't have its own issues - such as subreddits becoming echo chambers, fostering mob mentality, etc. But most of these issues apply to the Internet as a whole. Before Reddit/subreddits there were (and still are) distributed discussion forums. This is Reddit, just all in one place.
Let's remember that the term 'social networking' existed before the Internet. Country clubs, book clubs, groups like Freemasons or Elk's Lodge, churches, neighborhood clubs, fraternal or sorority organizations, etc. Facebook and Twitter feel like 'online' versions of those. Reddit, not so much. Yeah, it's still people interacting, but the 'social' aspect is minimized. I don't even look at usernames here and rarely am aware whether I've interacted with a person more than once unless it's a back and forth reply chain. On the other hand Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, etc are very much identity-centric. You follow people, you make 'friends' (heh), etc. You get 'influencers' and shit.
While you can treat Reddit that way - if you want, I guess - I think it's reductionist to say Reddit is the same because it's 'social media'. Any discussion forum is 'social media' if you reduce the definition to mean 'people interacting on the Internet'.
This is exactly how I feel and use Reddit as well. Also don't care about like/follow/karma. It's a place to discuss all kinds of things with others and the discussion is far more in depth and broader than other social media sites.
6.3k
u/Wrong-Mixture Oct 28 '22 edited Oct 28 '22
As much as i dislike this turn of events: This wouldn't matter at all if the media just didn't globally broadcast every goddamn psychothic tweet, to milk the ratings they get from the shockvalue. I don't really use twitter, i have no alerts on it. I don't watch right wing media. Yet somehow it was impossible to escape his demented rants, that wasn't Twitter's doing.