I remember the early days of Facebook. I had just gone to university around the time it really took off, and whatever the hell this thing was, it was offering us a new way to engage with each other (and distract us from lectures) — and we loved it. It’s hard to imagine now, but it was actually fun to use. Sharing status updates, waking up after a night of heavy drinking to see what awful pictures the nightclub had shared of you, joining funny groups, following band pages, and of course, ‘fraping’ each other. (In our defense, it was simpler times back then, and the worst we did was write fake coming-out announcements).
You can't see it, but I am giving to a standing ovation for this piece. Brilliantly well done. I thought about how in Dune when AI almost made humans extinct, how when they finally won the war, they killed off all thinking computers. Could we be headed towards the same with social media? How far are we willing to scale back and rebuke the social media giants that want us to be addicted so we can go back to something as simple as sending pictures, meaningful messages, connecting, and yes, even quick snapchats? One can only hope we do so sooner than later, because the brain rot is real, and the powers at be are fine with the awful harm that social media is causing.
I honestly don't think there is a scaling back. It would take such a fundamental societal swing, I just can't see it happening anytime soon. The best hope short term is that a competitor comes along with better intentions? (And holds to those intentions)
Well, you have kind of touched on why I am here then, at least. Yes, I am not connected with friends and family here, and it's not the up-to-date sports information that Twitter is able to provide. But it is a more manageable space in terms of social engagement and genuine learning while supporting other human beings. I don't think Substack is poised to take the place of other forms of social media, but it is certainly a healthier alternative for certain things.
Sadly, I do not think we can scale back, at least not on the whole. As you alluded to, people are truly addicted, and addictions are not something one just gives up. I think the way something like a Twitter specifically will feel the harm though is if there is a good sports alternative. Immediate sports commentary drives a lot of traffic there. Can BlueSky or Threads eventually do that? We shall see.
What is clear though is we can't continue like we are now. Or, we can't do so and continue to make positive changes in the world. It has been made so much easier to connect with people, yet we are more disconnected than we have ever been. Some of that is our own fault, but one can't discount the fact that social media giants are actively trying to mold neural pathways in our brains for the worse, while also preying on fear, and promoting hate and division.
'Nothing has been done with user value in mind' I feel this is literally the main theme of our time, not just on social media but in general. Everything is being done to benefit the corporate elites and I don't understand why they're so hungry when they already have everything, but I hope they choke on it.
I've thrown in my 5$ per month to support Cara and I am confident something better will be built. The existing ones are all swirling the drain, I agree. I'm kind of curious to see what comes.
What's even weirder is how many people with no vested interest will try to argue this is fine and inevitable and you're stupid if you complain against it.
I had a conversation with a friend the other day where I complained about Insta scraping our stuff to feed its bots, and her reaction was like 'Well we all knew from the start they had access to our pictures, and we all accepted it! You signed on for that when you started to use the app. It's your fault!' When I noted that the terms keep changing and there should be legal guards about this she was like 'Well there should but there aren't so what can you do.' When I said 'well, a lot of us are actually starting to leave because of it' she scoffed with 'Bah where are you going to go? EVERYONE is there. You have no choice.'
It really made me wonder. This is my friend. She has no vested interest in Instagram screwing me over. Why is this her reaction? I think it's because if you tell yourself the game is already lost, that nobody has a choice, that just plodding along and accepting whatever comes is THE ONLY REASONABLE OPTION, you don't have to do the hard work of, like, figuring out the world.
Of course you have a choice, and you always did. What annoyed me from the start about social media platforms was that everyone developed an instant sense of entitlement over it. “Facebook doing _________ is unfair!” Having come from the dark ages of websites and blogs, I took issue with this attitude. Facebook was never OURS. My website was MINE, up to a point, but Facebook always belonged to Zuckerburg. His site, his rules. I’ve had a lot of fun there screwing around with my online chums, but it was always understood that Zuck owed me nothing and was, in fact, prostituting us all for the value of our data. Always.
I left Twitter ages ago, dumped Instagram, LinkedIn and all the rest. I’ll dump Substack when it no longer serves my interests. None of us need to be here. And in that sense, I agree that it’s useless to complain.
Sure, and on that level I agree. But there is something enterprises and establishments owe you. If it became standard practice to have professional pickpockets employed at supermarkets to try and rob you while you shopped, I think people would complain. And they wouldn’t necessarily say ‘oh well it’s their store they can do what they want, guess I won’t complain and will just shop elsewhere.’ Then other places see there’s no pushback and they introduce the professional pickpockets too. Then you have nowhere left to shop but you can’t complain because the store doesn’t belong to you…… Society shouldn’t work like this. This idea of radical individual responsibility causes a lot of our problems. ‘Well companies can pollute if they want to, it’s your job as an individual to make sure your food and water sources are uncontaminated’. Like, no.
Well, I certainly agree that an ethical social contract should dictate that we aren't robbed blind at every opportunity, but hey, this IS America we're talking about. At any rate, where the comparison doesn't quite hold up is that we're spending money at the supermarket (for food we require to survive), while Facebook is free and no one ever really needed it in the first place. Again, Facebook isn't "society." It's some punk tech bro's little internet project. We somehow universally agreed to make social media vitally important to our survival, but it isn't and it never was.
Sure, but I think the concept would still work for places where you don't spend money. Like it's not like we'd be ok if we were getting regularly mugged at libraries.
I don't like the idea that we justify many social ills with 'This is America whatchugonnado'. The fact is that more and more professions (like mine, I'm an illustrator) do sort of need social media to survive because nobody is sending printed portfolios around any more and most business is being done online.
I think we should just be asking everyone to act in a reasonably moral way, rather than leaving it up to the individual to 'be smart' when we know in advance a massive number of people won't be able to avoid these traps on their own. It's similar to how we let banks do a bunch of shady investment stuff when we know the public is defenseless against it because you will never have a population that is financially literate enough to know how and where it's being pickpocketed by financial institutions but we can still say 'well sucks to be you, you shoulda read the small print....' What next, Boeing has the right to skip quality control because it's their company, if you don't like it don't fly? You don't need to in order to survive, after all..... Like wouldn't it be better if we just held all corporations to some damn standards?
Nice piece. Seems to me like Cory Doctorow and his description of "enshittification" and why it happens could use a shout-out here.
In terms of the next generation . . . so, a company would never make this, but I've long thought it would be nice to have social media that helped groups make DECISIONS. For a while there was all this talk about protesters and social movements organizing on Facebook and Twitter. But the existing platforms generally make it pretty easy to have meandering conversations that go nowhere, but hard to reach conclusions. If anything, that's another thing that has gotten harder over time as features shift--really, with newer social media you can barely have a conversation with people much less come to decisions together. Probably by design.
Well, I've thought that for a long time, but there is actually something that does that. It's sort of a company I guess, but it's a company with no bosses that was started by people coming out of the Occupy movement in New Zealand, and the software is open source so if people want to host it themselves instead of paying the writers to use it, they can. Loomio.com has conversation threads and stuff, but the key is anyone can put forward a thing to make a decision about, and then it gets a time limit, there's discussion about it and people vote; when the time limit is up it counts the votes and you have a decision. I've been wondering if it will ever get big.
Yeah I avoid the "enshittification" reference only because it's his thing, and it's used a lot. It's a great term!
Interesting. Facebook certainly had a moment to be that platform - but supporting groups and protests inevitably carries business risk, and risk is harmful to share price so... that was the end of that.
Where do we go from here? I think that's the problem. There's no obvious alternative to social media. Even Substack feels like an island with crocodiles swimming around it. But certainly agree that social media seems to be coming to an ugly crescendo. AI is making an already nauseating experience completely intolerable. Let it all burn I say.
Had already forgotten the long gone days of Facebook’s true social beginnings, myself I too played a part of it amidst University. It was useful, fun, a hub… it’s gone.
There’s a part of me that gets very relieved about the possibility of these conglomerates burning down.
Because of what they have done and also because blatant contradictions enrage me: public privacy, social anti-social, manipulative/gaslighting help, true lies, anti-drugs and anti-addiction content hypocrisy.
If I light a fire on a piece of paper it’s only natural for it to catch fire… well, they have been putting a flamethrower on it for years now but through trickery, manipulation, corruption, bribery, lies and other shenanigans they have somehow managed to delay the inevitable burn to the ground.
Yes!!!! I spend as little energy and time on social media these days. The minute reels became a thing on Instagram I knew it was over for me. Having to play algorithm games, BS. I never even see content anymore just ads for botox and clothing- they missed the mark with those on me. I hope Meta crashes and we all have more time and better lives. 😂
Yes, this is a wonderful and very accurate articulation of how much of us feel. It was useful to hear you talk about the first days of facebook . I did not attend college, but we must be similar in age.
I remember the giddiness of the newly invented facebook that excited some of my peers.
The paragraph on A.I. is probably most concerning to me, and quite possibly the most damning part of your piece. Actually, I have just written a piece on A.I. and its application when it comes to art. Would you allow me to put it in front you? I would like to share it with you. I think it an interesting direction after reading what you wrote here. Can I link it here?
The product of the platforms is not something social but the product is the advertising space. That in itself is not bad or reprehensible. In my view, the problem is that the profit logic of the platforms determines what sociality looks like on the internet today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and emotions!
Brilliant write. I've been on FB for 15 years. I've tried every SM platform out there. I'm sick of all the AI, the pay to play mindset, and the algorithm push to be seen. I recently joined here and only time will tell how I feel about it all. For now, I'm breathing a sigh of relief.
Great post, and it got me thinking: One of the stranger things about the current era of social is the possibility that—if a post "really pops off"—you might suddenly have the attention of the entire world, or at least so much attention that it *feels like* the whole world.
Wouldn't it be better if things were more fragmented and siloed, so there was no longer any risk of going THAT viral?
I never really thought about virality that way. It certainly has pro's and con's. I wonder what the world would like that in that sense; I'd hedge there would be far less people trying to create as the payoff is smaller? I think virality is fine, as long as the people involved don't let it go their heads...
I have had this thought too. The system is designed to encourage engagement, from creators and from consumers. But it ends up being to the detriment of both.
Another great piece. You're preaching to the choir, here, but it's still great to hear it. I've quit Twitter/X, and have a minimal presence on Instagram and Facebook for promotional purposes (the result of which is almost non-existent), and BlueSky has not been the return to the innocent days of Twitter that it was heralded as. Engagement - in the meaningful sense of the word - has all but disappeared. It's like lots of people watching someone drowning in a lake. I wonder if the last few years have just turned us into passive consumers, instead of connectors.
But Subtstack is social media too - I'd love to hear your thoughts one day on how it's different/the same, and where you think it's going.
Yeah, I worry about Substack to be honest. See a lot of chat from those working at the company about how "deliverabilty of emails is being harmed," and rather than offer solutions of how to fix that, the talk is more of making Substack more than the writing/email part - more of social media/network platform. The more it moves that way, the more it moves away from that core writing fundamental that many of us see as its big differentiator.
That's a bit depressing. Yeah, the drive to social mediafication is pretty obvious, I think - you can't go anywhere without having notes shoved in your face. How specifically is email deliverability being harmed?
Recent Google changes have had big impact. Think lots of emails going to spam. Apple announcement similar mail changes at recent event. Worth having a read up on
Stephen, your piece resonated deeply with me. The nostalgia for the early days of social media, juxtaposed with its current state, is both poignant and troubling. Your analysis of the transition from genuine social interaction to algorithm-driven engagement metrics is spot on. The rise of AI-generated content only exacerbates the disconnection. Your suggestions for age-gating, human verification, and AI content labeling are crucial steps forward. Thank you for shedding light on these critical issues.
You can't see it, but I am giving to a standing ovation for this piece. Brilliantly well done. I thought about how in Dune when AI almost made humans extinct, how when they finally won the war, they killed off all thinking computers. Could we be headed towards the same with social media? How far are we willing to scale back and rebuke the social media giants that want us to be addicted so we can go back to something as simple as sending pictures, meaningful messages, connecting, and yes, even quick snapchats? One can only hope we do so sooner than later, because the brain rot is real, and the powers at be are fine with the awful harm that social media is causing.
I appreciate the applause.
I honestly don't think there is a scaling back. It would take such a fundamental societal swing, I just can't see it happening anytime soon. The best hope short term is that a competitor comes along with better intentions? (And holds to those intentions)
Well, you have kind of touched on why I am here then, at least. Yes, I am not connected with friends and family here, and it's not the up-to-date sports information that Twitter is able to provide. But it is a more manageable space in terms of social engagement and genuine learning while supporting other human beings. I don't think Substack is poised to take the place of other forms of social media, but it is certainly a healthier alternative for certain things.
Sadly, I do not think we can scale back, at least not on the whole. As you alluded to, people are truly addicted, and addictions are not something one just gives up. I think the way something like a Twitter specifically will feel the harm though is if there is a good sports alternative. Immediate sports commentary drives a lot of traffic there. Can BlueSky or Threads eventually do that? We shall see.
What is clear though is we can't continue like we are now. Or, we can't do so and continue to make positive changes in the world. It has been made so much easier to connect with people, yet we are more disconnected than we have ever been. Some of that is our own fault, but one can't discount the fact that social media giants are actively trying to mold neural pathways in our brains for the worse, while also preying on fear, and promoting hate and division.
'Nothing has been done with user value in mind' I feel this is literally the main theme of our time, not just on social media but in general. Everything is being done to benefit the corporate elites and I don't understand why they're so hungry when they already have everything, but I hope they choke on it.
I've thrown in my 5$ per month to support Cara and I am confident something better will be built. The existing ones are all swirling the drain, I agree. I'm kind of curious to see what comes.
Yup. We long ago moved to shareholder value > customer value, and of course, we the customer have been losing out ever since.
What's even weirder is how many people with no vested interest will try to argue this is fine and inevitable and you're stupid if you complain against it.
I had a conversation with a friend the other day where I complained about Insta scraping our stuff to feed its bots, and her reaction was like 'Well we all knew from the start they had access to our pictures, and we all accepted it! You signed on for that when you started to use the app. It's your fault!' When I noted that the terms keep changing and there should be legal guards about this she was like 'Well there should but there aren't so what can you do.' When I said 'well, a lot of us are actually starting to leave because of it' she scoffed with 'Bah where are you going to go? EVERYONE is there. You have no choice.'
It really made me wonder. This is my friend. She has no vested interest in Instagram screwing me over. Why is this her reaction? I think it's because if you tell yourself the game is already lost, that nobody has a choice, that just plodding along and accepting whatever comes is THE ONLY REASONABLE OPTION, you don't have to do the hard work of, like, figuring out the world.
Of course you have a choice, and you always did. What annoyed me from the start about social media platforms was that everyone developed an instant sense of entitlement over it. “Facebook doing _________ is unfair!” Having come from the dark ages of websites and blogs, I took issue with this attitude. Facebook was never OURS. My website was MINE, up to a point, but Facebook always belonged to Zuckerburg. His site, his rules. I’ve had a lot of fun there screwing around with my online chums, but it was always understood that Zuck owed me nothing and was, in fact, prostituting us all for the value of our data. Always.
I left Twitter ages ago, dumped Instagram, LinkedIn and all the rest. I’ll dump Substack when it no longer serves my interests. None of us need to be here. And in that sense, I agree that it’s useless to complain.
Sure, and on that level I agree. But there is something enterprises and establishments owe you. If it became standard practice to have professional pickpockets employed at supermarkets to try and rob you while you shopped, I think people would complain. And they wouldn’t necessarily say ‘oh well it’s their store they can do what they want, guess I won’t complain and will just shop elsewhere.’ Then other places see there’s no pushback and they introduce the professional pickpockets too. Then you have nowhere left to shop but you can’t complain because the store doesn’t belong to you…… Society shouldn’t work like this. This idea of radical individual responsibility causes a lot of our problems. ‘Well companies can pollute if they want to, it’s your job as an individual to make sure your food and water sources are uncontaminated’. Like, no.
Well, I certainly agree that an ethical social contract should dictate that we aren't robbed blind at every opportunity, but hey, this IS America we're talking about. At any rate, where the comparison doesn't quite hold up is that we're spending money at the supermarket (for food we require to survive), while Facebook is free and no one ever really needed it in the first place. Again, Facebook isn't "society." It's some punk tech bro's little internet project. We somehow universally agreed to make social media vitally important to our survival, but it isn't and it never was.
Sure, but I think the concept would still work for places where you don't spend money. Like it's not like we'd be ok if we were getting regularly mugged at libraries.
I don't like the idea that we justify many social ills with 'This is America whatchugonnado'. The fact is that more and more professions (like mine, I'm an illustrator) do sort of need social media to survive because nobody is sending printed portfolios around any more and most business is being done online.
I think we should just be asking everyone to act in a reasonably moral way, rather than leaving it up to the individual to 'be smart' when we know in advance a massive number of people won't be able to avoid these traps on their own. It's similar to how we let banks do a bunch of shady investment stuff when we know the public is defenseless against it because you will never have a population that is financially literate enough to know how and where it's being pickpocketed by financial institutions but we can still say 'well sucks to be you, you shoulda read the small print....' What next, Boeing has the right to skip quality control because it's their company, if you don't like it don't fly? You don't need to in order to survive, after all..... Like wouldn't it be better if we just held all corporations to some damn standards?
Nice piece. Seems to me like Cory Doctorow and his description of "enshittification" and why it happens could use a shout-out here.
In terms of the next generation . . . so, a company would never make this, but I've long thought it would be nice to have social media that helped groups make DECISIONS. For a while there was all this talk about protesters and social movements organizing on Facebook and Twitter. But the existing platforms generally make it pretty easy to have meandering conversations that go nowhere, but hard to reach conclusions. If anything, that's another thing that has gotten harder over time as features shift--really, with newer social media you can barely have a conversation with people much less come to decisions together. Probably by design.
Well, I've thought that for a long time, but there is actually something that does that. It's sort of a company I guess, but it's a company with no bosses that was started by people coming out of the Occupy movement in New Zealand, and the software is open source so if people want to host it themselves instead of paying the writers to use it, they can. Loomio.com has conversation threads and stuff, but the key is anyone can put forward a thing to make a decision about, and then it gets a time limit, there's discussion about it and people vote; when the time limit is up it counts the votes and you have a decision. I've been wondering if it will ever get big.
Yeah I avoid the "enshittification" reference only because it's his thing, and it's used a lot. It's a great term!
Interesting. Facebook certainly had a moment to be that platform - but supporting groups and protests inevitably carries business risk, and risk is harmful to share price so... that was the end of that.
Where do we go from here? I think that's the problem. There's no obvious alternative to social media. Even Substack feels like an island with crocodiles swimming around it. But certainly agree that social media seems to be coming to an ugly crescendo. AI is making an already nauseating experience completely intolerable. Let it all burn I say.
I think that is the next step — it collapses, and the good builders/creators/minds left standing will take heed from what happened and try again.
Though, that sounds too good to be true.
Let it burn 🔥 indeed!
Substack is an island with ads swimming around it.
What a fantastic article, loved it.
Had already forgotten the long gone days of Facebook’s true social beginnings, myself I too played a part of it amidst University. It was useful, fun, a hub… it’s gone.
There’s a part of me that gets very relieved about the possibility of these conglomerates burning down.
Because of what they have done and also because blatant contradictions enrage me: public privacy, social anti-social, manipulative/gaslighting help, true lies, anti-drugs and anti-addiction content hypocrisy.
If I light a fire on a piece of paper it’s only natural for it to catch fire… well, they have been putting a flamethrower on it for years now but through trickery, manipulation, corruption, bribery, lies and other shenanigans they have somehow managed to delay the inevitable burn to the ground.
Yeah. All destroyed to keep the share price going up.
Yes!!!! I spend as little energy and time on social media these days. The minute reels became a thing on Instagram I knew it was over for me. Having to play algorithm games, BS. I never even see content anymore just ads for botox and clothing- they missed the mark with those on me. I hope Meta crashes and we all have more time and better lives. 😂
It will meet its fate soon enough, and the rest won’t be far behind…
I never got into anything but IG, but it will be good if they all went away.
Yes, this is a wonderful and very accurate articulation of how much of us feel. It was useful to hear you talk about the first days of facebook . I did not attend college, but we must be similar in age.
I remember the giddiness of the newly invented facebook that excited some of my peers.
The paragraph on A.I. is probably most concerning to me, and quite possibly the most damning part of your piece. Actually, I have just written a piece on A.I. and its application when it comes to art. Would you allow me to put it in front you? I would like to share it with you. I think it an interesting direction after reading what you wrote here. Can I link it here?
Sure, fire away!
Very cool. Reading some more of your stuff. My piece is trying to defend human art and makes the claim that A.I. cannot make art all.
The product of the platforms is not something social but the product is the advertising space. That in itself is not bad or reprehensible. In my view, the problem is that the profit logic of the platforms determines what sociality looks like on the internet today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and emotions!
Profit logic is a nice way to put it.
I f*cking loved everything about this article and the way it was written. There were moments that were so… poetic at times 🎶 Very well done 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Hey, there’s no need to censor the swearing here.
Let it fucking rip!
Thanks for reading Brandy.
HA! The permission I needed. Fuck yeah!!!
Yes, what a good dream.
Brilliant write. I've been on FB for 15 years. I've tried every SM platform out there. I'm sick of all the AI, the pay to play mindset, and the algorithm push to be seen. I recently joined here and only time will tell how I feel about it all. For now, I'm breathing a sigh of relief.
For now, it's better. We'll see how it plays out in the long run
I hope Substack is taking notes.. 👀
You and me both
As long as social media companies and platforms generate the amount of money they do, the spiral will continue.
The one thing people can - and probably should - do is is delete their accounts.
I did for Instagram, Facebook, X, never had some of the older ones you mention and am wondering how much longer to keep LinkedIn.
I hope Substack can remain a place of exchange of ideas and knowledge, development of relationships, and inspiration.
I'm not far behind you, no instagram, facebook or TikTok. X is next on the list (but love it for sports news) and LinkedIn ain't far behind.
I hope so too.
Yep, you'll see it's freeing 😉
Great post, and it got me thinking: One of the stranger things about the current era of social is the possibility that—if a post "really pops off"—you might suddenly have the attention of the entire world, or at least so much attention that it *feels like* the whole world.
Wouldn't it be better if things were more fragmented and siloed, so there was no longer any risk of going THAT viral?
I never really thought about virality that way. It certainly has pro's and con's. I wonder what the world would like that in that sense; I'd hedge there would be far less people trying to create as the payoff is smaller? I think virality is fine, as long as the people involved don't let it go their heads...
... which many do.
I have had this thought too. The system is designed to encourage engagement, from creators and from consumers. But it ends up being to the detriment of both.
Another great piece. You're preaching to the choir, here, but it's still great to hear it. I've quit Twitter/X, and have a minimal presence on Instagram and Facebook for promotional purposes (the result of which is almost non-existent), and BlueSky has not been the return to the innocent days of Twitter that it was heralded as. Engagement - in the meaningful sense of the word - has all but disappeared. It's like lots of people watching someone drowning in a lake. I wonder if the last few years have just turned us into passive consumers, instead of connectors.
But Subtstack is social media too - I'd love to hear your thoughts one day on how it's different/the same, and where you think it's going.
Passive consumer is a great way to phrase it.
Yeah, I worry about Substack to be honest. See a lot of chat from those working at the company about how "deliverabilty of emails is being harmed," and rather than offer solutions of how to fix that, the talk is more of making Substack more than the writing/email part - more of social media/network platform. The more it moves that way, the more it moves away from that core writing fundamental that many of us see as its big differentiator.
That's a bit depressing. Yeah, the drive to social mediafication is pretty obvious, I think - you can't go anywhere without having notes shoved in your face. How specifically is email deliverability being harmed?
Recent Google changes have had big impact. Think lots of emails going to spam. Apple announcement similar mail changes at recent event. Worth having a read up on
Oh, OK - will do. Thanks, Stephen.
Stephen, your piece resonated deeply with me. The nostalgia for the early days of social media, juxtaposed with its current state, is both poignant and troubling. Your analysis of the transition from genuine social interaction to algorithm-driven engagement metrics is spot on. The rise of AI-generated content only exacerbates the disconnection. Your suggestions for age-gating, human verification, and AI content labeling are crucial steps forward. Thank you for shedding light on these critical issues.