Rant VIII: The Reckoning
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GasBandit
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Even though I said "you guys" here, I don't even really consider internet forums to be "social media" as the term is generally used.
I guess for me, the litmus test is if the medium is mostly used to interact with the wider world in a manner that isn't necessarily bidirectional. People tweet or facebook to the world in general, and use it to find certain people they want to read communications from without necessarily having to initiate 1 on 1 contact.
Discord's kind of halfway between a forum and an IRC client. Joining a server's like signing up for the PvPOnline forum. But it's much more limited in scope than what the layman refers to when they talk about things happening on "social media."
I guess for me, the litmus test is if the medium is mostly used to interact with the wider world in a manner that isn't necessarily bidirectional. People tweet or facebook to the world in general, and use it to find certain people they want to read communications from without necessarily having to initiate 1 on 1 contact.
Discord's kind of halfway between a forum and an IRC client. Joining a server's like signing up for the PvPOnline forum. But it's much more limited in scope than what the layman refers to when they talk about things happening on "social media."
Microsoft teams might be a better example.
Again, you don't use Discord enough. Social Media does not need to reach "the wide world." You can allow only certain people to see it. I'm on a lot of Discord servers, and a lot of people literally just post out to the server in general, and there are *a lot* of people on a lot of Discord servers.
I would also consider Reddit to be social media, even though it's essentially a giant forum.
I hate Teams and being required to be on video all the time, yet being the only one to turn on my camera.
Definition of SOCIAL MEDIA
forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
Which is pretty much how I have experienced the use of the phrase. I think Gasbandit's personal definition is much narrower. I don't think social media has to have a worldwide outreach. Only that it's an online community. It's "social" media. Not "broadcast" media.
Far healthier and civilized than YouTube.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'm still firmly of the opinion that there should be global accessibility and some kind of real-world tie-in to identity, otherwise literally every form of online communication that keeps a scrollback on the screen or communication log going back to ARPAnet is social media.Definition of SOCIAL MEDIA
forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)… See the full definition
Which is pretty much how I have experienced the use of the phrase. I think Gasbandit's personal definition is much narrower. I don't think social media has to have a worldwide outreach. Only that it's an online community. It's "social" media. Not "broadcast" media.
It's another case of the creator of the GIF being wrong about how it is pronounced
There is no one on this earth more unwilling to accept defeat than Gas. (Maybe Trump. But just maybe)I'm still firmly of the opinion that there should be global accessibility and some kind of real-world tie-in to identity, otherwise literally every form of online communication that keeps a scrollback on the screen is "social media," and has existed since since ARPAnet is social media.
It's another case of the creator of the GIF being wrong about how it is pronounced
Everyone else agreed with me, and your response was that the dictionary definition was wrong.
GasBandit
Staff member
My response to this particular incident is not what I was saying was untrue. That the only person more unwilling to admit defeat than me is Trump, was. I'm exponentially more pliant now than I was when I was just the forum's argument-for-fun guy. I've conceded points on many occasions.
But there are occasionally guns I stick to, and this is one of them.
Dude, you've got to start washing your guns more often.
And why not? It's a new term applied to a slowly emergent phenomenon. Just because we didn't cal ARPAnet "social media" back then doesn't mean it wasn't.
GasBandit
Staff member
Because when literally anything with interactive content becomes social media, the term loses all useful meaning.
figmentPez
Staff member
If it's user generated content that is published for the public to see, on a platform designed for users to interact with each other, it's social media. Usenet/newsgroups are/were social media, open Discord groups are social media, Halforums is social media, etc. It is media, published content, that is generated by social interaction. Social media.
Also, my argument's main thrust was that teenagers tend to use Discord as a form of social media, and just because you don't doesn't mean it isn't. Calling you old was just a throwback to your own points about how over a certain age people get set in their ways and won't change their mind.
GasBandit
Staff member
There's a very simple litmus test for this. If you hear a random dude in the supermarket say he wasted the whole morning on social media, do you think you did it in discord, or Twitter? If he says he's deleting his social media accounts, do you think he might still keep discord because it's more of a chat program or Skype replacer? If he says that he wasted the whole morning chatting online, what specific services does that tend to rule out?
What you guys are arguing is basically like saying your cable service is DirecTV.
But hey, feel free to continue being wrong en masse, one thing that this place definitely has that is very similar to social media is that it is a very confined echo chamber
What you guys are arguing is basically like saying your cable service is DirecTV.
But hey, feel free to continue being wrong en masse, one thing that this place definitely has that is very similar to social media is that it is a very confined echo chamber
Twitter is going the way of Facebook as far as "things only old people use." And I don't mean that to call you old, I mean that in the sense of if a teen said that they wasted all morning on social media, I would definitely not assume they mean Twitter.There's a very simple litmus test for this. If you hear a random dude in the supermarket say he wasted the whole morning on social media, do you think you did it in discord, or Twitter? If he says he's deleting his social media accounts, do you think he might still keep discord because it's more of a chat program or Skype replacer? If he says that he wasted the whole morning chatting online, what specific services does that tend to rule out?
What you guys are arguing is basically like saying your cable service is DirecTV.
But hey, feel free to continue being wrong en masse, one thing that this place definitely has that is very similar to social media is that it is a very confined echo chamber
GasBandit
Staff member
Teens have already moved to and then away from like five services already. Facebook and Twitter are still going, and still where even teenagers go to read celebrity and other public figure social media updates. Nobody follows Kanye or Ed Sheeran on discord. And probably the only politician you can @ on discord might be AOC.
There are lots of celebrities that literally have their own discord servers. So you are not really correct there.
GasBandit
Staff member
You are literally arguing with the dictionary and saying everyone else is wrong. Sounds like you are the one ignoring facts.
Saying e-celebrities don't count is pretty ridiculous. Almost like you're just discounting the things that will make other people correct because you don't like them, and you only want facts that fit your perception of what something is. I'm not going to go on a deep dive to figure out what celebrities count to you, but I can say at minimum I'm on Wil Wheaton's discord server (which he made himself), and that a lot of these people who run Discord servers use a specific channel on the servers to keep their fans up to date on anything you'd expect to see on Twitter or Facebook.
Saying e-celebrities don't count is pretty ridiculous. Almost like you're just discounting the things that will make other people correct because you don't like them, and you only want facts that fit your perception of what something is. I'm not going to go on a deep dive to figure out what celebrities count to you, but I can say at minimum I'm on Wil Wheaton's discord server (which he made himself), and that a lot of these people who run Discord servers use a specific channel on the servers to keep their fans up to date on anything you'd expect to see on Twitter or Facebook.
I'm going to regret stepping into this, but I get what @GasBandit is saying. I've used usenet and LiveJournal back in the day, and I wouldn't consider either of them "social media". To me, they're simply online communication methods, like email and forums and other blog services. It's entirely up to you how you use them. You could make an LJ group open to the entire world, or make one that's only you and two friends, and LJ didn't give a flying fuck about it. Discord is the same, it doesn't care how many people are on your server.
"Social media", to me, is a subset of "online communication methods", with the attribute of harassing you every five goddamn minutes to add "someone you may know" or "people you may want to follow". Unlike LiveJournal, Facebook gets VERY upset with you if you don't use their service the way they want you to. Social media isn't designed for, and doesn't want you to have, only two friends, they want you to connect to every other human on the planet.
That's my definition and I'm sticking to it.
"Social media", to me, is a subset of "online communication methods", with the attribute of harassing you every five goddamn minutes to add "someone you may know" or "people you may want to follow". Unlike LiveJournal, Facebook gets VERY upset with you if you don't use their service the way they want you to. Social media isn't designed for, and doesn't want you to have, only two friends, they want you to connect to every other human on the planet.
That's my definition and I'm sticking to it.
Blogs definitely are where social media developers drew their inspiration from, but I still think that pushing you to be social on the company's terms is the defining element of 'social media'. LiveJournal doesn't have to be 'social', you could use it as a personal journal and lock it down to be viewable only by you. And LJ didn't care, they never pushed you to open it up to other people.
Facebook doesn't have to be social either. You can make every single post private. You can make an account and literally never post anything.
But if we go by Gas's metric of celebrities using it to communicate with fans, then GRRM fits that bill.
I was going to congratulate @Tinwhistler on stepping up to be the pedant before me, but here I come anyway.
Your entire argument in this post is circular, because the pool of platform(s) I will pull my assumption(s) from directly depends on MY definition of "social media." Not your definition, or even his, or even the dictionaries', but mine. In the same vein, if you were to hear a random dude in the supermarket say that he cast his vote "for Freedom" yesterday, your interpretation of his statement is going to depend entirely on what YOU think that means, not his definition.
For all you know, he might have wasted his morning on YouTube, or editing Wikipedia, or even on Tinder, but those options might not occur to you if YOU don't group those under the heading of "social media."
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, specifically, those of you here arguing with me
This sounds like a rebuttal to an accusation I didn't make.
Or that I'm anticipating weak but easy-to-predict arguments and dealing with them proactively.
And if I get on Wil Wheaton's server, and I @him and Lady Gaga, will that work or is it subject to the limitations of a limited private communication medium such as an internet chat room?
She already addressed that, and so did I. You can misuse social media in a method it isn't intended (and as Sara pointed out, Facebook tries to fight back when you do). You can cut the wings off a plane. That doesn't make a car a plane.
No, I'm using the standard definition as embraced by the cultural zeitgeist. When he communicates, he's going to use vernacular that is commonly accepted and understood. You just have to listen to people talk. When someone says he's on "social media," it is easily understood by everyone who isn't looking to overthink - he means globally-accessible applications that attempt to build universally inclusive social networks to facilitate their medium as being the methodry through which openly observable social interaction takes place online. He means a very specific and widely recognized set of applications that conform to that particular modus operandi. There's a very intuitive difference between what people at large call "social media" and things like chatting, video conferencing, or other such things.
It's sort of like how you can say something is a meme, and the dictionary tells you that everything that spreads memetically is a meme - and that the concept predates the internet. But when someone says "I saw a funny meme" you immediately understand this to mean a humorous image on the internet based on an exploitable template and not, say, an actual physical "Kilroy was here" drawing or some such. You're just trying to "WELL ACKCHYUALLY".
I realize that I’m a combo-breaker here, but omg my work makes me furious. I want to help and go out of my way to do so and they deliberately prevent me from helping. Bleh.
figmentPez
Staff member
Nobody follows them on Tumblr, either, and Tumblr is definitely a social media site.
No, you are continuing to use circular logic to explain your circular logic. You conclude that the two of you would agree, but your initial condition already presumes that his definition(s) overlap with yours--ergo, circular logic. There is a not insignificant chance you are correct, of course, but there is no guarantee. Everyone has their own definition of what they believe, and the zeitgeist may be derived by examining the heatmap created when everyone's definitions are Venn diagram'd atop one another to try and build some kind of tower of unBabel, but when it's just you and one random other guy, the degree to which your definitions will overlap is just that...random (see also Law of Large Numbers v. Quantum Mechanics).
Listen...if it were ackshually true that people naturally and automatically communicate in a manner that implicitly minimizes misunderstanding, do you think this forum would have as many instances of conflict and unintentionally hurt feelings as it does?
--Patrick