The next section in my upcoming Facebook Epic.
Added 2024-09-05 22:04:36 +0000 UTCHi all! In this section, I look at elections. I'm still making improvements to it right now so please let me know what you think or if you spot anything. I think I can tentatively say that this vid will be out late October and will include around an hour of additional footage you won't have seen!
Comments
Facebook is the Sibelius of social media. It tries to be everything at once. You can argue with strangers about politics and leave angry faces, see the salad your ex-girlfriend had for lunch, see memes fried in JPEG re-compression five times over on different groups in a time when many people question the supposedly objective immorality of plagiarism, see short-form videos including random life quotes set to people working in factories, doing DIY projects etc, see long-winded rants about qanon from your uncle, etc, etc, in all forms of text, picture, video, and audio file with an image to technically make it a video... all in the same timeline, without having to search for anything or specifically seek out a page. Other social media platforms, forums, blog spaces, and media sharing sites seem to have more specifics involved – you go to X for eX-Tweets, Instagram for pictures and videos of several kinds, Reddit for aggregated news and text comments in specific subreddits, etc., etc. But Facebook tries to cover every possible use case in a way that starts to feel clunky if you step back a bit. You have to use your real name... which effectively means your family might see posts you happened to make in public groups that they might not care to see. Traditional communication doesn't work like that. I actually think forums more closely resemble traditional means of communication than Facebook, even ones that let you remain anonymous. Much like how Sibelius, when used primarily for composition/production, sticks to the means of notation you're taught in school at the expense of the efficiency of a piano roll editor (hot take I know)... Facebook tries to appeal to a non-"techie" audience. The easiest parts of it are very easy. They're designed to be easy. But the limitations of Facebook breed this environment where people seem even more audacious. There is no dislike button... no thumbs down that doesn't have to represent strong emotional dislike, but intellectual disagreement or perhaps collected upset or offense. But the de facto dislike button, like you said, is the angry face or sometimes the "haha" laughing face... as if to suggest that you're infuriated by the post or you're laughing at it out of mockery. This limitation of not having a dislike button, perhaps out of preventing negativity, provoked an even more visceral form of negativity. The recommendation algorithm does what it does and would rather leave you in political debates than actually show you the news. You're advertised Alphasmart copycats that cost more than entry level laptops with the claim that the limited experience (with freaking overtype!) makes you a better writer. You see ads for meds you'll never take, clothes you'll never wear, and products for periods you'll never have as a trans person. Then you'll hear demos of mediocre kontakt orchestral library #8675309 or a soft synth that's nowhere near as capable as serum. What sort of engagement does facebook try to foster anyway? What does it try to be? What is its specialty? Facebook is full of feature creep. You can buy many long textbooks on how to use it... apparently they're popular in Japan. Facebook has very little I love about modern software and networking and everything I hate in it.
Natalie Page
2024-09-06 11:35:39 +0000 UTCThanks man! Glad it came across well.
Tantacrul
2024-09-06 07:49:14 +0000 UTCThis was really good! Excellent presentation!
Brian Miller
2024-09-06 06:12:43 +0000 UTC
