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Social-and-parasocial-media.md (3030B)

    

  1. ---
  2. title: Social media and "parasocial media"
  3. date: 2023-06-30
  4. ---
  6. A few months ago, as Elon Musk took over Twitter and instituted polices that
  7. alienated many people, some of these people fled towards federated, free
  8. software platforms like Mastodon. Many people found a new home here, but there
  9. is a certain class of refugee who has not found it to their liking.
  11. I got to chatting with one such "refugee" on Mastodon today. [NotJustBikes][0]
  12. is a creator I enjoy watching on ~~YouTube~~ Invidious, who makes excellent
  13. content on urbanism and the design of cities. He's based in my home town of
  14. Amsterdam and his videos do a great job of explaining many of the things I love
  15. about this place for general audiences. He's working on building an audience,
  16. expanding his reach, and bringing his message to as many people as possible in
  17. the interest of bringing better infrastructure to everyone.
  19. [0]: https://inv.tux.pizza/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A
  21. But he's not satisfied with his move from Twitter to Mastodon, nor are some of
  22. his friends among the community of "urbanist" content creators. He yearns for an
  23. "algorithm" to efficiently distribute content to his followers, and Mastodon is
  24. not providing this for him.
  26. On traditional "social media" platforms, in particular YouTube, the interactions
  27. are often not especially social. The platforms facilitate a kind of intellectual
  28. consumption moreso than conversation: conversations flow in one direction, from
  29. creator to audience, where the creator produces and the audience consumes. I
  30. think a better term for these platforms is "parasocial media": they are
  31. optimized for creating [parasocial][1] relationships moreso than social
  32. relationships.
  34. The fediverse is largely optimized for people having conversations with each
  35. other, and not for producing and consuming "content". Within this framework, a
  36. "content creator" is a person only in the same sense that a corporation is, and
  37. their conversations are unidirectional, where the other end is also not a
  38. person, but an audience. That's not the model that the fediverse is designed
  39. around.
  41. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
  43. It's entirely reasonable to want to build an audience and publish content in a
  44. parasocial manner, but that's not what the fediverse is for. And I think that's
  45. a good thing! There are a lot of advantages in having spaces which focus on
  46. being genuinely "social", rather than facilitating more parasocial interactions
  47. and helping creators build an audience. This limits the fediverse's reach, but
  48. I think that's just fine.
  50. Within this model, the fediverse's model, it's possible to publish things, and
  51. consume things. But you cannot effectively optimize for building the largest
  52. possible audience. You will generally be more successful if you focus on the
  53. content itself, and not its reach, and on the people you connect with at a
  54. smaller scale. Whether or not this is right for you depends on your goals.
  56. I hope you enjoyed this content! Remember to like and subscribe.