Newsletter 11/18/2022: What’s the Point?
From the Desk of Dennis:
Who is Social Media for, and what does it do for them?
Is it for my ego, to be a platform for self-expression where I can define myself using WYSIWYG editors and picture uploads? (1 New Comment On Your Profile Picture by Someone You Admire)
Is it for my superego, to be a platform for expressing values and receiving feedback from my community? (10 New Applause Reactions, 10 New Angry Reactions to Your Political Manifesto)
Is it for the brands, to analyze and collect us into interest-based buckets so we may be unwittingly recruited into their own messaging campaigns? (100 People Are Tweeting About Daffy Duck. Here’s Why That Matters)
Is it for my pErSoNaL bRaNd, to compartmentalize and amplify the discrete parts of me that is monetizable or otherwise scalable? (1,000 People Watched Your Video “Cracking Vintage Pokemon Card Packs in a Hot Tub”)
Is it for the billionaire softbois, who sometimes build, sometimes buy these advertising technology platforms, to bankroll their own ploys for masculine acceptance? (Your Account Has Been Suspended for a ToS Violation)
As the screenshots below show, nothing that is happening on Social Media is really “for me” anymore. Facebook notifications mainly serve as reminders that Groups I joined months ago still exist, and LinkedIn seems to be grasping for straws altogether. It’s good to see people divesting their time and energy from these sites. I believe digital marketing does not need them thrive as a field (human telecommunications will never revert to a pre-Worldide Web state), and that bifurcating the online audience will promote more competitive practices among marketers trying to reach them. We need smaller corporate actors in the social media space so that our legislators are less wary of regulating them when they act antagonistically towards their users. To that end, we need to defend Net Neutrality, which will be online Free Speech’s only bulwark as content companies and ISPs continue to consolidate into corporate monoliths. I will rue the day when I can only read my Google Play books on my Google Fibre connection.
TGIF,
Dennis A. Wilson
PS: There’s still time to support cancer research and my Philadelphia Marathon entry this weekend by donating directly to my personal fundraiser here.
