Elon Musk

yeah plus I would bet consp videos have really strong time-on-site numbers compared to less nuts content

you'll get pushed toward the things they're selling

Isn't this just Google in a nutshell?

It's all content

Matt Levine a few days ago pointing out that the funniest outcome here is that Musk doesn't come up with an angle and buys Twitter at $54.20 and at 5.01 Joe Biden rings him and says we've decided you are too close to China and Russia and he has to sell it at $10.00.

I mean, the best option is this destroys Musk and Twitter, and I'm still holding out hope.

oh i know that matt

https://www.garbageday.email/p/websites-are-just-places-to-talk

In fact, according to Know Your Meme, about 60% of the memes we’ve seen in 2022 were created by Twitter or TikTok. And the three biggest apps behind those two —YouTube, Reddit, and Instagram — all trail far behind, contributing around 10% each. And if these current trends continue, it’s likely that by next year TikTok will outpace Twitter. In fact, we’ve entered a new interesting moment where it’s usually unclear whether people on Twitter are talking about something because it’s on TikTok or if people on TikTok are talking about something because it’s on Twitter. Soon it won’t be. Very shortly, every platform on the internet will be completely downstream of TikTok.

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff1c8b5e5-0386-40b6-a1a8-e8209d6f3e91_680x375.png

But for people who do not closely follow TikTok — of which there are still many — culture will continue to feel more and more random and confusing. You can see this in the way TikTok “algospeak” has spread to other platforms, with words like “Unalive” becoming a now very common thing to see within particularly twee pockets of the internet. And readers ask me about inscrutable TikTok trends all the time. Most recently, a reader named George sent me an email last week about a weird and confusing TikTok trend where people were posting videos of “fastest workers”. Here’s a supercut from 2020. I also suspect this is contributing to the death of the influencer, as recently noted by Embedded, and the rise of the influencer-worker. It’s not particularly interesting to just be an influencer on TikTok, but it is interesting to follow someone who does something. Perhaps this is also connected to the “faster workers” trend.

But this creeping feeling that to not “be on TikTok” is to somehow not understand what’s going on anymore is spreading. In fact, I came across a Tumblr post that I thought articulated this idea pretty perfectly.

“Frequently, I’ll see a post here that’s like ‘as a society, we all need to stop engaging in the very common [activity/ behavior/ perspective that I have never once heard about in my life]’ and I’ll feel confused at first because this post will be treating this extremely niche unheard-of topic like it’s universal,” Tumblr user keplercryptids wrote. “And then I remember that I am not on TikTok. So many takes on this site are direct responses to what’s popular on TikTok and I am so happy to live in ignorance tbh.”

The question is, how long will you be able to live in ignorance as more and more of the machinery of our culture becomes branches for TikTok to analyze and optimize around?

memes as culture. i don't know what to do with that. memes are an episode of america's funniest home videos. but maybe it's true. maybe that's what our culture is

"Vine" lol

how long will you be able to live in ignorance as more and more of the machinery of our culture becomes branches for TikTok to analyze and optimize around?

Ehh - 'the machinery of our culture'? this is depressing

I’d rather be an old fartsack with my musty old books than have anything to do with TikTok. I did a deepdive the other week on skinny shaming and fatphobia on the platform, and both sides were completely unhinged and without a shred of nuance or understanding

the ultimate meme is the project to convince us memes are important

I still think the dancing baby on Ally McBeal is the ultimate meme

ha that baby could really get down!

hey it seems they're creating jobs in meme counting XXP

Not all rich dudes are arrogant. Elon Musk has never struck me as anything close to that.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, August 12, 2013 6:13 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lmao some of the posts up thread are crazy

i defended elon musk for a long time because i thought it would be a good thing for humanity, overall, to move to electric vehicles

good lord though, at what cost, AT WHAT COST

I think it's dumb that he's throwing around numbers when he doesn't even have a working prototype. It just seems like he's hoping to derail the other project.

― wk, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 12:15 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

re hyperloop derailing sf > la high speed rail, he did years later admit to this

https://media.tenor.com/911FW6bHvHEAAAAM/80s-commercials-80s-mtv.gif

https://media.tenor.com/911FW6bHvHEAAAAM/80s-commercials-80s-mtv.gif

tiktok is fine if you want to laugh _at_ people, but other than that it's either vile or extremely stupid.

i like twitter and will be sad when the guy in the thread title destroys it.

i do think it would be kind of funny if he destroyed it not by turning it into a right wing hell hole or gutting its workforce but by trying to turn it into x, the everything app

kinda think hes not going to do all that much, tho just letting trump back on would be bad for the world

I like my part of twitter and Elon Musk can fuck off and die in a hole full of raw sewage.

he will change it like 3%, not noticeable to norms, annoying to some journos but THE EXPOSURE. dems will flap their arms without impact. 60% of any remaining left presence that even still plays with it will go someplace else, and GOP/authoritarian majority will become permanent.

jk jk, i feel better now. (gets out tracking sheet for future accuracy evals).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ff9bDQqXEAE8rdH?format=png&name=small

The question is, how long will you be able to live in ignorance as more and more of the machinery of our culture becomes branches for TikTok

A real culture doesn't shift at the speed at which TikTok memes emerge and are replaced.

Wont kids get bored with TikTok in 5 years and move onto something else like they did with Myspace and Facebook and Livejournal all of which were huge at their peaks? Let em all rot.

Yep, that think piece just panders to FOMO.

I saw an interesting article (on Twitter, lol) claiming that no social media site has yet been able to pull themselves out once they start declining. So good luck Facebook, Twitter, etc.

ive seen some big journalist accounts saying twitter got too aggressive for them, wonder if that was due to the maga influx, not the best people to have around

Kids do use groups chats in regular text messaging a lot I think

the ultimate private social media I suppose

One of these days some rebellious kids are going to want to actually meet irl and hang out

My 14 yo daughter and her friends almost exclusively use Snapchat for messaging.

my daughter (12) uses gchat

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/11/snapchat-layoffs-apple-tiktok/

Snapchat’s active user base surged to 350 million people per day, more than Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit. By 2022 it was the fifth-largest U.S.-based social media platform by active users, behind only Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and Google’s YouTube. An April survey by Pew Research found that 59 percent of American teens use Snapchat, while 15 percent said they use it “almost constantly.”

thats crazy considering snapchats stock is down more than anyones

i guess the problem is teens are poor and they grow up into tiktok users.

what the hell is Snapchat good for that the other apps aren't? blows my mind that that's the one which took off. I remember when it was introduced the founders would do interviews and be unable to explain why exactly disappearing messages were good. outside of **that reason**

product design is like that its mysterious you have to be steve jobs to understand

60% of any remaining left presence that even still plays with it will go someplace else

Can't count the number of thoughtful memorials to Mike Davis I've seen on Twitter today. I don't know if this is regional thing maybe, or we're using different interpretations of "left", or possibly the issue is with the specific content of your feed?

That article quoted about TikTok is just the stupidest. I don't think there's ever been a "cultural" phenomenon so thoroughly manufactured by international neoliberalism, what a myopic and shallow understanding they present there.

yeah left twitter still seems pretty strong havent noticed any mass disappearances, twitters a good place for angry people lol

ha, yeah i think current defs of leftiness are vague in usa after the last 50 yrs, esp in my old age bracket. there i simply meant left-of-lib and strong anti-capitalism. xp

snapchat - the appeal of using a social media app yoru parents are not on

also, one they can't pry into to see what you posted last week

Snapchat’s active user base surged to 350 million people per day, more than Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit.

Pinterest?
What does anyone do on Pinterest? Collect photos and 'pin' them to your wall? Gimme a break.

people, women mostly, seem to use it for shopping reminders/inspo, ask the women in you life if they have a desk/dress/yarn board its a whole hidden world

Their 'sign in NOW!' wall is so fierce that I've never had a chance to peruse it

yeah i always felt like it was more just a centralized bookmarking tool for mood boards than a social network but maybe people use it socially

i think yes but also you look at other peoples boards to find stuff for your boards