Why most social media sites suck

I've been using the internet for a long time. Both by years, and time actually spent plugged in online. From a very young age - PhP BBoards, MSN messenger, various MMOs. Various social media websites - 4chan, reddit, snapchat, twitter, and eventually X.

My behaviour has one thing in common - write speed. I am a prolific poster, no matter where I am. And across every one, the way I posted was different. Different due to seemingly tiny, inconsequential design decisions. These design decisions completely change the way users behave.

Social internet rails all have their own DNA.

Of all the websites I've used, my favourites are 4chan and twitter / x (though twitter used to suck!). I have made actual, real friends off both of those sites. I've learned things I would have never learned, they make me a better person.

Smart users live there.

My most disliked are reddit and linkedin. They are poisonous. Opening them induces spiritual pain. It attracts the worst users. Not so stupid that you can ignore them, just smart enough to inflict a great deal of spiritual suffering on the world.

If you squint, 4chan and reddit are equivalent in many regards. And so are linkedin and x. So why are their cultures the polar opposites?

Pure posters

4chan is the extreme version of this. What is the point of posting? At least on X, you have a handle - some "return" in the form of a permanent badge, proof that you have attention. On 4chan, there is no reason to post. You know for a fact, that everyone posting there is only posting for the love of the game.

I have written a ridiculous amount of posts. All anonymously. Like tears in the rain. The most I've gotten out of it? One time I saw one of my posts reposted on X. A gift of mine, to the world.

There is a gauntlet, when it comes to 4chan. You have to spend effort, for no reward. That's how important what you have to say is. It needs to be knocking around your head so much, that you can't just help, but

post

into the void

expecting nothing in return

And through the selection bias, all of the posts that you see will be good. They will be pure. Even the dumbest, most idiotic inane 4chan posts, contain wisdom. They were posted anonymously, after all.

Compare this to reddit. Where everything you say gets downvoted or upvoted. Everything you say - is a reflection of what you think everyone wants to hear. You're encouraged to agree, you're discouraged to disagree. Disagreeing punishes you - from a permanent "karma" scar on your account, to hormone ingesting mods that will ban you forever.

Any self respecting user won't participate. And the people in the middle of the pack, will happily flock and agree with each other. A swamp, devoid of entropy, of people that look the same, talk the same, smell the same.

It makes me sick

If identity is bad, why is X good?

There are no negative repercussions for being retarded. In fact, it is a bit like 4chan. If people disagree with you, they will engage with you. They'll have discussions with you. They can't ban you. At most, they can mute you. Which honestly just protects your own cluster.

What are people being rewarded for? (yous)! It's all about (yous)

On 4chan, what bumps posts up is whether someone has replied to you or not. So, the threads that invoke most discussion will be bumped to the top. It's an extremely primitive algorithm that works great.

It's an algorithm whose objective function is (extremely) loosely, attention. So, posters are rewarded for entropy. This is because humans notice things that are different. After the 5th ghibli slop image; your eyes glaze over. You're looking for new information, something you haven't thought of before. Something you might disagree with.

Something entropic.

And now, a couple of years after Elon's sink hit the SF twitter office, and the bird was truly freed, you can say anything you want. You really can! I say some pretty wild things on there. Can you on linkedin? Linkedin's fake. You can't be yourself.

You have to be a perfect little corporate drone, putting on the same lipstick everyone else has. Devoid of entropy. Hollow.

You go back on X. You find a 19 year old that can code circles around you. He's living off of ramen and trying to fit neural networks on scrolls. Entropy! Something different! A gasp of fresh air.

X has identity. But without punishment (baked into the actual system, through moderators & other mechanics). Maybe, in a way, that is purer than 4chan's anonymity.

Sorry for the spelling /grammatical errors on my blog posts. I one shot them because I am time starved. Though, I think it gives it soul!