Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)
Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking  the video and maybe opting to see more of my content.<p>When I put it that way it feels banal, but like, you know the “fast-growing subreddits” list on Reddit? There were meetings! Someone worked on that! People literally sat in a room and said effectively, “Hey Fatimeh, what is the status of the ‘make subreddits suck faster’ feature? Management is <i>very</i> interested in delivering that in Q3.” Right? Like this connection from global to personal is just automatically <i>assumed</i>, nobody spends a waking moment thinking it could be anything <i>but</i> that way.