Something is wrong with my generation, i.e. what happened to the social network

http://www.pressbuttongoboink.com/post/31616496909/something-is-wrong-with-my-generation-i-e-what

by irollboozers • 14 years ago

24 35 14 years ago

This is something I've been silently observing and thinking about for a long time and I know I definitely have at least part of the answer.

It's that people use their social network of choice to make others believe they have interesting, fascinating, exciting lives whether it's true or not. The more effort a person puts into this the less interesting they actually are in real life but you wouldn't know it by looking at their Facebook page. Insecurity plays a big part in this. Some of the most shallow, hollow, unhappy people I know have Facebook timelines that make them seem as though they are living the dream when in reality they truly hate themselves. I'm not trying to disparage them - they really do hate themselves, they've told me so and see therapists about it.

Now that we have Internet celebrities who've built a brand everyone wants to do it too. And it's not hard. All you need is any common smartphone. It's about building a fantasy life. On the web it's easy to play pretend and give off certain impressions. Some people take it to the point where they believe their own myths. These are the most uninteresting people in the world with, ironically, the most interesting social network profiles in the world.

irollboozers5• 14 years ago

I bet none of the creators of any of the social networks today predicted this kind of side effect. Now imagine what a social network that seriously takes this into effect would look like.

Not going to lie, the places online where I feel most social are anonymous boards like 4chan. Which is the polar opposite of a social network.

dwc• 14 years ago

I've also noticed and observed this for a long time. There seem to be a lot of "this isn't new" and "who are you to say what's interesting" comments here, but they are wrong and I can tell you why...

As we all do, I know people in person with whom I'm connected on social media. In person, they know there's a social contract and they abide by it. They refuse to drone on with detailed trivia, because there'd be a price to pay, socially, and they're rather not pay it. But they check in on foursquare, relay that to twitter. They post what they're having at chipotle, which is not a unique gourmet experience. Ad nauseam.

They would not dream of doing this in person because it would make them a boor. Yes, a boor. Let's not mince words. They know it. We all know it. The only people who do this in person actually are boors.

But somehow it's OK if it's on social media? No, it's not OK. It's still boorish.

bpatrianakos2• 14 years ago

Absolutely. I'm not sure about you but this boorish behavior really does spill into real life. People may not be describing every asinine detail of their life to you in person but when they pull out their phones to post status updates and pictures and check their news feed every ten seconds its basically the same thing and it makes them awful to be around. I only update my status when I'm alone and bored. Boring people seem to update their feed when they're in the middle of some action but still boring.

irollboozers5• 14 years ago

Exactly. Bringing down the barrier of being a boor is not advancing my experience of your product.

Also, this is a perfect example of the kind of shit that's permissible in on Quora, but not permissible in a room filled with 500 people. Sure it's great intended use of the website, but is it intended use of the user?

http://www.quora.com/Seattle-WA/Who-are-some-entrepreneurshi...

joebadmo• 14 years ago

I think there are a couple of parts to social networking: intimacy and performance. I wrote more about that here: http://blog.byjoemoon.com/intimacy-and-performance-on-facebo...

I think the problem is when you privilege performance over intimacy, which privately owned and operated social networks have incentives to do.

Which is one of the many reasons I'm rooting for a decentralized, distributed social networking solution. I've got high hopes for tent.io, for example.

OzzyB• 14 years ago

What did you expect? Most people are normal and normal people are boring.

The majority of folks' lives, outside the small percentage of people you would actually want to follow, are just: Eating, Shitting & Fucking.

Shitting == Too gross to document unless it's a prank. Fucking == Too exhibitionistic for most & social networks' TOS seem to frown on that sorta stuff.

That leaves Eating... Nice, safe, normal. Boring.

irollboozers5• 14 years ago

Well then why are we spending all this time and effort to 'gift' these glorious tools and platforms to 'normal' people. It's certainly not for their benefit.

Or maybe we're all (aka any app ever made) just projecting how people should behave. If you think this is about food, then I think you're missing the point.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

Because as it turns out, boring people have money. I think that a lot of people build products that don't necessarily elevate humanity to some higher altruistic plateau. I think they see a market where a boring person would enjoy sharing their boring life and fill that void.

majormajor• 14 years ago

None of this is unique to social networks or new. Giving people a new way to communicate with each other doesn't change what they want to communicate. Most people want to impress other people.

Why would communication with friends through the internet would be any more meaningful than communication with friends through other means? Why was it better that people in the 90s showed off their new toys face to face instead of face to face and on Facebook?

Maybe "look at how much more sophisticated I am than the 'normal' people" is the insecure-hacker version of "look at what a cool lunch I had."

lowboy• 14 years ago

> If you are young 20 something, have asian friends, and on any sort of social network

Absent supporting data, the bit about asian friends seems a bit prejudiced.

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

It's not even just a single off-hand mention either. This post already felt like a rant, and the asian prejudice doesn't help. (Nor, in my experience, is it even an accurate stereotype)

jblock• 14 years ago

The author never talks about this "meaningful content" he wants to see on social networks.

Why can't people just impulsively think that their food is photogenic and cool and take pictures of it? The author has no right to determine what is meaningful because that is the point of the social NETWORK. The rest of the population determines what they think is meaningful, and they shove it down everyone's throats. It's not a status symbol. It's just how people talk on the internet nowadays.

bkirkby• 14 years ago

i was looking at some petroglyphs at zion's national park a few months ago when i realized that they were drawing pictures of the same things we take pictures of today.

the only difference is we take pics of our food after it's prepared while they drew pics of their food in it's pre-prepared state.

wisty• 14 years ago

1) Food is an easy subject to photograph. It doesn't move, it's attractive (chefs try to present good looking food), it's close-up (so you don't need a big lens to get bokeh / blur; and you don't need to zoom so it's steadier).

2) Food is fun to look at. Mmm, foood.

3) It hits the lowest common denominator. Everybody eats.

Yes, it looks a bit boring and shallow. It's broadcast, so it has to be. I bet the OP has some really interesting IM conversations with real friends, but anything in the newsfeed is going to be crap.

mikeash2• 14 years ago

People have been shallow since the beginning of time. This pointless rant is a useless as the photos it rails against. Everyone who upvoted it should be ashamed.

rdtsc3• 14 years ago

> People have been shallow since the beginning of time.

That's not the only point though. People are shallow and over time due to cultural conventions they have been conditioned to tone it down. People who yell "Hey everyone, I just ate a $30 hamburger! Check out how awesome I am!" in a group of friends in real life will quickly find out they don't have many friends left. So there is a bit of feedback and regulation of this tendency. Online social networks don't have that feedback, everyone broadcasts shit nobody cares about but they is usually no feedback (say body language) that would let the person know "yeah nobody cares, stop bragging, it is obnoxious".

There have also been some interesting comments here that I enjoyed, so I don't quite get the "ashamed" part.

mikeash2• 14 years ago

The social pressures are still there. My social feeds aren't crammed with pictures of food, because I will hide, unfollow, unfriend, etc. anyone who does such stupid crap if they don't respond to a gentle request asking them to stop.

Are social networks enabling this bad behavior to a greater extent than before? I doubt it.

The threads here seem to be a combination of uninformed, speculative, and pointless. The irony of engaging in shallow internet discussion to complain about people using the internet for shallow activities appears to be lost on basically everybody.

xarien• 14 years ago

Food has become a trending social topic. Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. If you observe the cultures around the world, food has always brought people together. In the age of connectivity, it's still bringing people together although at a much larger scale but unfortunately sometimes a bit narcissistic.

I think if you look around you'll still see plenty of people who very much enjoy food without feeling the need to snap pics, even if they Asian ;).

radagaisus• 14 years ago

“This is me, this is how I have fun, and look at how cool I am.” - That always was and always will be what people want to convey about themselves. For some people it will be a feed of food and cars and partying, for some it will be tweeting complex gists in functional languages.

"we were supposed to be sharing meaningful content" - What, who decided that's what we are supposed to do?

holman• 14 years ago

This seems pretty silly. A lot of people — myself included — use photos as a way to remember something. Occasionally I'll take a photo of food or the restaurant or something around me just to remind me of that experience; reliving my life through photos is one of the reason I cherish having such a large Aperture library these days (and geotagged to boot).

I think there's an assumption here that 1) everyone taking photos are posting them to a social network (I probably only post 5% of my photos anywhere), and 2) that this is inherently distasteful. People like food, and people like sharing experiences with their friends.

This is basically telling a story. Remember that Instagram or Foursquare will tag where you at- I think a lot of times it's not about "here's what I ate" and more "check out where I am". A lot of discussions can be had surrounding the story of where rather than what.

pwim• 14 years ago

Sharing pictures of food is the small talk of social networks. Not all communication needs to be profound.

ktrgardiner• 14 years ago

I don't know about everyone else, but I've tweeted/shared pictures of food before. It's almost always food I've made. I grew up in a family where food meant contentment and happiness. Food was made with joy and love. And sometimes, when I get that warm fuzzy feeling over food I've made, I just want to express it.

noahth• 14 years ago

You're using "i.e." incorrectly in the title.

jakejake2• 14 years ago

People want to present themselves in their best light. There's nothing new about that - it's just that on a social network you can be much more selective about what you present. We're not stupid - everybody knows what's going on.

What do you expect, am I going to post a picture of myself sitting and watching TV so you can see the "real me?" Post about my insecurities? Or should I only post when I've discovered a cure for cancer, or some other event of great importance? Sounds boring to me.

Some people like food. Some people like cars. Some people are obsessed with their kids. Some are political. Some people are amateur sports commentators on Facebook. Whatever is cool with me, I get to see what you're all about. If I personally find your posts boring or obnoxious then I put you in the "important updates only" category.

rdtsc3• 14 years ago

> What do you expect, am I going to post a picture of myself sitting and watching TV so you can see the "real me?" Post about my insecurities? Or should I only post when I've discovered a cure for cancer, or some other event of great importance? Sounds boring to me.

The interesting thing here (to me at least) is that there is an implication that you _have_ to post.

jakejake2• 14 years ago

Not really my point that anybody has to post or participate at all. More the opposite, that the OP has no right to suggest to people when they should not post. By his standards some people shouldn't be posting on Facebook at all.

fecklessyouth• 14 years ago

>However, for the first dish we had a goodly porker, with a garland upon him, and puddings, goose giblets, lamb-stones, sweetbreads, and gizzards round him; there were also beets and houshold-bread of his own baking, for himself, which I would rather have than white; it makes a man strong, and I never complain of what I like. The next was a cold tart, with excellent warm honey, and that Spanish, running upon it. I eat little of the tart, but more of the honey; I tasted also the red pulse, and lupines, by the advice of Calvus, and several apples, of which I took away two in my handkerchief: for if I bring home nothing to my little she slave, I shall have snubs enough: this dame of mine puts me often in mind of her.

--from the Satyricon of Petronius, a Roman satirist of the 1st century AD.

People have been talking about food for a long time...only the medium changes.

evilduck• 14 years ago

Pshh. NakaMats has been photographing every meal for decades! http://news.3yen.com/2005-10-07/wonderous-old-fraud-dr-nakam...

hetman• 14 years ago

Not sure why he's picking on the Asians. In my experience this phenomenon doesn't seem to be restricted to any specific ethnic group.

andreyon• 14 years ago

Exactly. Picking on any specific category makes me sad about human kind. For example I like to joke about Italians and their food obsession, but I'm not laughing AT them, I am not viewing myself as superior. Most times cultural differences are awesome to observe, none is better than the other.

It's so easy, in case things go bad and, say, a war starts, to fight against other categories. Think cartoons making fun of jews in the 1930's -> the holocaust.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

You're either having fun or trying to convince everyone that you are having fun. They are mutually exclusive. If you're having actual fun, you're not thinking about stopping to tweet it.

Something is wrong with my generation, i.e. what happened to the social network

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