I had this discussion with a friend, and we really couldn’t reach a consensus.
My friend thinks Lemmy (and other Reddit-like platforms) is social media because you’re interacting with other people, liking/disliking submissions, and all the content is user-generated.
I think it isn’t because you’re not following individual people, just communities/topics. Though I concede there are some aspects of social media present, I feel that overall it’s not because my view of social media is that you’re primarily following individuals.
In my view, these link aggregator + comment platforms are more like an evolution of forums which both my friend and I agreed don’t meet the criteria to be considered social media (though they maintain that Reddit-like platforms are social media while I do not).
So I’m asking Lemmy now to weigh in to help settle this friendly debate.
Edit: Thanks everyone! From the comments, it sounds like my friend and I are both right and both wrong. lol. Feel free to keep chiming in, but I have to go do the 9-5 thing that pays my mortgage and cloud hosting bills.
Again, it’s not about links or about comments. It’s about the focus of the content. My friend, I have been shitposting on the Internet quite likely longer than you’ve been alive, so no, I’m not ignoring the content. And I was on Facebook for the best part of a decade so no, no shame there either.
But Usenet isn’t social media. Forums aren’t social media. Comment boxes aren’t social media. The term came about when people started friending and following and tagging each other and generally caring who the other person is - without which all of these previous examoles are just more chatrooms and forums. If Social Media is literally just communicating in any way on the Internet, then the term is useless.