Obv the issue is really how post-2010 platform design incentivises outrage and maximising engagement uber alles. But gossip communities like Fandom Wank are also highly engaging! Commentary persists, ofc. But authority erodes.

(I’m assuming it was widely known? fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_...)

Is it that we lack disciplinary institutions such as Fandom Wank that helped set norms and regulate behaviour — or is it that people now lack any sense of shame, such that censure just doesn’t stick?

Though it turns out my cousin's husband, travel journalist Simon Parker, went there in 2019, reporting on the boom in cruise visitors:
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activ...

I'm off to Ammassalik - now known as Tasiilaq - in August, but that's rather more visited.

In November, Ben Taub filed 9,800 words on the town, which I think may be the only major piece of English-language reporting on the town - or certainly the most substantial in a long while.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

‘What might look from the outside like an over-formalization of chats for different kinds of information, or else like too little structure, coheres into a highly effective, self-organized, and well-maintained communication ecosystem.’

In a different dialect, but to similar ends:

@kjezermorton.bsky.social on ‘friction-maxxing’.

‘An orientation toward friction is really the only defense we have against the life-annihilating suction of technologies of escape.’

www.thecut.com/article/broo...

Well, have you ever seen the two of them in the same room? 👀

These are such good questions, and I find myself wondering this too.

Good post, and a timely one to read now — ty! There are enough people I like from Twitter on BSky that it seems like it must be possible to reconstruct something constructive here. But the protocol (reply more, post less?) is hard to ID.

Instagram Stories and the way those branch off into DM chats would seem to be the most enjoyable, genuinely social space in social media right now.

No idea what the future might hold - though I suspect increasing bifurcation between public ‘content creators’ and private ‘social media’, tbh

We actually both agree that the phenomenon exists, though disagree on matters of scale: you say “not all that much”, I said (somewhat hyperbolically) “always”.

But instead of noting that adjacency, you went to the insult

Beautiful irony to your post here, genuine round of applause, so neatly done.

Anyway: my bad for accidentally posting engagement bait.

Still figuring out if BSky is worth the effort. There are glimmers of interestingness: @aelkus.bsky.social and @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social seem to have built good communities around them?

There is no bringing back Golden Age Twitter tho :\

You can yell at Mr Beast without worrying what he thinks or feels, because he’s so huge and basically a corporation, not a person. Perhaps that’s been normalised down the scale, too.

Though the particular hectoring tone here seems unique to the Bsky ecosystem.

It is only a minority who default to disagreement as their first response, but it’s quite a big minority)

Is it a symptom of widening social and political polarisation?

Or it may reflect an expectation that anyone who posts online now is a ‘content provider’, not just a person sharing some ideas.

The less edifying thing I’ve been reminded of is how un-fun it is when a post escapes containment here.

It’s notable how many people default to bad-faith readings here, and assume that anyone who doesn’t 100% reflect their view of the world must think the total opposite, not just a bit different

The other thing I’ve learned from this discussion is that the “Followers plus replies” feed is a) an option b) a good one, for the way it makes BSky feel more social

(Not just posting into the low-engagement void.)

bsky.app/profile/kuku...

This seems impeccably organised! Good to learn what’s possible