[News] The Internet Was a Mistake

A thread for updates on the various ways the internet is destroying everything and the undying hellsites of social media. Let's all laugh at the abyss.

Hopefully some of the employees that were fired are irreplaceable or at least critical to their current efforts.

OG_slinger wrote:

Free speech absolutist not so absolutist after all...

[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin... fires workers who criticized Elon Musk in open letter

Isn't this grounds for a wrongful termination lawsuit?

The beauty of “right to work “ states. Reasons for termination are unnecessary

farley3k wrote:

The beauty of “right to work “ states. Reasons for termination are unnecessary

In this case, a reason is given and can be contested.

Musk supports DeSantis. Musk does not give a sh*t about free speech except for his own.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Musk supports DeSantis. Musk does not give a sh*t about free speech except for his own.

Which is why all billionaires should be taxed back to millionaire status.

I'm telling you. New Game Plus for capitalism. Once the odometer kicks that M over into a B, all of your wealth gets redistributed and you get to start over from minimum wage, only this time there's a little star on your name tag.

And they have to clopen. All the time.

hbi2k wrote:

I'm telling you. New Game Plus for capitalism. Once the odometer kicks that M over into a B, all of your wealth gets redistributed and you get to start over from minimum wage, only this time there's a little star on your name tag.

Minimum wage jobs build character! They’re not supposed to pay a living wage!

Not the tone I'd hope your social media team would take if your food was literally hospitalizing people.

Also, YUUUUUUUUUUGE heads-up if you're a Daily Harvest subscriber.

It’s TikTok’s world. Can TV live in it?

The people who bring you video entertainment could be in for a rough time: A looming recession could hurt their advertising revenue and consumer spending on subscription TV streaming services. But they’re also facing a foe that has nothing to do with the economic cycle: TikTok is coming for their eyeballs.

The free, Chinese-owned video-sharing service sometimes gets described as a social network, but that description masks what it really is: a colossally powerful entertainment app that keeps viewers glued to an endless stream of clips.

And TikTok is getting bigger every day: It now says it has 1 billion monthly users, but even that number likely understates its importance, because TikTok users spend a lot of time on TikTok — a year ago, the company was telling advertisers its users were spending nearly 90 minutes a day on the app. By contrast, US TV and streaming watchers were spending nearly five hours a day watching their shows and movies — but TV skews very old, and TikTok is very young. You can’t ascribe TV’s long-running viewer losses to a new app, but it’s very easy to see how it’s going to make it harder than ever to train young would-be viewers to watch traditional TV or even streaming.

“It is safe to say that TikTok has rapidly grown to be one of — if not the — largest social/communication/video apps in America in terms of time spent,” analyst Michael Nathanson wrote in a report last week.

Urk. I’ve never watched a TikTok, not sure why I would want to. But I’m old so…

Oh same. I'm not on TikTok and have zero interest in ever being on TikTok, however I fully understand that I'm a dinosaur looking at the comet and going "Eh, I'm not really interested."

I can attest that people in my house watch A LOT of tiktok. It is definitely a thing.

Oh I believe you. It’s just so out of my experience. I barely watch anything on YouTube.

Prederick wrote:

Oh same. I'm not on TikTok and have zero interest in ever being on TikTok, however I fully understand that I'm a dinosaur looking at the comet and going "Eh, I'm not really interested."

No, when it comes to TikTok, I think Principal Skinner is right, and it's the children who are wrong.

It's by nature the junkiest of social media junk food.

It's like if '80s children had a TV that showed literally nothing but America's Funniest Home Videos and the SI swimsuit VHS tape on endless perpetual repeat.

This almost 50 year old dude loves TikTok.

mudbunny wrote:

This almost 50 year old dude loves TikTok.

Same. TikTok is the only social media in which I take part. Everything else feels so old and irrelevant, even Twitter.

Edit: as an example: the Kardashian cartel, famous for being some of the earliest and most powerful social media influencers, are hopelessly lost on TikTok. Can’t explain why but they just don’t understand the platform.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Oh I believe you. It’s just so out of my experience. I barely watch anything on YouTube.

YouTube has been great for NASA live launches, eclipses, etc. And of course things like Nintendo and Sony directs.

YouTube is home to a lot of great, well produced, long-form content.

It has plenty of junk and frivolous stuff, and the algorithm has a lot of sh*tty tendencies, but the platform also facilitates high value material.

There’s a lot of great stuff on TikTok but it can be hard to find because it’s buried by an overwhelming number of repetitive meme and trend videos.

I use YouTube occasionally for emulation stuff, it's just the best way to see exactly how the quality is. On the other hand, it frustrates me whenever I search for how to do something in a game, I have to dig through a bunch of 5-10 minute how to videos to get to the paragraph of text and screenshot that will tell me what I need to do in a few seconds.

I like TikTok because it's a source of content for Instagram Reels, which I watch a fair amount of. The issue with using TikTok itself is that there's so much UI I can't seem to remove even temporarily to see The Thing I Want To See. Long-press on Instagram and I can see a (paused) view without any social metrics or other administrivia.

As a step-parent whose partner refused to take my warnings of the negative impacts of social media on children (especially rapid-fire content feeds like TikTok) seriously, my personal opinion is that the bad of TikTok FAR, FAR outweighs any good that comes from it.

I used to view social media in a more neutral-to-benign light, but after the last several years, I pretty much loathe most social media entirely and have disconnected myself from the vast bulk of it. I've even taken breaks from forum/thread-based media like Reddit at times when the negative elements of it becomes overwhelming.

If there's a social media platform that truly lands more often on making a positive impact, I'm not familiar with it. That's... well, it doesn't do any good for my opinion of our civilization.

mudbunny wrote:

This almost 50 year old dude loves TikTok.

This is me as well, basically. As a knowledge and jamband junkie, it's been a boon for my constant education and expanding perspectives. I'm on the queer disability neurodivergent science SW thirsttrap tattoo and medicine tiktok, so I feel like many people don't have the same experience I am having. I still have a lot of dancing but it's... different. hehe.

ruhk wrote:

There’s a lot of great stuff on TikTok but it can be hard to find because it’s buried by an overwhelming number of repetitive meme and trend videos.

Your FYP tells on you - it is known. The algorithm is extremely good at what it does; don't watch those for as long and mark them as "see less," watch what you actually want to watch and it'll adjust in time.

Amoebic wrote:
ruhk wrote:

There’s a lot of great stuff on TikTok but it can be hard to find because it’s buried by an overwhelming number of repetitive meme and trend videos.

Your FYP tells on you - it is known. The algorithm is extremely good, don't watch those for as long and mark them as seen less, and watch what you actually want to watch and it'll adjust in time.

I only interact with TikTok through stuff my friends repost and what’s hosted on other networks. I tried creating an account of my own but the app wanted me to watch several minutes of random vids to learn my preferences and I made it like 4 clips deep before I lost interest in having an account. My friends do an excellent job of sorting through the content for me though, I just don’t have the attention span to do it myself.

The algorithm not being optional is what kills my interest in most social media.

(Filing this under "stupid internet bullsh*t")

Like, it's both horsesh*t trolling and sincerely-held reactionary bullsh*t (TL;DR, internet right-wingers are currently beating the "All art made after roughly 1890 is degenerate and bad" drum) but it's amazing to see these people anti-thinking their way all the way back to "Let's go after Picasso."

I swear to God, they talk about "Liberty" while advocating for a world narrower than a rock fissure.

And as I said, it's both things. It is simultaneously "trigger the libs" trolling and also the actual beliefs their calcified brains hold.

A bunch of definitely-not-snowflakes crowing about the destruction of values in society thanks to a 100+ year old Marcel Duchamp piece, instead of a picture of a boat.

It'd be funny if they didn't represent a large, powerful political movement.

It’s just history repeating itself, the old-school fascists whined about art the same way the modern fascists do, trying to limit everything to classical realism and claiming anything else is a sign of societal decay and degeneracy. The only thing they understand about art is just aesthetics, and even that is very narrowly defined.

ruhk wrote:

It’s just history repeating itself, the old-school fascists whined about art the same way the modern fascists do, trying to limit everything to classical realism and claiming anything else is a sign of societal decay and degeneracy. The only thing they understand about art is just aesthetics, and even that is very narrowly defined.

I would argue that their definition is "aesthetically pleasing in a way that doesn't challenge/confuse me", which is anathema to how non-fragile people view art.

Nobody's going to argue that the Sistine Chapel is not art, but it's hardly challenging our preconceptions or connect to us personally like Disco Elysium or NK Jemisin's Three Kingdoms trilogy did for me. These snowflakes simply can't handle any introspection of their sick dogma's.