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Do you consider Lemmy/Reddit (and similar platforms) to be social media? (dubvee.org)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

I don't consider them social media.

Virtually nothing on it is about the poster, and that's mostly how I see social media. Even more baffling is people calling YouTube social media.

Two important caveats though.

maybe r/JohnQSmith type things are prevalent just not in my experience. There's plenty of content I've never seen.
The descriptivists won the day, so language is about what people do say not what people should say. If people call it that and the dictionary or whatever says something different, the speakers aren't wrong. The dictionary is wrong.