(Fisrt time posting on Lemmy, please be patient)
I don’t know if it was also like this before, but I feel like recently every social media is focused on getting comments, likes, views, people sharing your post, being popular, when the before that (late 199X- mid 201x) was more about being unique and just sharing your own creations and remixes. What makes me feel like this is that whenever I (rarely) open Twitter and go to the homepage most of the posts are something baiting the viewer into commenting or sharing. When your post doesn’t has many interactions or views, you’re deemed as “a failure”. It seems like the (anti)social media is empty with baits and overshared memes. Long gone were the days of being original without having to directly copy someone to have validation and recognition.
Don’t forget the mass manipulation of public opinion. There are a lot of players out there doing that all the time. From companies making ads that look like silly posts, and paying people or using bots to speak ill of the competition, to media agencies spreading fake news aiming at shifting people’s political views.
This is also another aspect of it, true.