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A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
A quick thought experiment for you. Say there’s a social media channel that you’ve used consistently since 2008. Say it’s the place that facilitated some of the most important things in your life - your career, marriage, friendship group. Say it’s the place that provides you with an excellent source of work. You occasionally write about it for money. You give lectures on how to use it. People use it to reach out to you about freelance work. It has brought you to the edge of a nervous breakdown on more than one occasion and you’ve tried to quit it, but you always come crawling back. The itch to use it lives inside you, much like the itch for a cigarette you often get at 8am, despite quitting smoking more than ten years ago.
Now, say this really important thing is purchased by a billionaire we’ll call Apartheid Clyde. The billionaire is well known for holding some - at best, unsavoury; at worst, far right - opinions. They have a reputation for making outlandish and frequently untrue statements on this channel, like, for example, that a man who rescued a group of children from a cave in Thailand was a ‘pedo’. They’ve been in trouble with the SEC in the USA for sending out posts attempting to manipulate the cost of one of their pet projects. They have children with names that sound like CAPTCHAs. This man is well loved by shock jocks, bitcoin bros and anyone who thinks that being rich means you’re an intellectual titan.
Apartheid Clyde told everyone that he wanted to buy this channel in a (misguided) attempt to uphold the values of free speech and that he intended to bring back the accounts of all the people who had been banned for hate speech. His grand plan was to change the way people were verified on this channel so that anyone could pay $8 per month and their ill-formed opinions would immediately be shown at the top of people’s posts. The people who paid $8 to the billionaire were often not the kind of people you’d want to go to dinner with. Their posts were racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, transphobic (although that’s a problem everywhere right now, not just on this channel).
As you sat back and watched, all of the people you knew and loved and whose posts you always enjoyed seeing and replying to suddenly moved away from the channel. They stayed in touch with you, through WhatsApp, Instagram or BlueSky, but it wasn’t the same. When you asked them why they left, they said that it was because they’d been racially abused, or seen graphic imagery that made them feel physically sick, or had been subjected to a tirade of hatred about their physical appearance, sexuality or beliefs. That it wasn’t worth the effect it was having on their mental health. They still loved the channel, of course. They just couldn’t use it anymore. They doubted they’d ever return.
But you. You still loved the channel. You still composed posts for it in your head whenever you saw something strange, funny or weird. And more importantly, you had to use it for work. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t actually be able to work. It was falling apart, yes, but it was still way too important to ignore. The people you needed to speak to were there. And if you occasionally saw something that made you feel sick, or sad, or which flashed behind your eyes when you tried to fall asleep at night and made you cry, then that was your problem. You’re too far gone to turn back now.
Every day you logged onto the channel and you noticed all the ways in which it was breaking. Things slowly stopped working. Important features disappeared. Posts that were supposed to be private weren’t private anymore. It was falling apart before your eyes and you knew that someday - probably on the day the billionaire couldn’t extract any further profit from it - it would stop working completely. So maybe it was better to get out now while you still could.
But then you see something there. Something funny, moving or interesting. Something that grabs your attention and doesn’t let it go. Something that makes you wonder if there is still value to be found in the cesspit this channel has turned into. Something that makes you remember all the reasons you’ve been using it for fifteen years.
Then you see something there that makes you seriously worry for humanity, because that’s what the channel does. It gives with one hand and takes with the other. So you go and look at stupid stuff on TikTok instead.
Now remember. This is just a thought experiment. What would you do?
JOBS BOARD
Contract: Cosmopolitan magazine are advertising for an Acting Deputy Social Media Manager
Freelance: Inventum want to chat with a freelance Social Media Manager who has availability for the next three months
Freelance: Start Something Different are looking for a freelance Social Strategist who has a background in sports and working with Gen Z
Freelance: Truffle Social have a role available for a freelance Social Media Manager
Freelance: German clothing brand Ulla Popken require a freelance UK based Social Media Manager
INTERESTING THING OF THE WEEK: DON’T SLEEP ON FACEBOOK
Talk to 90% of social media managers and they will tell you that Facebook is dead. I have to admit, I rarely use it nowadays for anything outside of powerlifting (one day I’ll examine why powerlifters are so wedded to Facebook, but today is not that day) and non of the brands I work with have a specific strategy for it outside of ‘let’s put some content up there occasionally.’
However, last week I spotted this post from Link In Bio (a Substack that all social media professionals should be reading, FYI) which made a good argument for rethinking Facebook and how we talk to audiences on there. The metrics shown from some of the brands featured are huge and have definitely made me rethink how it could be used. Well, until Zuckerberg tanks it with another wild algorithm change, anyway.
IN THE NEWS
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has provided a major update on how ranking works for Feed, Stories, Reels and more (Instagram)
Meta threatens to pull news links from Facebook and Instagram in California if state lawmakers pass a new bill taxing the company for the content (Axios)
Yes, I know it’s only just June, but it’s time to start thinking about Christmas. Which is why TikTok have launched their 2023 Holiday Planning Playbook (TikTok)
Twitter’s value is reportedly down two-thirds since Musk takeover (The Guardian)
YouTube is retiring YouTube Stories (Social Media Today)
THINGS I LIKE
God, I miss the Big Topshop on Oxford Street, even if my bank account doesn’t (Time Out)
I made a huge pot of Sundubu Jjigae earlier this week. If you’ve got all the ingredients in, you should make it too (Korean Bapsang)
Would you spend a night at the Haunted Clown Hotel? 🤡 (New Lines Magazine)
This is a must read piece on the Guinness Book of Records (The Guardian)
CAT TIKTOK OF THE WEEK
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This made me laugh a lot and also made me wonder if I could teach The Void Boys a foreign language
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