Social Monkeys
Consolidating thoughts about social: social networks, social status, social conversations
It doesn’t seem like so long ago that I used to lament that the “boomers” and older generations just didn’t get it.
Now I definitely don’t get it. I am a regular heavy user of Instagram, but have thus far resisted succumbing to the likes of TikTok, SnapChat*(albeit a brief streak in college), Xiaohongshu, etc.
Most of these have been around for quite a few years though, and it feels like it’s been awhile since a new paradigm of social networks has really emerged.
Till last week maybe? When Meta released Vibes, and OpenAI did a fast follow with Sora. To be clear, I don’t think any of these are the final forms, but it’s a good indication a new era is starting and we’re going to see a bit more experimentation on what the next era of social networks might look like.
What is a social network?
I’ve had this tab open on my laptop for >6 months, so I cannot remember how I stumbled across it, but when I was stuck on a flight recently I finally got to reading Eugene Wei’s analysis of Status-as-a-Service, which examines the business model of social network platforms that try to monetize social status along three key axes of Social Capital, Entertainment, and Utility.
This was written in 2019, but I find that it still presents a useful framework to think about the “social media” or social network apps out there:
Digital Garden of Eden: Facebook
The original scanning of the “hard copy” elements of social status (your neighbour’s new car) into the digital realm.The Original Sin: Instagram
But because of the “Friends” concept, Facebook didn’t significantly challenge the concept of which “neighbors” you were competing with. Instagram was where flaunting your supercar and abs could mint you from a localised one-percenter into an international influenza. The most canonical form of converting social influence into capital.Mixed flavors: Snapchat
I think Snapchat wanted to be the next big social app but couldn’t really break Instagram’s hold (or resources) — stories was easily copied and has easily become a core part of Instagram’s own value proposition. instead, I think they’ve found a nice sweet spot by mixing elements of all 3 axes: They can actually be seen as a Utility application in the messaging category (e.g. iMessage, Telegram), but differentiates with features like stories from your friends (Social Media), from other creators (Entertainment) and filters (Utility).If you can’t win, change the game: TikTok
There wasn’t a serious competitor till TikTok, and it’s because they flipped the script entirely. Instead of having people compete for status via Social Capital, they have compete with Entertainment - the best dance, the funniest video.
Charting out the changes above actually revealed that seismic shifts in what we regarded as the “predominant social network” actually coincided with generational changes:
Fashion, video games, religion, and society itself are some of the original Status as a Service businesses.
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Young people look at so many of the status games of older folks—what brand of car is parked in your garage, what neighborhood can you afford to live in, how many levels below CEO are you in your org—and then look at apps like Vine and Musical.ly, and they choose the only real viable and thus optimal path before them. Remember the second tenet: people maximize their social capital the most efficient way possible. Both the young and old pursue optimal strategies.
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That so much social capital for the young comes in the form of followers, likes, and comments from peers and strangers shouldn't lessen its value. Think back to your teen years and try to recall any real social capital that you could accumulate on such a scale. In your youth, the approval of peers and others in your demographic tend to matter more than just about anything, and social media has extended the reach of the youth status game in just about every direction possible.
The boomers were buying flashy cars and clothes to “Keep Up with the Joneses”, the millennials scaled that globally with the internet and quantified it using followers and likes, and the GenZs now try to rack up those same metrics but using a different resource of singing, dancing and humor.
Or the social network dead? Sora & FanFiction
So now that GenZers are actually growing up (shock!), it seems about time that our social networks and status games evolve to reflect the realities of the newest generation.
That’s where Sora and Vibes come in. I’m still figuring out how I feel about them (mainly Sora, because Vibes just seems like a big miss), but what’s bothering me is that it seems to be a further retreat into a hyper-personalised space that isn’t actually social or status-based.
TikTok is hyperpersonalized, but you’re still consuming from a global community of creators and it’s rooted in some sort of real scarceness - it may not be physical goods, but talent and humour is also a resource that is neither evenly distributed nor infinitely acquirable. What is status without scarceness?
With Sora, you can envision alternate realities with friends and celebrities that never happened. You can be the hero(ine) of the story and object of everyone’s affection, whether it’s the crush you have on your classmate or Taylor Swift. We’re making daydreaming and escape from reality too easy, and this will affect our collective consciousness and reality in the long run.
AI-edited visuals significantly increased false recollections, with AI-generated videos of AI-edited images having the strongest effect (2.05x compared to control). Confidence in false memories was also highest for this condition (1.19x compared to control). [Source]
And I know, we’ve always used our imagination to escape reality. But now, the cost of production has plummeted to near-zero for very passable quality. Writing fanfiction required you to be eloquent enough to pen out a story (very high barrier), and even Stories and TikToks require significant effort and editorial skills. We’ve unleashed the flood!
Perhaps this is just doomsaying, and we will find that in the end, Sora is just another way for OpenAI to market and acquire more users into its ecosystem rather than a real attempt at being the next social network, and that we aren’t sliding into the dystopia that is Ready Player One or the digital version of Surrogates:
In 2017, widespread use of remotely controlled androids called "surrogates" enables people to operate an idealized body (a more youthful version of their own, or a wholly different one) from the safety of their homes, becoming slovenly and housebound as a consequence. Protected from harm, a surrogate's operator can indulge in risky behaviour, and they can make their surrogate perform acrobatics beyond human capability. [Wikipedia article on Surrogates (2009)]
To wrap up, a personal choice
I would very much like to write that I’ve transcended mere morality and dopamine and can abstain entirely from social networks and status games, but… alas I cannot.
However, I do think it is important to audit what you consume in the digital space, both informationally and socially: this is no different from watching your physical diet or cutting out toxic friends.
In that regard, I find that Instagram (at this moment) still contains the right mix of content, and although Big Bad Zuckerberg’s algorithm will try to bias me towards the brainless AI slop, with some cognisance and self-control, I would like to believe that this is a non-fatal choice of poison:
I try my best (important caveat) to limit the scope of my “status games” to a set of accounts and followers whose opinions or values are somewhat aligned with mine, so I don’t get caught up in games I don’t want to be playing
It may sound superficial, but I believe in the value of remaining surface-ably visible via social networks. Simple updates via Stories have created a lot of opportunity for (re)connection, left-field opportunities, and weak ties - all of which is useful to increase my exposure to new ideas and experiences
I trust in Meta to do the wrong thing and copy everything out there (e.g. Stories, and Reels), so I will continue to benefit from some innovation
There is a market of lazy like-farmers who will simply copy content from the newer platforms and repost it on Instagram, and although this results in limited content and a time lag, for entertainment purposes I find this sufficient
Author’s note
Given the mention of fanfiction, out of nostalgia, I thought it befitting to end with a random “A/N”, which I shall use on this great quote (which also then prompted me to google “How do chickens mate” — feel free to mess up your own google search personalisation):
This is the classic cold start problem of social. The answer to the traditional chicken-and-egg question is actually answerable: what comes first is a single chicken, and then another chicken, and then another chicken, and so on. The harder version of the question is why the first chicken came and stayed when no other chickens were around, and why the others followed.