Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Fatesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Fatesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Sparkable
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Speakeasy
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
smol life
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Bluesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Bluesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Bluesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Bluesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Bluesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Bluesky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Northsky
Social media as it should be. Find your community among millions of users, unleash your creativity, and have some fun again.
Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet
A growing number of people are creating individualized, creative sites that eschew the one-size-fits-all look and feel of social media
RIP social media. What comes next is messy.
As social media splinters, how can we keep the new online spaces from devolving into toxic pits of despair?
Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, and Enduring Polarization
The social media ecosystem appears to be in flux. Twitter’s rebranding to X has come to symbolize a broader reorganization of online publics – political reshuffling, user attrition, and uncertainty over the role of legacy platforms. Simultaneously, the shift from text-based, networked feeds toward algorithmically curated, short-form video has accelerated, with TikTok setting the pace for the wider ecosystem [18, 14, 16]. At the same time, everyday communication increasingly migrates from large, open networks to semi-private spaces such as group chats and messaging apps. Commentators describe a digital public sphere in transition: smaller, more fragmented, less dominated by traditional social networking sites, and rise of more broadcast-oriented forms of media – with some even suggesting that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the social media era.
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media
When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms and protocols that allowed people to socialize with friends and communities of interest by using digital technologies. Twenty years later, users of social media are far more likely to scroll than post – and the content that they consume is often strategically produced and algorithmically curated. In this essay, I argue that the very essence of social media has changed. To more effectively interrogate what we are witnessing, we need to stop presuming that these tools are “social media” and begin recognizing that they are now “parasocial media.” Doing so raises new questions about digitally mediated sociality, not to mention the politics and governance of these platforms.
