I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t.
The problem I’m having is that I don’t exist online when people try to look me up. When someone tries to check me out, there’s nothing there and apparently that’s considered abnormal these days. I think it’s starting to affect my life negatively for various reasons I’d rather not get into.
I’d just like some advice about where to start if you wanted to dip your toes in and check it out. LinkedIn, maybe?
Jesus Christ this thread 🤣
Delusional users believing lemmy and reddit ain’t social media.
People say this shit all the time. “Reddit is social media too dura hurr.”
But anonymous social media sites are an entirely different entity and wildly different experience compared to ones that use your actual name.
“anonymous social media” is indeed very different, but still social media. It avoids some problems and runs into other problems.
They’re forums though, are forums social media? I don’t think services people use anonymously and not for the primary purpose of interacting are social media. The stat has always been 90+% of people are lurkers who just look at memes. Doesn’t sound very social. Scrolling lemmy and reading articles doesn’t get at that part of the brain. We’re not a social group, looking at each others lives.
What stops being social media if we broaden the definition. YouTube is social media if Lemmy is imo.
Is it my imagination or do you think people that don’t consider forums to be social media are doing it out of denial, as if they consider social media to be inferior and they want to be the superior ones without social media, but by encountering you telling them these ugly truths, they deny and defend themselves almost in a tantrum?
Because that may happen with a person or two, but no, many people don’t have problems having social media, just don’t consider Lemmy a social media for various reasons (e.g. not used with a real name, they do not personally message from here, etc.). If their criteria is wrong or right, I don’t know. I do consider this a social media, but it’s open to discussion.
It’d be helpful if you stop looking at situations as if they were the crying wojak (them) vs chad wojak (you) because that’s not how we all work.
Lurkers on Lemmy and Reddit don’t seem too different from someone who is on Twitter or Instagram to follow celebrities.
Commenters definitely are in it for interacting, whether they realize or not. Like, just now, you felt the need to express your opinion to this crowd, and so did I.
If the expression of opinion or interacting with that opinion is all it takes, then YouTube is social media, IMDb is social media. Blogs are social media, any news site is social media. It has to be more specific than that because every site has a comment section and it’s a pretty useless definition.
I think the object of interest has to be people, and the engagement has to come from fixed personalities. Who develop a rapport. For example, you add friends and follow people, who you recognize, interact with and develop a social or parasocial relationship.
Although Reddit has maybe gone that way in some respects, sites like YouTube (maybe) Lemmy, 4chan, Q&A sites (Quora, stack overflow), and more traditional forums have anonymous people jumping in and out, and the focus is the idea (meme, article, creation, question).
Maybe we ditch the term altogether as everything is adding a social component and it will all devolve into a digital singularity.
I think another divide when it comes to “social media” is the idea of following someone.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc let me follow people (or brands).
Reddit however isn’t about people or brands (and yes I’m away they added that feature, it’s stupid), it’s about topics.
Looking at Mastodon, it is also designed to follow people. They do however have the option to follow hashtags, which as a Lemmy user is something I like.
Similarly as a Lemmy user I don’t care who any of you are. I’m not following anyone in this thread. We could interact every day or we could interact once a year, I don’t care who you are and I like that.
Also, I don’t care if you follow me. I’d prefer if you didn’t. I do have an opinion to share, and I do want people to read it. Is that “social media”?
As other folks have pointed out, this is all more similar to Internet forums. Are those “social media”? I would argue they are not, but if you stretch the definition far enough… I guess?
I thought I was taking crazy pills watching people tell the guy not to join social media, on a social media site!
I think the real question being asked is, should the OP make a social media account that is not anonymous or on one of the mainstream sites. Which I would say go for it if it helps with your IRL social life, just don’t post anything you wouldn’t say in person in public.
Yes, stupid delusional users who actually know what social media is and isnt, unlike a self aggrandizing imbecile making comments like yours.
People don’t really know what the term means. Any media where the users create the content is a social media. That’s what social media means! YouTube, reddit, Lemmy, Instagram, Snapchat… All of these are social medias! Perhaps we need some different term to differenciate them based on whether you’re more expected to interact with friends or anonymously with strangers though.
While I do consider this my social media outlet it’s different in a few ways. If I meet someone new in person and they’re interested in my online presence
- I am not giving out this username
- they wouldn’t understand or know what to do with it even if I did
Your username is a fairly common noun and an incredibly common, er, auxiliary verb?
They can’t do anything with it by sticking it into Google!
You’re on social media right now. You know that, right?
Forums are not social media. God I am so tired of this disingenuous, and intercontinentally stretched argument.
“Hur hurr rhurrrrr U TLAK 2 PEPUL HARE TAT MEN U SOSHUL TAT MEN DIS SOSHUL MEDEEUH”
Social media is a very specific thing, relating to things like Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok/Etc.
Forums, like Lemmy, are not social media. Just because you interact with people on something doesnt make it social media, trying to stretch the definition to that regard makes everything from clay tablets, to semaphore, to IRC to email social media.
As a woman who was single and dating, saying you don’t have a social media is a red flag. Best case scenario, you truly don’t and it’s probably from having some sort of arrogant judgement value about people who do, worst case, you have a spouce you are hiding from me.
Either way, not worth the risk. Like all the women I know feel the same. Sure it’s a historically newer redflag that didn’t exist 10-50 years ago, but neither was worrying about crypto gambling and manospehre BS. Modern problems require modern precautions.
I love that your post gave a probabilistic binning of someone who doesn’t have a traditional social media account, which was unironically confirmed by people replying with rustled jimmies.
Come on folks, it should be clear from context that she is saying that a single woman setting up dates is going to use what limited info they have to avoid stalkers, cheaters, red pillers, and anti social people. That this might filter out perfectly normal people along with the creeps is the cost of maintaining safety and not wasting time, which is pretty much par for the course in dating. There’s also a difference between exchanging info after a brief meeting, and actually knowing a person for an extended time and then dating. I doubt OP is saying that someone they studied with for three semesters would be excluded for lack of social media, because they have real life context and don’t need the proxy filters.
Also, getting real close in these replies to “but I’m a nice guy” and “I’m not like other girls.”
I just think it’s quite funny that in their justification, they project their own arrogant judgemental attitude towards those they justify their own behavior against.
[it’s justified because] best case scenario, [the reason why] you don’t [have social media] is probably from having some sort of arrogant judgement value about people who do
seriously? I think that’s where people disagree.
it’d be different if they said:
a single woman setting up dates is going to use what limited info they have to avoid stalkers, cheaters, red pillers, and anti social people. That this might filter out perfectly normal people along with the creeps is the cost of maintaining safety and not wasting time, which is pretty much par for the course in dating
but that’s not what they said, and that’s not what people are responding to.
Imagine if some guy said:
“honestly, dating women who have social media is a red flag, at best they’re probably attention whores, but there’s also a good chance they’re a cheating slut.”
now imagine if someone responded to the “rustled jimmies” with
well, obviously they meant ((something else))
same thing, they should’ve said that then
I don’t disagree that comment OP could have phrased it better and come across as less judgey. And I think that of someone like you left a well worded reply to the effect that it would be very fair feedback.
At the same time I feel like some of the comments she has gotten are living down to the less generous version of her statements. If that makes sense. It also sort of feels like people wallpapering over the underlying reason that many women look for social media participation, which is as a way to vet for safety reasons.
But I agree, it’s not good to typecast and overgeneralize, and a better suggestion to the post OP might be that some women look for social media accounts for safety reasons, if that is part of your social issues mentioned.
But I digress. Have a great day!
If I don’t have social media I am either arrogant or I am hiding something? Sounds very ignorant and arrogant to me.
The women I know are people I can talk to, discuss social media, discuss decisions regarding social media, no red flag bullshit. Maybe it’s different in different countries.
Not every gun is always loaded, but you should always treat a gun as if it’s loaded.
You can think whatever you want about my post, unfair/arrogant idc, I’m just sharing a very common view from among the women I know and the discussions I’ve read. Not every one out there in the dating world is a creep, but I’d rather be careful since I only had a limited time to go out.
It’s not that every single person falls in to those two camps, but social media is super duper common, so why would I risk wasting my time on someone I can’t vet?
Please don’t put words in my mouth, I didn’t say your post was ‘unfair’. You do you, date whatever you want. But you don’t see how it could be problematic to call all people without social media accounts arrogant or liars? And then trying to establish that view as normal by citing your social media bubble-friends and ‘discussions you have read’ is just messed up.
It’s worse than “very ignorant”. It stinks malice and stupidity at the same time - because the person is rushing conclusions (aka assuming, aka making shit up) about another person, based on little to no information.
I never saw this in real life, but if some acquaintance told me that they avoid dating people without social media presence “because it’s a red flag”, I’d look for further signs that the person is unjust and/or assumptive and consider avoiding them altogether.
Ummm isn’t this a post on Lemmy? Aren’t you already using social media then?
You’re already using social media, the only difference is that you’re in the fediverse, not the metaverse.
