Where To From Here?

Happy Sunday Friends,

I was around in the early days of social media. Most of you reading this were too. I can’t remember exactly but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even called social media back then. I popped my cherry by spending hours and hours tweaking my MySpace pages. Thinking back, it was more like creating a website and personal brand than creating a social space.

Living in South Africa I had the joys of our terrible bleep, boop, bleeeeeeep, dial-up internet. Which meant trying to do anything online was like watching moss grow. Somehow waiting 5+ minutes for a friend's MySpace page to load line-by-line wasn’t overly appealing. 

Since then social media has contributed in a monumental way to human societal evolution. Only mobile phones have had a bigger impact on our lives. Mobile phones have also single-handedly managed to enhance every aspect (good and bad) of social media.

Has social media changed a lot in the past decade? Or, have we changed because of social media?

You cannot deny that over the past 10+ years, social media has evolved into a marketplace for business. People have become brands and the point of a brand is to sell a product or service. We’ve attempted to convert our online “friends” into customers.

Today, TikToks, Reels and YouTube Shorts power social media. TikTok is a different beast and operates differently from any other social platform. Just 5% of TikTok content accounts for 75% of the total consumption. TikTok is more like TV and traditional old-school media; unidirectional and entertainment-focused. Only a few people make content that the masses then consume.

I have no judgement here but it raises a few questions. Is this really “social” media? And, where are the adults spending their free time these days?

Last week, Wired published a piece entitled First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go. It begins, “A golden age of connectivity is ending.” There were some interesting comments on the piece. I’m gonna quote a few of them here:

• “I used to spend 18 hours a week on Twitter, now I spend 3.”

• “insta is the only one i use any more. been off FB for almost a decade, twitter is trash now. nothing in the newer apps seems all that appealing, so i’ll chill with the other gen x’ers here on insta til the lights are off.

• “I love not being on the internet even though I make my living or being on the internet”

• “So I think the biggest issue with social media is that it has lost its authenticity. What you used to be a creative outlet to just record your thoughts has now become a marketing machine to be seen or heard. Your bombarded with ads and influencers just wanting to make money or take your money. It’s loud and exhausting.”

The last comment’s narrative is playing on my mind daily. X(Twitter) is just hundreds and thousands of talking heads! Faceless humans (and bots) throwing advice and abuse into a giant void. Even the influencers who say they’re building communities don’t bother replying to comments on their own posts. There is nothing social about it. Is it only my feed that's filled with hundreds of “creators” aka know-it-alls? Twenty-something-year-olds telling me about the long, hard journey they’ve been on to get to where they are today. I see posts of people who haven’t managed a single person in their lives giving leadership advice.

I’m not being negative about people sharing advice. I’ve learned a ton by following smart people on X and LinkedIn. But, there are a lot of imposters with only one goal in mind - to make money without having to put in any work. To exploit the innocent people looking for connection.  

I’m simply saying the “social” side of social media has disappeared. 

So here’s where I’m torn. I also enjoy creating. I also enjoy sharing my knowledge and experiences. I want to help but I also want to create a community that I can potentially sell services to. I realise how hypocritical that sounds. 

Is there a way to have the best of all worlds? Different platforms allow for different use cases. I could use X as a platform for shenanigans and trying to be social. And, I could focus on LinkedIn as a pure business platform and sell my services there.

In this whirlwind of pixels and posts, we've wandered far from the digital campfires we once gathered around. Social media, once a place of genuine connection, now echoes with the clatter of commerce and curated personas. Can we carve out sanctuaries of sincerity in this virtual landscape? Perhaps it's not about abandoning ship but navigating with intention, seeking harbours where authenticity still thrives. As we ponder the future of our online odysseys, let's not forget the power we hold in shaping this story. 

Where to next for social media? I’ve never been great at predicting these things so I won’t try. Maybe I’ll end up like the person quoted earlier and stick to one, nostalgic platform until they turn the lights off.

Peace, love and muscles.Jazza

Weekly Feels is Moving

You don’t have to be overly observant to realise that this post didn’t drop on Friday, as usual. It’s not because I didn’t have the piece done in time, it’s because of the extra writing I am now doing for Strive Lab. 

I will now be posting Strive Lab’s business weekly newsletter on Fridays and then The Weekly Feels will drop on Sundays. Most of you only read this on the weekend anyway.

Last Week’s Strive Lab Newsletter