I had this discussion with a friend, and we really couldn’t reach a consensus.
My friend thinks Lemmy (and other Reddit-like platforms) is social media because you’re interacting with other people, liking/disliking submissions, and all the content is user-generated.
I think it isn’t because you’re not following individual people, just communities/topics. Though I concede there are some aspects of social media present, I feel that overall it’s not because my view of social media is that you’re primarily following individuals.
In my view, these link aggregator + comment platforms are more like an evolution of forums which both my friend and I agreed don’t meet the criteria to be considered social media (though they maintain that Reddit-like platforms are social media while I do not).
So I’m asking Lemmy now to weigh in to help settle this friendly debate.
Edit: Thanks everyone! From the comments, it sounds like my friend and I are both right and both wrong. lol. Feel free to keep chiming in, but I have to go do the 9-5 thing that pays my mortgage and cloud hosting bills.
If you’re interacting with other users then there’s 0 question it’s social media.
By that logic every comment section under a random newspaper’s article is social media. I dont think this forum esque, link feed with comment sections kind of social media that lemmy is, qualifies. Reddit didnt either for the longest time, before they started trying to form a culture and drowned in self referencing humor and repetitive one liner comments.
I’ve seen people get into week long threads in the comments section of ‘GoComics’
Yes, that is also social media. Being terrible, bottom of the barrel social media doesn’t make it less social media. It’s still people gathering in a place discussing topics. A fleeting place discussing news articles, but still.
Comments sections on news articles are usually an afterthought to try to boost “engagement” and be a “me too”. Comments on Lemmy are a deliberate and integral part of it. Lemmy as just a link aggregator wouldn’t attract any users, the comments section are what keep people here and interacting with others.