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.
To me they are social media.
You can also follow topics/communities on other platforms, and on Reddit you can follow people/accounts.
There’s not much difference.
Yeah it’s more like a sliding scale where some platforms are deeply about following people, and some about topics, but I’m the end it’s all social media.
I think one aspect OP didn’t talk about is anonymity, for me the biggest differentiator is that on lemmy/Reddit you have no idea who the accounts are most of the time (and more importantly, nobody knows who you are).
I think they’re antisocial media. Reddit more than lemmy, though, which feels a bit like a community sometimes.