As I was driving to work this morning, I had a slice of a comment in my head, which was not sitting rightly with me. It was about content creators on social platforms looking for an audience. Which I get, because if you are a creator, you are looking to connect what you create with the consumer, otherwise, what is the point?
It raised the question in me though, should they be looking for an audience, or looking for a community?
This took me down a little rabbit hole of thought, because while an audience is obviously the goal, I feel that the algorithms on the social platforms are built for any audience, rather than the right audience for the content. I have a feeling that this is part of the reason there is so much division and polarization on Twitter for example, because the algorithms play for it and the incentives are for maximizing eyes, because those eyes aren't paying directly.
For example, if a person has to pay to go to a concert, they aren't likely to pay to go and see a band they don't like at all, just to sit in the crowd and not enjoy it. The band wouldn't care, because they get paid regardless. But on social media where no one is paying for content directly, it means that people can go to the concerts they don't like for free, and there is incentive to do so.
The incentive comes in the form of view count, which is where the polarization comes in, because people are able to crowd into venues as "haters" and therefore, generate view counts in the negative, so to speak. This is a race to the bottom, akin to football hooligans stabbing each other in the carpark after the game, because they support opposing teams. Yet, there is a difference, because while the football teams have an incentive to build a fanbase, they have little incentive to polarize their fans and have them become violent, because it destroys the atmosphere of the games, as we have seen multiple times over the years, with massive problems with pitch invasions and crowd violence.
On the social platforms however, there is only the incentive to generate activity from the audience, no matter who is in the audience or what they believe. For example, a person might be speaking out against racism, but they are actually incentivized to maximize their audience, which means also attracting racists. They need an opposing force to create tension, in order to attract defenders, to create more tension, so that they can then receive,
Attention.
Maximizing attention - That is what it is all about in an attention economy. In order to do this, it is about picking a side and then ramping up the drama to attract the other side to attack, then wind it up again to attract increased defense. The algorithms work for this end, as does the shift from creators to voyeurs on the platform. People can feel "part of the movement" whether they are for or against any topic of contention.
And the platforms win.
Ever been to a concert full of fans? There is an electricity in the air, which is filled with positive vibes. Quite a different feel than a violent protest rally, but online, it is the latter that is encouraged, as it maximizes transactions and gives access to the audiences of both sides. Without the limits of venue size, no price on tickets and the ability to be a hidden observer, the market potential is enormous for the platforms, because they can double up on the crowds and they can track the movements of the entire audience, using it to their advantage for ad revenue.
However, very few of these performers would want to actually spend time with that mix of people in real life, because it would be far too dangerous, far too much animosity between factions. However, they wouldn't mind spending time in a community of people who look on them favorable, who are actual fans of their work, not fans against their work.
Do you see how manipulative the platforms could be?
While the creator wants to maximize their audience because that is what monetizes their work, in order to do so, it is about volume of audience, not quality of audience. If however the audience had to "pay to view" the work, it is likely that the audience would comprise of far more favorable than unfavorable members and, those members would be "like minds" in the sense that they would likely be willing to spend time together, to create a community, even if it is loose. They could all go to the same bar, listen to the same music and have a good time.
Being good at what you do isn't enough to attract the algorithms most of the time on the social platforms, you also have to be talking about something that polarizes people in order to be monetized. As a result, the discussions and their topics tend to be quite base in order to pull in as large an audience as possible, which will likely be dominated by the loudest voices, which tend to be the most extreme of the groups and, they get attention, lifting the worst of both sides into the limelight. Those in the middle go unheard, because they are too nuanced and if they speak too loudly, they will be attacked by both sides, for not being extreme enough.
And I think this is the conclusion I have come to at this point. Social media has benefited from polarizing discussions, which has also fractured a lot of our relationships. This change in culture has disconnected us and our continual consumption and absorption of the media has isolated us further, changing our habits and spilling the digital world into the physical world. As a result, we are more polarized, more combative, more violent, and we support in black and white, without nuance.
And communities suffer.
So I wonder, in terms of a healthier future for creators, is the aim to find an audience for the content, or build a community around it?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]