Recently, the most profound insight I've gained about social interaction is that socializing must occur within a community; the need for social interaction can only be fulfilled within a community.
This may sound like a cliché, but with the development of the internet, many online "social" behaviors have been simplistically reduced to buttons for liking, saving, sharing, commenting, and so on. We gradually come to believe that as long as there are these interactive applications, it constitutes social media, as if socializing based on content is a given... However, when we continuously engage in such interactions on the dazzling array of so-called "social media," we often feel a deeper emptiness inside. The underlying reason is that socializing is fundamentally based on community, and the sense of community in many so-called social media is disappearing, making it difficult for our social needs to be truly satisfied.
What is wrong with today's social media? Today's social media lacks community.
Understanding Socializing, Community, and Social Media#
In some contexts, "socializing" may be a relatively broad concept, but today I want to discuss "socializing" in relation to human psychological needs: connecting with others.
So what is a community? It is a group of people connected based on some relationship. This relationship is very flexible; it may stem from the same hometown—when in a foreign land, a hometown association is a natural community; it may be based on shared interests—people who enjoy skiing form a skiing community; or it may be about sharing common ideals—people who love the open-source spirit build an open-source community together... In short, it must be based on a relatively specific relationship (comparatively speaking, "we are all human" is a very broad relationship).
The community defined here can be tight-knit or loose, may have a fixed organizational form or may not, but the key point is that there is a "connection."
From the definitions above, it is evident that socializing that meets human psychological needs is certainly based on community, because the premise of connecting with others is naturally having a relationship to connect. This relationship has already defined the community. Moreover, typically, the tighter the community, the easier it is to satisfy people's social needs.
Social behavior may promote the emergence of communities, and within communities, people's social needs will be further met.
So what is social media? Here, I will paste the definition from Wikipedia: Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. Although the forms of social media have become increasingly flexible over the decades of internet evolution, the core of social media is to create and share information platforms.
In the "traditional" sense, content platforms and social platforms may be distinguished, but it is evident that the current trend is "content platforms becoming socialized, social platforms becoming content-oriented." Whether originally a content platform or a social platform, they are now developing towards being "both a social platform and a content platform." Whether driven by the platform or spontaneous user behavior, the result is the same, and this is true in both Asia and Europe and America. For example, YouTube, as a typical content platform, has introduced features like the Community Tab and Shorts, which continuously emphasize community/social attributes; NetEase Cloud Music, as a music content platform, has seen high-frequency spontaneous social behavior in the comment section, and the official platform has been strengthening the concept of "Cloud Village" to enhance the community aspect, so it can now also be considered a social platform; even Toutiao, which appears to be a typical content platform, actually serves as a social platform for middle-aged and elderly people; and Twitter, as a typical social platform, has changed its default timeline from Following to For You—shifting towards short content.
These examples illustrate that the scope of what social media refers to is actually quite broad. This article does not intend to be confined to discussing social media in terms of product forms, but rather to discuss social media in a more general sense.
Classification of Social Media#
According to classic internet theory, based on the medium that facilitates social relationships, the two most common forms of socializing are content-based socializing and relationship-based socializing. Content-based socializing establishes connections based on produced content, such as Weibo; relationship-based socializing, as the name suggests, is socializing based on relationships, with Facebook or WeChat (Moments) being examples of this.
According to the earlier definition of community: "a group of people connected based on some relationship," relationship-based socializing is naturally based on community. For instance, in Moments, people share content, and they may already be family/friends/colleagues, forming a community of acquaintances. In relationship-based socializing, because everyone knows each other, or at least has established some relationship through some opportunity, socializing becomes meaningful.
Content-based socializing, on the other hand, does not have this pre-existing relationship; the only connection might be that I happen to see the content you posted. This is a very loose bond and does not inherently make socializing based on it meaningful. If socializing based on this can seem meaningful, it can only be because the intrinsic connection formed based on content is significant enough, with the most common forms being interest communities or knowledge communities formed around content.
Making relationships formed based on content meaningful enough is a very challenging task, but in the deeper analysis in the next section, we will realize that platforms that do socializing well are doing this very well, meaning they have successfully built content communities.
Of course, a social media platform cannot be exclusively content-based or relationship-based; both must coexist. For example, even if most of the Moments are "acquaintances," there are still a few people with weak connections (like a chance encounter with a micro-business). If you find the content they post interesting and interact with them, it then becomes content-based socializing. Similarly, major content platforms often like to recommend "friends you might know" to you, which is actually aimed at promoting relationship-based socializing. But let us focus on the mainstream usage of the platform, or in Web2 terms, let us focus on the platform's "high frequency."
Content-Based Social Media Must Have "Tone"#
When I say "tone," I am referring to the atmosphere, style, attitude, etc., of the platform or even the community.
We often observe that the stronger the community atmosphere of a platform, the more willing users are to socialize there, which is a reaffirmation of the idea that "social needs must be met within a community." Especially for a content-based platform, if it can do socializing well, it must be due to its "tone," which is usually achieved through the uniqueness of the content.
Tone + people indeed have social needs on this platform drives the gears of operation, facilitating community formation, and the unique atmosphere of the formed community is a powerful drug for increasing user stickiness. In this mutually reinforcing gear, functions like posting content, liking, and sharing are merely tools that can only help further community formation under the premise of existing social needs, rather than people developing social needs simply because these functions exist.
For a typical content-based social media platform, there are usually three forms and levels of community:
- The overall user base of the platform as a community
- A community formed by a group of people (usually an interest community)
- A community formed around a particular KOL
These three are not mutually independent; most of the time, they promote each other. However, initially, for a platform to have at least one of the above three types of communities is necessary for it to potentially become a social media platform; otherwise, it can only be a tool or a pure content platform.
Before citing successful examples, let us first look at a failed example: Alipay.
Alipay has made multiple attempts at socialization, but they all seem to have been in vain. Let us understand this issue from the perspective of community.
Firstly, in the mainland market, where relationship-based socializing has been monopolized by Tencent, it is almost impossible for Alipay to succeed in relationship-based socializing.
Next, let us examine the possibility of content-based socializing. Alipay's initial positioning was as a payment tool for everyone, so on one hand, users have long perceived it as a tool, and the style of tools tends to be neutral. More importantly, the target audience of such a product is too broad, making it nearly impossible to form any meaningful connections based on the entire user base. The more widespread Alipay's payment function becomes, the more this holds true. How can we feel a sense of community just because we spend money every day? Oh, it might be possible, after all, the mainland version of Alipay uses RMB, so the most suitable community for it seems to be a patriotic community, with content like "today the US stock market crashed, tomorrow Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, the day after Greece went bankrupt, and finally concluding to long the RMB, and for payments, still use Alipay:) In other words, Alipay does not have an advantage in the first type of community mentioned.
As for the second and third types, Alipay's current attempts are to create a community in the financial management sector, which is actually a good entry point, aligning with Alipay's own functions, and during times of market volatility, like now, the demand for discussion and exchange increases (just like trading cryptocurrencies, sometimes forming teams for rights protection, sometimes calling family, sometimes analyzing the Federal Reserve's impact on Bitcoin, sometimes discussing which altcoin to invest in, sometimes teaching you how to read candlestick charts, and sometimes explaining how to read the market with Zi Wei, it's lively), and based on my observations, Alipay's financial management community (or called Ant Financial Management Community? See the image below. I am not a professional product researcher and haven't fully understood the past and present of the Ant Financial Management Community; it seems to have previously been a fund comment section?) is actually doing quite well, as many users share their real trading operations, and even during last year's Spring Festival, users spontaneously formed a "blind date corner," although such events may only be fleeting moments, they are indeed real social interactions. However, so far, the entire community has not formed a clear "tone," whether in terms of the community as a whole or the small circles led by KOLs, there is no prominent style, and the sense of connection within the community is still relatively weak; rather than being a community, it feels more like a plaza.
Another relatively successful "social" case for Alipay is Ant Forest, but Ant Forest is a rather special example. It does not belong to content-based socializing but is more like SocialFi, which I will analyze separately when I have the opportunity.
Now, looking back at some "successful" social media examples. Taking Bilibili and Xiaohongshu as examples, both have their own characteristics, but undoubtedly they can both be called content platforms and social platforms, meaning they are social platforms that can genuinely satisfy people's social needs. Correspondingly, both of these apps have a very strong tone, especially in their early days, with a very strong sense of community. Although this may not be the case now, we will analyze this in the next section.
For instance, Bilibili has almost reached a point where any ACGN enthusiast in the Chinese-speaking world cannot be a Bilibili user; the overall cultural atmosphere is very prominent, and the sense of community is strong. Moreover, ACGN can naturally form communities based on different "IPs," with the sentiment of "as long as you like xxx, we are good friends" being familiar to everyone.
As for Xiaohongshu's atmosphere, it is also a breath of fresh air on the internet. Without discussing the merits or flaws of Xiaohongshu's unique text formatting style, it must be acknowledged that this is also a testament to its community atmosphere. On the other hand, Xiaohongshu, starting from life experiences and primarily targeting female users, has truly achieved the atmosphere of "sincere sharing, friendly interaction" as stated in its community guidelines.
Of course, the formation of this "tone" is not only due to spontaneous user behavior; operational guidance is also very important. But in any case, we can see that if a content-based social media platform can genuinely make users happy, it invariably has a strong "tone."
Content-Based Platforms Becoming Content Discovery Platforms#
Finally, we come to today's social media.
Earlier, I mentioned that content-based social media must have "tone," but this statement is not entirely accurate. A more accurate statement is that early content-based social media must have tone. Some may say that the so-called community atmosphere is merely a manifestation of a niche, and as user numbers grow, it will inevitably be "diluted." However, this is not necessarily a failure or an irreconcilable contradiction; if a social media platform's content is rich enough, it can also form a sufficiently complex community ecology, with many kinds of "tones," or even a state of "no tone," thus achieving a "large and beautiful" outcome.
The most common way to achieve this is through algorithmic recommendations. This is also the easiest way for platforms to break out of their niche, such as Bilibili's homepage redesign six years ago, which was an attempt in this direction.
However, perhaps this method is too clever, or perhaps as the platform expands, the pressure for commercial monetization increases, or there are more complex issues behind it, but in any case, the current situation is that content platforms are increasingly resembling social platforms less and less, and more and more like content discovery platforms.
Do current platforms still have "tone"? The content of the platform itself may still have it, but if we are talking about community atmosphere, unfortunately, it is disappearing because communities are disappearing. Let me repeat: the growth of users does not inevitably lead to the disappearance of communities; the direct reason for the disappearance of communities is that content platforms are becoming more like content discovery platforms and have not provided a way for people who enjoy similar content to connect well. The ultimate form of content discovery platforms is like Google Search, which can at most be a very broad community, right?
When a platform is left with only content, there is no community. People will still like, comment, and interact, but what remains are only symbols; comments are merely people talking past each other, most of the time just an abstract cultural lonely carnival. The meaning of socializing is being dissolved. I believe algorithms can evolve to be more "intelligent" and "understand" what we like to watch, but these cannot provide us with more satisfaction. Do we need so much information? Of course not. What we need is to connect with others. Moreover, if it is truly about obtaining information, we should not be getting it from a large amount of fragmented information. But that doesn't matter; there is no need to demand efficiency in everything, and indeed, this fragmented information can to some extent broaden our horizons and enrich our experiences; the key issue is still that our social needs have not been met.
When I surf various social media, I often come across lifestyle or sports tips that I might be interested in, or some principles and knowledge that I might also find somewhat interesting... but I always wonder, why do I need to see these? This content is quite fascinating and captivating, but what does it have to do with me? From this perspective, I actually have no interest at all. My friends' lives may not be that "exciting," but I would rather open Telegram and chat with them, listening to what has happened recently.
I don't want to conclude that using these social media and chatting with friends are two opposing things. They could originally be one thing; why can't we socialize while browsing information in a community? (As I write this, I suddenly realize that the social media closest to this form is Mastodon, where each server is an independent community, each with its own atmosphere and style, but everyone in the community feels seen.) Unfortunately, the problem is that most content-based social media only focus on content recommendations, neglecting people's connections. The issues exposed by this product form are actually that the pressure for commercial monetization of the platform is inconsistent with meeting people's social needs.
After repeated verification, it seems that the form of content discovery platforms is the easiest way to increase traffic and also the easiest to monetize, so major social media platforms have chosen this route. However, the consequence of this is that the content people receive becomes too scattered, and the content recommendations that specifically target human weaknesses prevent people from focusing, resulting in an inability to establish more effective connections. Moreover, the platforms' attempts to more directly hit human weaknesses, i.e., more precise recommendations, have the side effect of causing content creators to become increasingly "vertical" and robotic in order to be more accurately tagged and thus trained by the platform's algorithms. These may be "high-quality" content, and they may also successfully drive sales, but these "content creators" are not the people everyone wants to be friends with. People's social interactions become cheap, distorted, and meaningless...
Unfortunately, this is today's social media. I cannot draw any conclusions or point out any solutions; I can only say that the only hope I see is to redefine ownership and value distribution through Web3, although this is also a vague and uncertain hope.
Conclusion#
The inability of today's social media to meet people's social needs is a result, and there are many underlying reasons. "Lack of community" will not be the only problem, nor can it be considered a more fundamental reason, such as the attention economy that is often criticized, algorithmic manipulation, exploitation of creators' value, and so on, all of which are issues with today's social media. However, this article chooses to approach the issue from the perspective of community in hopes of understanding social media through the lens of socializing itself, to understand what is happening with today's social media.
What is wrong with today's social media? Let me quote nankeyike's comic as a conclusion:
"It feels like you have opened a window and seen an incredibly prosperous city outside. But that is a city where you do not exist. All the information seems to be just splashes of water falling from the back of your hand, providing at most a fleeting stimulation and the brief coolness that comes with it."