Social media rant!

[LouisvilleLlama]

Just a heads up this was originally titled " aibu to think that Twitter is just about confrontations and self promotions now" but got into a larger rant.

I used to love Twitter, in fact I used it to keep up with a hobby that has news mostly daily, but just recently it seems people in general are either tweeting to:

1. promote themselves or a product "come see me at ..." or " I'll be on,
   ..." check out X"
   
   
2. people trying to get attention by saying controversial things to get RTs etc.
   
   Thing is I'm a marketing graduate and a lot of it was to do with social media and i still think it's a great tool but I don't see why people are obsessed recently. My examples aren't even just about children you have the presidential candidates taking stupid swipes at eachother and they should be one of the most sensible people on the earth. Sure sometimes good comes out of it Viral videos or challenges for charity, missing people etc.
   
   Facebook as well seems self promotion driven, we are bombarded by promoted material which I know they need to make money to keep the site running etc, but then I found myself eventually following pages which were just bombarding me with content, I scrolled down you wouldn't think I had friends just loads of pages which of course of it wasn't an advert in disguise in the form of a picture, you'd have to click on a link, to their site where there's adverts and the content? Stolen from Reddit or Mumsnet or similar so literally they're adding a couple 100 words to make it seem not a complete copy and paste job " whilst whereswaldo couldn't believe what was being said [enter copy and pasted stuff from website]"
   So they're literally earning money from finding "interesting" stories from sources that their target audience probably already go to.
   
   
   Then the friends a lot of it is just selling crap like juice plus or whatever, whilst also being added to groups involuntarily, where last time I checked the owner of the group could keep adding you a couple times before blocking it.
   
   Instagram is generally self promotion, I'd say 80% is promotional based not just by companies but also by people because if you get X amount of followers you get companies sponsoring you to do product placement etc. The lighthearted accounts or motivational accounts still get revenue.
   
   YouTube is again the well known self promotion machine, and I have issues with it but feel it's the best kind of social media. They pay the most followed channels part of the ad revenue to incentivise them to churn out videos, but my issue is with game based channels, or make up tutorials or whatever. I personally like games, I go there looking for info and real reviews by actual people not those working for magazines but it's hard because the bigger franchises give exclusive and free content to big youtubers and they make a living out of the game so they won't bite the hand that feeds them. And tutorial videos get sponsored so people see them and think oh that must be the best and get it.But I think there is still good content on YouTube and some that earn money from it but are still content focused, and just generally good videos
   
   
   Before anyone mentions it I'm not jealous of these people making money but I think it's wrong how they inadvertently do it,and people go to them for information and it's biased, and i just don't see much reason for most people to go on them as they just seem mega marketing machines

[littlesallyracket]

I think it's all about who you choose to follow. I only follow the people and accounts I find interesting, and I unfollow when they stop being interesting. I follow some people who do use their accounts to promote their work, but only if their work is something I want to read about anyway. On Facebook, I only friend people I know in real life and if they're irritating on social media I unfollow them without unfriending.

I follow a few hundred people on Twitter but I think only about five of them are bloggers/YouTubers, and they're all people who make it clear when they're getting paid to promote stuff and when things have been gifted to them.

I agree there's a ton of crap out there but the quality of your newsfeed will always be about who you choose to include in it, I think.

[PNGirl]

YABU to think that anything said in the past 5 years by a Youtuber with more than 1000 subscribers is more genuine than a magazine. It really annoys me that some people (not you OP obviously) still think it's a nice hobby that people do for the love of the subject matter. Magazine journalists have a salary and are vetted when they're hired; they don't get individual ongoing sponsorship deals worth tens of thousands based entirely on their number of followers rather than their expertise.

Anyway... I do agree. I'm sick of hiding sponsored tweets and Facebook posts. I also stopped following anyone on Instagram who isn't a real-life friend.