the silent terror of social media

Harlequin said:

There is a game aspect to twitter that reminds me of a puzzle, or indeed of writing. This word increases engagement. This word decreases. Capitalisation, phrasing, timing all matter. Everything can be refined for maximum effect. Of course, writing has editing, which makes refinement of those things easier. And then, rehearsing possible phrases and trying to anticipate reactions has the quality of a conversation based RPG: do it right and you acquire faction points with your party members and various NPC groups. Selecting optional side quests can win additional experience and sidestep combats. Sometimes, it's almost fun.

But it isn't a game, of course. Not really. There is no reload option and a lot of real world consequences for mistakes. The fun dries up when that happens. Periodically, I remember that it isnt a game and have a mild panic about the whole thing.

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Absolutely yes, the gamification aspect of social media (and Twitter especially) is rather easy to get sucked into, especially if that's the kind of thing you like.

Watching the conversation develop, I have to admit that I lied. I use Twitter rather extensively for work, where I don't get to yell about politics (BUT THEN WHAT ELSE WILL I YELL ABOUT!?!?!). It's easy, but boring, and sometimes makes the whole thing feel even more inane and empty. But I like Tweetdeck, between the edit button, the scheduling, and the superior emoji game.

I left FB because I wasn't using it to best effect, and wasn't getting anything from it. I also left a couple of writers' marketing groups because they were endorsing scam publishers (and I got dinged for calling it out to the mods).

I enjoy Twitter, but keep some firm limits. I'm also a hardass when it comes to reporting and blocking. I make mistakes of my own, for which I get duly blocked. But I don't agonize over it: once I've made my apologies (if I make them).

I also leave social media whenever I need to, because of more important matters.

ElaineA said:

For fiction writers, this is not true. For non-fiction, platform is everything, so social media following matters. But I have seen far more agents say it’s not at all necessary for fiction. I think Jessica Faust says as much in the thread she’s participating in the Ask the Agent forum.

Write a book people want to read. Let the people who love the book talk it up. Reader word-of-mouth sells way more books than any marketing a writer can do.

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I know the thread's moved on, but thank you for this. I'm a fiction author with my third book recently out--the one I hope will be my break-out novel, whatever that ends up meaning for me. And I've been paralyzed with social media guilt since it came out, feeling like I should be on there putting myself out there, every day... and not doing it. I have a FB author page but no personal page (long story) & a Twitter account, but I've only used them to announce blog posts--but I was sure I ought to be doing more in an attempt to promote the book and I. Just. Couldn't.

For one thing social media has never connected for me, never. It's always felt like a confusing chore and, yay, an additional social minefield plunked on top of the real-life one like a toxic cherry on a sundae made with milk from Chernobyl. Also, what the heck does a fiction author even say on Twitter? As soon as you have anything interesting to share it's probably a spoiler. My current series is Holocaust fiction so I guess I could try the "angles" of going after neo-Nazis or trying to raise awareness about the refugee crisis, but neo-Nazis thrive on negative attention and I do want people to be aware of the refugee crisis but tacking on "and by the way this is related to my book" feels gross.

I think I really need to enter the space of trusting that I wrote a book people want to read (which I believe I did, and absolutely busted my butt to do.) This really helps me do that, so thank you.

It can also just be a way of expressing yourself for other reasons but in a way that is benign or positive for your brand overall. But that is more for the not-introverted sorts.

SwallowFeather said:

... Also, what the heck does a fiction author even say on Twitter?

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I rarely mention my books on Twitter (my pinned tweet has a brief video about them - one is fiction.) I do tweet links to my latest blog posts, and if people click through to my blog, they will see my books (with Amazon links) on the side bar. Otherwise, I tweet a lot about sports, some music, books, and hope that people will engage. (I do have another Twitter account where I never mention my books or blog - I tweet mostly about politics there.)

+1 for Asperger's and social media not playing well together. I get stressed about misunderstandings all the time, even just on AW, or in slack/discord groups populated with only friends. I daydream sometimes about interacting with readers (should I ever get any) on Twitch, but that'll probably stay a daydream

ElaineA said:

....
But I’ll tell you what, I noticed the change almost immediately when they switched to the heart. There’s something—again, psychological—about that heart. It’s much more of an emotional connection than a gold star, and the cliquish nature of Twitter seemed to really take off when they made that change and purposely made Twitter more like FB....

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Fun fact: Companies like Yahoo, Google, Twitter, and FaceBook and it doesn't stop there, are constantly testing various triggers on web surfers. They change your face page, sometimes very subtly, sometimes more obviously. And they don't do it market wide, they do it on test markets. If it gets more hits or whatever change they are measuring profit from, they adopt the change.

Not that long ago Chrome lightened the color on the little tool bar on the right hand side of my screen. It annoyed the hell out of me but it must have accomplished something because it's still a very light grey.

Yahoo news stories have the most disgusting feature at the moment with new comments appearing in little dialogue bubbles at the bottom of the page. Fuck that. Maybe other people can't wait to be pulled into a conversation with whomever is posting comments but I can't stand it. I close the bubble but the damn thing pops up again with every new comment. I avoid Yahoo news stories.

We are constantly being probed and recorded in some giant marketing scheme.

Harlequin said:

... I've once (thankfully JUST the once) had ten people jump on me for a misunderstanding. That's by no means a big mob, but it was more than enough to stress me out for the entire evening.

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I purposely got involved in the news comments about the nurse in Maine who volunteered to care for ebola patients a couple years back. Talk about a rabid mob. She didn't have ebola, she was never contagious but the ignorance was off the charts. I made an effort to attack the ignorance and support her and her boyfriend. Sometimes it matters. I tried not to get stressed out.

Introversion said:

I think that's not true. Many who are targeted are targeted by those who are racist, misogynistic, etc. The victims themselves are often simply targets who dare to say things racist/sexist asshats disagree with.

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QFT

I have a FaceBook page but I never post anything on it. I use it so I can see my cousins' pages. It's so bizarre to me what strange things they post from a pic of a new toilet to the giant Margarita glass one of my cousins gets every time they go out to eat. On the other hand, one of my cousins posts pics of beautiful Hawaiian sunsets and her dogs. I appreciate her simple life. And my brother and a couple of our cousins post old photos of our parents when they were young. I love those.

The only Tweets I read, and I don't follow anyone, are the comments against Trump after his posts. The anti-Trump Tweets give me hope.

Had a great chat last night in the Twitter group #storysocial. It's by writers, for writers, discussing different writing topics. Last night, we were discussing killing characters -- what makes a good death scene, what makes a bad one, etc. Our moderator has something special planned for Halloween, it sounds like, so if you're thinking about dipping a toe into Twitter, I cordially invite any and all to join us, using the hashtag #storysocial. It's a fairly fast moving thread, but she posts a synopsis of the thread on Fridays on her web page.

Edit: Guess if I'm inviting you, I should tell you when we get together. #storysocial is on Wednesday night at 9pm Eastern. I'll let you figure out your own time zones.

Harlequin said:

*whispers into the void: C O N S U M E M E *

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The browser rendered that without the extra space before ME. I parsed it as best I could, but then had to wonder what a CONSU-MEME was. I know what a meme is, but not this variant. Social media, so confusing!

MaeZe said:

Fun fact: Companies like Yahoo, Google, Twitter, and FaceBook and it doesn't stop there, are constantly testing various triggers on web surfers. They change your face page, sometimes very subtly, sometimes more obviously. And they don't do it market wide, they do it on test markets. If it gets more hits or whatever change they are measuring profit from, they adopt the change.

Not that long ago Chrome lightened the color on the little tool bar on the right hand side of my screen. It annoyed the hell out of me but it must have accomplished something because it's still a very light grey.

Yahoo news stories have the most disgusting feature at the moment with new comments appearing in little dialogue bubbles at the bottom of the page. Fuck that. Maybe other people can't wait to be pulled into a conversation with whomever is posting comments but I can't stand it. I close the bubble but the damn thing pops up again with every new comment. I avoid Yahoo news stories.

We are constantly being probed and recorded in some giant marketing scheme.

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This is absolutely the case. Tech companies approach their products iteratively: constantly try new stuff, see what sticks, user experience be damned.

The cynical part of me puts more of it down to the phenomenon that always seems to occur after a successful product is launched. Most tech products start very small, with a small team working on it and testing it carefully out of the public eye for years. Then it launches, one in a million make a really nice profit, and all of a sudden the team grows, 'cause who doesn't like growth? You get 20 new UI designers from some degree factory, an army of marketing types, loads of implementation folks, and if you're very lucky a UX designer who may or may not actually know what UX is. Meanwhile, the creative direction behind the project has usually moved onto pastures new because what tends to excite the really creative types is new ideas rather than new marketers. So you get left with a bunch of "Creatives" who then have to justify their positions and often astronomical salaries. Consequently, a bunch of pointless, superficial design changes get made, often according to whichever trend is hot right now in the tech blogosphere or at Valley conferences--nothing changes with the underlying systems, but the usability gets very slowly worse resulting in a glacier-like bleed of users that won't be detected until it's too late and the platform is irrelevant.

This could be "Google+: A Life Story" but I've seen it happen across the board.

VeryBigBeard, you are 100% right. That is the reason I will never work in that field again. It's just too ridiculous and I can't take it seriously.