Daryl Sng on Mythryl: “Wasn’t that the exciting part of social media for many at first?…”

It fascinates me how some people on social media nowadays actively seem to be weirded out when you attempt to actively interact with them, or to reply to their posts - as if they assume it’s a broadcast-first medium.

Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕@liao.shen-yi.org

Other people have noticed this phenomenon too but danah boyd put the best slogan to it: social media is now parasocial media. Social media hasn't been social for a long while—how long depending on the platform, depending on the milieu. It's not folks sharing equally, but broadcasting and receiving.

journals.sagepub.comSocial Media Is Now Parasocial Media - danah boyd, 2026When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms...

Post