alyssa d'amato

mco 427 – blog post #4

Being raised in an increasingly digital society with a growing dependence on social media platforms and applications for everyday processes such as communication, work, academics, job hunting, networking, meeting friends/prospective partners, obtaining news, entertainment– just about any function you can think of, really– I have observed the evolution of these platforms as closely and naturally as my own, as I have grown and evolved with them. I witnessed the launching of YouTube and its prime age, as well as the rise (and fall) of Vine, the transition of Musical.ly into TikTok, and I am here to analyze (as well as partake) in the current dominance of the short clips/reels era highly perpetuated by the reign of TikTok we now find ourselves in.

Those in my generation who once aspired to become YouTube content creators now tend to entertain the less polished, more ‘authentic’ feel of TikTok videos, or Instagram reels, instead. Current trends (upon MANY that are recycled, replaced, rotated, forgotten and resurfaced) include various dances to trendy songs (such as Chanel by Tyla or Midnight Sun by Zara Larsson), reflecting on or replicating 2016 nostalgia (complete and featuring Forever 21/H&M attire, a Starbucks unicorn frappe, a ‘Rio De Janeiro’ colored filter and a street dance accompanied by Alan Walker’s Faded or Lean On by Major Lazer), acoustic singing in a parking garage, or Gen Z favorites like crashing out in your car and the Nick Wilde scuba meme.

After a point of seeing so many of these trends in execution, I believe many of us become desensitized to them to a degree– at least, it tends to occur to us less frequently how many of these contributions are often downright unnatural (I can’t tell you how many MORE TikTok users I began to notice after influencer Gemma Moro first went viral posting videos of herself screaming/crying in her car while sharing a frustrating experience, typically in regards to her occupation as a server in the restaurant industry; many of these replications, in their frequency and sheer over-the-top nature, I speculate are far past the point of being genuine and more of a bid to achieve virality).

Recent analyses have also gained attention breaking down the process of autotuning your voice in post, and how many of these trendy acoustic singing reels– social media star Anthony Gargiulia cited as a popular example– are not nearly as raw and real as we are led to believe, offering viewers a false and unrealistic perception of what voices should sound like.

What’s more, the number of accounts that use generative AI in their content is staggering. More often than not, I am DM’ed clips on Instagram by my mom, only to have to regretfully inform her that the content that captivated her attention, while often (rightfully) shocking or concerning, were merely the workings of AI prompted by an account that achieved what it likely intended to from the start: tricking her into sharing it.

Content creators, influencers, burner/alternative/pseudonymous (or otherwise secondary) accounts, as well as your average social media user all use these platforms in countless, ever changing ways that impact the daily experiences of people like you and I, for better or for worse. So it certainly begs the question: how are these platforms taking responsibility for their all-consuming role in so many of our lives and daily processes? How do they manage and stifle the heaps of misinformation so often and so easily passed around by so many of their users– whether intentionally or not– and how do they do so without concerns of speech censorship?

For sake of keeping things (somewhat) brief, I am going to be focusing on the attributes and policies instated by the platforms Instagram and Reddit— two very different platforms, yet two I use often, and two where information of all sorts runs rampant.

Reddit was an interesting one to start with because it is often highly regarded as a massively online network, where millions of users are able to congregate through virtual communities (known as ‘subreddits’), ask questions anonymously, and share knowledge on a particular subject. Personally, it is my platform of choice to gain ‘insider info’ on a brand or product, for instance, prior to committing to, subscribing, or making a purchase. On Reddit, I am almost always intentionally seeking particular insight and advice, as opposed to an application like Instagram where the informational content typically finds me instead (often in the form of attention-grabbing reels).

Reddit is unique because it offers a highly decentralized experience where users are not paid to inform (or misinform, for that matter). You may gain ‘karma’ and ‘upvotes’ from other users due to the words you share, if they are found helpful. But accounts are not seeking to uphold any image other than communal reliability– give reliability, get reliability in return. There are no sponsorships or sneaky shortcuts. People typically share based on their own often wide-spanning individual experiences, so the likelihood of what you find to be true is higher. Accounts are not seeking to uphold any image or form of recognition other than reliability– give reliability, get reliability in return. There are no sponsorships or sneaky shortcuts. Reddit accounts are often operated under obscure sobriquets or pseudonyms. It is more about ‘what’ as opposed to ‘who.’ In short– it is not about you.

So why– or rather, how— does this work so well?

Surprisingly, despite the vast myriad of thoughts and perspectives you are receiving such constant heightened exposure to, Reddit is for the most part self-operated, with each subreddit monitored by a team of self-appointed volunteers– regular users like you and I– with the ability to remove posts, ban users, and set community-specific guidelines. Despite being a sea of information, Reddit doesn’t have a specific ‘fact-checker’ implemented to catch and shut down misinformation; instead, due to its nature as being so community-lead, fellow users are often quick to downvote or debunk false claims in the comments, citing and pinning more reputable sources in subreddits with a greater influx of world news and applying “post flairs” (such as ‘misleading’ or ‘fact-checked’) to certain claims as either in support of or forewarning other readers who might encounter it. The site tracks individual accounts activity across various subreddits, so it is fairly easy to identify and even collectively ban those who have demonstrated problematic or potentially brigading intent.

Reddit’s side-wide policies are minimal, but they are enforced by paid administrators with a watchful eye for illegal content, excessive harassment and site-wide spam, and can delete communities that refuse to abide by said policies.

In direct contrast, Instagram has been dubbed the ‘popularity’ platform, where nothing is as it seems and every experience is manufactured for sake of upholding, or working to establish, a particular image. Instagram is all about ‘who.’ Who you follow. How you present yourself. While spam accounts or ‘finstas,’ which serve as a slightly more authentic glance into a person’s life, have gained popularity and fizzed out over the years, Instagram is heavily dominated by users with something to prove who are not afraid to throw authenticity to the wind by means of proving it. There are users on the platform committed to the sharing of knowledge, like any. But their names are attached and many of them are verified accounts that partake in sponsorships to make a buck, and most bear greater semblance to a traditional influencer after some time regardless of how they got their start. Instagram tends to be far more likely to embrace a shallow, impressionist culture of narcissism on a wide scale; this is the standard many of the most followed accounts set.