#36 What does it mean to be online?

W/C 10 April

Hello and welcome to #36. This edition is one year after my first proper Substack went out and today is the day after it Substack launched Notes, a Twitter competitor. A lot can happen in a year, the reason I started this Substack is kind of playing out in front of us, not only on Twitter but across social. For new Subs, here is the original post.

Keeping the intro quite short because I am a little under the weather and also want to get into the content, item one below really impacted my reading this weekend.

Now, on to the #content.

1. What does it mean to be a boy online in 2023?

This really impacted me this weekend.

It’s a thoughtful and long piece on being a young teen boy online and it touches on influencers, YouTube and Tik Tok. It made me want to quit my job and focus on doing something helpful for this and the following generations, I dunno what, but yes it kinda scared me and I got grandiose. Or at least it made me feel something. It made me reflect on being a father, on social media, my career, the internet and well, masculinity now and in the future. I actually played with the idea of just sharing this post as the only link this week, I’m probably feeling all the feelings as I am a little under the weather.

For all of us who work in digital, advertising, social or whatever tech, which most of the readers to my SubStack do, it feels like important reading. In the periphery of our jobs we almost certainly know what is going on in this world but I for one don’t go deep enough on it. It made me consider some of the rules I thought I’d be and am quite lax on as a father (device/TV time) and then I wondered, is it different to when I was a kid? It feels like yes, yes it is and I’m unsure what the tools are. I suppose, you have to bet on your influence in giving your children the framework to be a good well rounded human.

By the way, feels apt here to share my favourite parenting Substack,

The New Fatherhood

which I’ve often found thought-provoking and well a great community.

2. Substack x Twitter

You’ve all seen it. Substack is releasing Notes (as I edit this, it’s literally just launched now), which is basically Twitter (I am excited for it) and Twitter did its thing, then reversed it. It’s classic Twitter.

This line from

Platformer

feels well, everything.

And each time I have to explain that it’s actually just what it looks like: a man bought Twitter for $44 billion, had no idea what he was doing, and is now just changing things at random to see what will happen.

Oh and the Ex CEO is taking Twitter to court for unpaid legal bills and maybe more.

3. Social media is dead

The sentiment of this is one I have been saying for a while, I even said it to a slightly surprised new agency a few months ago. The social part of the platforms we use is mostly gone/going. I think you could write this every year, but this feels more real now for many reasons <Points everywhere>.

Sidenote, games are the new social. 👀

4. How the taste economy works

Why do we even buy things? As always smart thinking, frameworks and thoughts. Once again, fashion/taste = lot of insight.

5. Lemon8, owned by Bytedance hits the US app store

Not sure many platforms can do multiple platform wins, other than Bytedance. Even Tik Tok was an acquisition of sorts tbf. This is interesting as will this be banned? If so, what is the line of users which would lead to one?

Tweets and Toks.

Usually I’d post interesting tweets, but the embed is broken. So here are some screenshots. Click to go through.

Bonus.

Succession. That’s all. TV only HBO can make.

All the spelling and grammatical mistakes in this Substack are on purpose to test you, actually. Well done. You got them all. No, I don’t need to know about them, you have that kudos.