There's a pervasive strain of world-saviorism that contends that mainstream social media is evil, rotten, and terrible for you, and that it's our job to rescue the poor fools who still use it.
But first, we have to convince them to be rescued. (The idiots.)
It's reminiscent of the "anti-trafficking" industry/grift: identify a social ill, exaggerate the prevalence of harm wildly out of proportion, then "rescue" unwitting "victims" who would prefer to be left alone.
"But pnppl," you say, "don't you hate social media too? In fact, didn't you delete all your accounts a decade ago? Don't you whine incessantly about how much you hate Discord and refuse to use it?" Well, yes. But most people don't have the same problems with it that I do. Let's make a list:
- Addiction: only a small minority of users become heavy users (just like with everything else the term "addiction" gets applied to). Fear of becoming addicted is not a reasonable thing for most people to worry about. (It's also definitely not why people stay on these platforms.)
- Oligopoly: this subtly degrades the user experience for everyone, but if you aren't an ideologue this isn't something that would make you want to switch. If anything, it's a benefit, because the consolidated silo has plenty of people to talk to.
- Surveillance: like oligopoly, this doesn't actually matter to most users. It pervasively affects how they talk, but the vast majority will suffer no measurable harm from it. They also volunteer plenty of information even on platforms that don't actively surveil their users. Why should they care? Most of them aren't at serious risk of disappearing in the night for something they post online.
- Censorship: see above.
- Toxicity: people say they hate the perceived toxicity of social media, but it's actually a plus. It keeps people engaged because it's fun. Drama is interesting and it naturally emerges when enough humans gather in one place, so it's actually more of an indicator of a healthy community than an unhealthy one. Of course, outright hate content severely degrades the experience for targeted users, but again: they are in the minority. They're not the ones you need to convince if you want to save the world.
- Proprietary code: lol.
As a budding cult recruiter, what can you offer people in exchange for giving up the things they have no desire to give up?
- Education: they
haveboringno interest in - Labor: they
haveutterly pointlessstalk - Interaction: they
havesmall and weirdboring - Purity: their souls will be cleansed and reborn.
Your sales pitch is "you can still do most of the things that you're doing now, but it will be harder. Also it will be impercetibly Good somehow... for, uh... for your health!"
Normies don't reject the alt-nerd lifestyle because they're too stupid for it. They do it because they're too smart.