The Design of 4chan

Designing for Engagement

We are currently seeing the results of social media’s algorithm and its overwhelming production of fascists. We can pretend that it’s not a suprise, but, with intellectual honesty, we never ask “Why not?” We all say we saw it coming and we all have something to say about human nature and The Algorithm^TM, but I intend to expand my scope to the design of these interactions themselves. For this, we have to look at the capitalists who run these organizations and what they decide their KPI (key performance indicator) usually is: Engagement

“Engagement” is a deliberately vague, nebulous word that can mean whatever the shareholders for that quarter want it to mean, but it consistently comes down to 4-5 metrics:

1. follows
   • for seeing posts from the author more often
2. shares
   • for spreading posts to more people
3. comment
   • audience interaction
4. likes
   • signifier of preference
5. views (for time based media platforms)
   • signifier of choice

This seems like it makes sense, right? This does, in fact, show descending levels of engagement, right? You may have noticed something. A like is the only thing that actually signifies preference for something you want to see more of. It is more than possible to view, comment on, and share a post you don’t like from an author you follow whom you loathe. Even in Facebook’s reactions, the simple like, carries the least weight, especially the sad and angry, two things we (hopefully) want less than things we like and love. So why do likes get the least weight?

Well liking something proves that the user engaged with the post, but not the social media platform itself. So the goal isn’t to provide you with things that you enjoy, it’s to get you be on the site as often as possible. That is why there is such a comical disproportionate weight of comments[^1].

The Comment Section

i come back sometimes weeks later to continue a debate with someone who doesn’t trust Wikipedia

original post melts away, loosly related until the topic couldn’t been on any other forgetable post that I ceased to care about seconds after my first comment to someone else’s comment.

we all move on as if it never happened and I never see them again unless they, for some reason, followed the author I did just to have the same three “debates” over again ad nauseum. I’d recognize their profile pic and roll my eyes, debating to myself if I am boared enough to debate them.

but most of these guys are from sockpuppet accounts with bullshit names and pics that are seemingly random, but have the same few trends as you see more and more.

In other words, most of these people are anonymous

UNFINISHED ARTICLE. COME BACK LATER

# Case Study

[^1]: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/understanding-social-media-recommendation-algorithms

A lot has changed this year. I refuse to talk about the daily existential crisis that compounds in a recursive nightmare day by day. We all know. We don’t need more. We don’t need more black pill content. So I’ll focus on myself for now:

Since my last post I have gotten a CompTIA Data+ certification; updated my takes on Ai; continued a couple projects; and started a few more, including deeper analysis into media and design. I was writing a long paper, Fascist Rhetoric: When Feelings Don’t Care About Facts and Empathy is Controversial, but I am shelfing it until it is no longer a detriment to my mental health.

I look forward in sharing progress on my little projects in the near future. I have a bunch of drawings of little guy on sticky notes that I want to carve into stamps– a cute little escape. :)

With my website attached to my email, I need to take what I post here more seriously. Whether I like it or not this is being looked at by employers and the like so I need to take this more seriously, particularly my out of date writing.

In this case, AI and the culture around it has changed so completely that I fully disavow them my original writing. I still am proud of what I produced from it, but outside of the Ai community [and other intellectually honest artists] that understand and utilize the soulless element of the tool instead of denying it, the most vocal proponents of AI have evolved to be explicitly anti-art and even anti-artist. I was lied to by someone I trusted and we are on no speaking terms.

Unfortunately this is no longer a question of how to use it in a fine art scenario but rather a political issue about Ai being used as a “business solution.” This makes me sad. It makes me angry. Above all, it makes me disappointed. Anti-intellectualism is determined to kill the idea of art itself in favor of empty “content.”

I plan on going deeper into analyzing handcrafted media, from the sincere honesty of outsider art to the cynically demanded flatness of corporate art. The status of Ai just makes me too sad to deconstruct further. Hopefully I’ll never discuss it again outside of the limited series I produced.