I see what you’re saying, but the term “social media” applying to just a section of a website doesn’t make sense—to me. Call it whatever you want!

I, someone who was the perfect age for every iteration of what I might call “first gen” social media (MySpace/xanga/live journal in middle school, Facebook in the middle/end of my high school career into college, Instagram in college and while I traveled), only see “social media” as personalized connection sites. Sites where you are exactly who you are, connecting with others, saying exactly who they are—basically creating a “social media self.”

THAT is social media to me. But these all pose interesting questions: is a blog social media? During xanga/live journal days, it was considered social media. Are dating sites social media? Is Chatroulette? Is Facebook messenger? If that is, is telegram?

If a site where you anonymously talk to other anonymous people on the internet is social media, I stand by what I said, everything would be “social media” these days. YouTube. Is that social media? It’s all messy, I grant you, but that’s why draw the lines where I do.

Your criteria seems different. But I, as a millennial that grew up with it, I see it as a persona-first platform where people sell themselves. Lemmy is interesting because they’re technically different sites/servers about specific things, linking with other sites/servers, where people discuss the topic of the community. The focus is the object being discussed, not the subject. Social media is subjective, I think that’s where I make the distinction.