February 22, 2026
From BFFs to WTF: Feed Wars
Attention Media ≠ Social Networks
Users revolt over “random garbage” feeds as Mastodon gets love
TLDR: The author says social sites turned into “attention media” chasing clicks, praising Mastodon’s calm, follower-only feed. Commenters blast Facebook’s “random garbage,” debate Lemmy and Mastodon, and warn not to bring back toxic tricks like infinite scroll and like-buttons—because our attention is the prize.
Remember when your feed showed, well, your friends? The author says today’s big apps turned into attention machines, swapping real updates for endless scroll, fake pings, and stranger spam—and the crowd shouted “finally!” One user fumed that Facebook now “fills up my feed with random garbage,” while another shared a throwback video to a more optimistic web. Language even became a battleground: a commenter blasted the shift from “social networks” to “social media” as a friends-to-famous pivot driven by ads, noting Japan still calls it SNS (social networking service).
Meanwhile, Mastodon took a victory lap. The author praises its calm timeline—no bogus notifications, just posts from people you chose—and the comments largely nodded along. Some asked for other chill zones (hello, Lemmy), while the skeptics hit the brakes. One warned that features like infinite scroll, quote-reply, and likes are not neutral and could smuggle old addictions into new spaces. Cue the drama: Team “bring back social” vs. Team “don’t repeat the dark patterns.”
Bonus twist: after reader feedback, the post title changed to say “Social Networks,” not “Social Media.” The message? The algorithm era is loud, the people want quiet—and they’re ready to fight for it.
Key Points
- •Early social networks delivered follower-based updates and meaningful notifications during the Web 2.0 era.
- •From roughly 2012–2016, platforms introduced infinite scroll and altered notifications to drive engagement.
- •Timelines increasingly surfaced content from strangers over posts from friends, reducing perceived social relevance.
- •The author abandoned these platforms, labeling them “attention media” for prioritizing engagement over user-chosen content.
- •Mastodon is presented as a counterexample with a chronological, follower-only feed and minimal notifications; the article’s title was updated to say “Social Networks.”