June 8, 2026
From BFFs to brain rot
Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds
Your feed ditched your friends and the comments say we all saw this coming
TLDR: Social media feeds are now dominated by entertainment from strangers, while real friend-to-friend posting keeps falling and private chats pick up the slack. Commenters weren’t shocked at all—they argued these apps were always manipulative, fake-social, and built to keep people scrolling.
The big shocker in this social media story is almost not the news itself, but how loudly the internet is yelling, "Well... duh." The article says apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are no longer really about keeping up with friends. They are now endless rivers of slick videos, cute animals, ads dressed up as posts, and strangers doing a better job of holding your attention than people you actually know. Even the numbers back it up: fewer people are posting, more are just watching, and younger users seem especially happy to lurk in silence while scrolling for entertainment.
But the comments? Absolutely brutal. One user flat-out said social media was never truly social to begin with, calling it an "illusion" of friendship. Another compared today’s feeds to cable television "but worse," saying the whole thing exists to make people feel bad and keep them glued to the screen. That set the mood fast: less nostalgic sadness, more furious "this machine was always cursed" energy. Then came the darkest hot take of the bunch, with one commenter saying modern outrage creators and their copycat fan mobs make it easier to understand how totalitarian movements happen. Casual! Not to be outdone, someone else shrugged that they left Facebook back in 2016 because it became "political nonsense," while another roasted the entire article with: "Who doesn’t know this?"
The funniest running joke is that your "social" app now knows you better than your friends do: click bananas, get bananas, forever. The real split seems obvious now—public apps are for doomscrolling and performance, while actual human conversation has quietly fled to private chats.
Key Points
- •The article says major social media platforms are increasingly centered on short-form entertainment and discovery rather than posts from friends.
- •Interviewed users report seeing fewer friends’ posts and spending more time passively consuming creator-made videos and ads.
- •Survey data from France, the UK and the US indicate declines in active posting and a rise in passive or entertainment-focused use, especially among Gen Z.
- •Vanessa Lalo says users may post less because online traces are permanent, public posting can invite criticism, and personal posts compete with professional content.
- •The article says more personal interaction is shifting to private channels such as WhatsApp and private groups on Instagram and Snapchat.