What do you need when arguing online?

Logic?

Reason?

A rock-solid grasp of the facts?

Yeah, no.

See, I used to think that if you came armed with airtight arguments and a well-researched arsenal of evidence, you’d automatically win. That people would read your points, have a little moment of self-reflection, and say, “Duy, I was completely wrong, cheers for setting me straight.”

Turns out, that basically never happens. Instead, you just get quoted by someone with an anime profile picture calling you “brain-rotted”.

This was a hard lesson for me, mostly because, according to my now-ex, I’m already insufferable to argue with in real life. Apparently, approaching disagreements with logic and solutions instead of emotions is not a particularly lovable trait in a boyfriend. Who knew?

But when I took this same approach online—specifically, on Threads, where people go to shout their opinions into the void—I quickly realized that even airtight reasoning won’t get you very far. If anything, it just makes people angrier.

Some of my debates were interesting. Most felt like slamming my own head against a brick wall and then getting yelled at for bleeding on it. I legitimately had one person so delusional they asked me to apologize to them on my page if they won the argument.

Clearly, I needed a new strategy. A philosophy. A way to navigate the digital battlefield of bad takes and reactionary nonsense without losing my mind.

So, in an attempt to both preserve my sanity and satisfy my deep, primal urge to correct strangers on the internet, I’ve decided to take a step back and set up some actual ground rules for myself.

But first,

1. why argue online?

Before we get into what you should do arguing online, we should talk about why we argue online in the first place. Before we get into why people argue online, let’s talk about what should not be the reason you argue online.

If you were to forget almost everything I said in this post, this is what I think is important for you to remember:

Debates are meant to convince a third party, not the person you're debating.

Debates are not a great way for two people to come to an understanding. When you put pressure on someone's views they're way more likely to double down than to reconsider. A better alternative is to ask nonprovocative questions from a place of genuine curiosity. And just listen.

Their logic will be tested as they explain, and they'll probably be the first to realize if something doesn't add up.

But debate and argument? Hardly a good way for someone to change their mind.

So what should you argue for?

a. for engagement

People argue online because the internet is a massive, poorly supervised daycare where every toddler has just discovered that yelling louder might get them the last cookie.

Social media platforms thrive on engagement, and few things engage people more than heated debates. A 2021 study published in Science Advances by researchers at Yale University1 found that social media platforms amplify expressions of moral outrage over time.

This figure shows how the political extremity of a person’s online social network affects their likelihood of expressing outrage in tweets. The first graph (A) compares two groups: users discussing the Brett Kavanaugh nomination (blue) and those engaging with a more neutral “United” topic (orange). It reveals that Kavanaugh users are more likely to be part of ideologically extreme networks, while United users tend to have more moderate networks.

The second graph (B) shows that as a person’s network becomes more politically extreme, their likelihood of expressing outrage increases. This trend is stronger for Kavanaugh users, meaning people in highly polarized discussions are more likely to tweet with outrage, reinforcing the idea that echo chambers fuel emotional reactions.

This amplification occurs because users learn that such expressions are rewarded with increased "likes" and "shares" on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The study demonstrated that social feedback, such as likes and shares, significantly predicts future moral outrage expressions, indicating that reinforcement learning shapes users' online behavior.

This phenomenon is further amplified by the online disinhibition effect, which suggests that anonymity and lack of immediate social consequences make people more aggressive online.2

Writing that very last part makes me remember Marina Abramović’s performance "Rhythm 0."

In the piece, Abramović placed herself completely at the mercy of the audience, allowing them to use various objects on her without any intervention.

Just as the online environment strips away responsibility and emboldens extreme actions, "Rhythm 0" demonstrated how the absence of accountability can lead individuals to push boundaries and, at times, inflict harm.

Social media also creates ideological echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs.3 Algorithms naturally push users toward content they already agree with, deepening polarization. Exposure to opposing political viewpoints can even make users more entrenched in their original views, rather than opening them up to new perspectives. 4

In summary, the internet not only hosts arguments but actively cultivates and rewards them, often without changing users' minds.

b. for your own enjoyment

Social media platforms have become integral to modern identity formation, particularly in a context where traditional community ties are dissolving. Engaging in online debates often serves as a means to fulfill needs for identity and belonging, as individuals align themselves with specific groups or causes. This behavior is particularly evident when defending one's "in-group," whether that be a fandom, political ideology, or niche internet subculture.

This phenomenon aligns with Social Identity Theory (SIT), proposed by Tajfel and Turner (1979)5, which posits that individuals derive a sense of self-worth from their group affiliations. SIT explains why people defend their in-groups aggressively, especially in online environments where anonymity can amplify these behaviors.6

Online communities provide a space for individuals to express and reinforce their identities through shared values and beliefs, often leading to in-group favoritism and out-group negativity.

Online debates frequently function as ideological theater, where the primary goal is to perform for an audience that already agrees with you rather than to convince the opposing side.

Individuals engage in these debates to gain social approval from their in-group, often measured in likes, shares, and retweets. This behavior is consistent with broader research on how social media platforms facilitate group dynamics and reinforce existing beliefs7.

Online communities offer a unique space for identity exploration and formation. For instance, online fandom communities allow individuals to engage in self-expression and form meaningful connections with others who share similar passions8. The dynamic nature of these communities enables individuals to navigate complex processes of identity formation and belonging.

Additionally, social media platforms influence behavior by creating norms that individuals feel compelled to follow. This is evident in how users align their actions and opinions with those of their in-group, even if it means adopting behaviors or views that they might not hold offline.

Online communities can be particularly important for marginalized groups, offering spaces for identity exploration and acceptance that may not be available offline. This underscores the role of social media in facilitating diverse forms of identity expression and community building.

While online debates can lead to conflict, they also provide opportunities for deeper discussions and community bonding. The resolution of conflicts within online communities can strengthen group ties and reinforce collective identity.

c. for the sake of holding people accountable

The internet gives everyone a megaphone, which means bad takes don’t just die in private—they spread, multiply, and occasionally end up on a TED Talk stage.

Sometimes, engaging in arguments isn’t just about entertainment; it’s about pushing back against misinformation, lazy thinking, and whatever new pseudo-scientific nonsense is trending that week. Sure, you won’t always change minds, but at the very least, you can make sure bad ideas don’t go unchallenged.

So essentially, online arguments persist because of a cocktail of psychological vulnerabilities, technological manipulation, and a desperate craving for validation. It’s the digital equivalent of people who shout at pigeons in the park, convinced they're making a difference—except the pigeons now have Wi-Fi.

2. the online arguer matrix

The Online Arguer Matrix is something I made what happens when you take every excruciating internet debate you've ever seen and sort its participants into four neat little boxes.

It’s a simple two-axis system: one measures how well someone argues—ranging from clumsy, logic-mangling messes to razor-sharp rhetorical mastery. The other measures why they argue—whether they genuinely seek the truth or just want to stir chaos.

This leaves us with four types of arguers:

1. The Philosopher – Actually knows what they’re doing and argues in good faith. A rare species.

2. The Amateur – Well-meaning but incompetent, like a toddler wielding a plastic sword.

3. The Troll – The conversational equivalent of a raccoon knocking over trash cans.

4. The Manipulator – Just as skilled as the Philosopher, but with a villainous mustache.

Each of these characters plays a role in the theater of online discourse. And if you’re wondering which one you are—well, buckle up. It’s time to take a closer look.

a. the Philosopher—good faith, good technique

The Philosopher seems like a normal internet arguer, but they’re actually an anomaly—a rare species in the wild, someone who debates in good faith. By engaging in discussions with actual curiosity, they seem like just another opinionated person—but they never seem to get caught in the usual online shouting matches.

Philosophers have clever brains, and good faith is the brain’s most clever trick. The brain knows that the Average Internet Debater, who can be reactionary, can be appeased if it just slings enough arguments back and forth. So the Philosopher’s brain creates a battle that looks like a normal argument but isn’t—because instead of fighting to win, the Philosopher fights to understand.

It relies on one major delusion of the Average Internet Debater—that arguing = thinking.

So an Average Debater will spend the whole day composing Twitter replies, making hot takes, debating in comment sections, crafting devastating clapbacks, and if they’re judging themselves by time spent “engaging with ideas,” they’re a smashing success.

But at the end of the day, the satisfaction they feel has a hint of emptiness to it, and the thrill of arguing never quite turns into the thrill of learning. They may have convinced themselves that they’re refining their thoughts, but in their subconscious, they know they’re mostly reinforcing the ones they already had. Their feelings of intellectual rigor come along with an undercurrent of stagnation.

In reality, they’re living in a grand, overarching illusion, brilliantly crafted by their own confirmation bias. Rather than try to seek truth, the Average Debater’s brain tricks them into fighting the wrong battle—defending their position rather than examining it. And they win that battle, again and again, which leads them to believe they’re doing a good job.

the philosopher’s secret weapon

Instead of treating every argument like a war zone, the Philosopher does something radical: they try to understand what’s actually being said before responding.

They ask real, useful questions—not to trap you, but to make sure they get your point.

They don’t assume you’re an idiot (unless you are, in which case, they’ll still be polite about it).

They’re here to refine their own thinking, not just dismantle yours.

This means arguing with a Philosopher is weirdly… pleasant? Even when they disagree, they’re not hostile. They just lay out their reasoning, listen to yours, and—brace yourself—sometimes even change their mind.

b. the Amateur—good faith & bad technique

The Amateur might seem like a decent conversation partner—like that friendly guy at a party who always smiles and nods. But really, they're a walking disaster—a well-meaning debater with the technique of a soggy piece of toast. They engage with genuine curiosity, making it look like they’re on the right track, yet actual progress in debates always slips through their fingers.

Amateurs have eager minds, and eagerness is the mind’s sneakiest con artist. Their brain convinces them that since the Average Internet Debater thrives on bad faith and flimsy arguments, sincerity alone is the perfect antidote. So, they meander through discussions, hoping something useful will emerge by accident.

This all boils down to one critical delusion: the Amateur believes being open-minded is the same as being persuasive.

So, what do they do? They absorb every viewpoint, toss out unstructured counterpoints, agree too quickly, backtrack, over-explain, and apologize for things that don’t need apologizing. If success were measured by niceness, they’d be champions. But every debate leaves them with a nagging emptiness—like eating a full meal yet still feeling hungry. They might think they’re being reasonable, but deep down, they know they’re getting steamrolled.

Instead of sharpening their arguments, they convince themselves that engaging in good faith is enough. And so they keep at it, mistaking motion for progress.

the Amateur’s fatal flaws

Rather than treating arguments as battles, the Amateur aims to keep things civil. It backfires.

They assume good faith—even when they shouldn’t. They ask broad, unfocused questions that barely challenge anything. They hedge every statement until their point is barely a whisper. They’re here to learn, but they never land anywhere.

And that’s why debating an Amateur is maddening. Even when they make a solid point, it’s so soft and tentative that it feels weightless. They gesture at ideas, let them hang, and then retreat into uncertainty the moment they’re challenged.

At the core, the Amateur’s biggest flaw isn’t just being too nice—it’s mistaking endless dialogue for actual persuasion.

c. the Troll—bad faith & bad technique

What’s even worse than the Amateur? Someone who doesn’t even have good faith.

They’re a walking catastrophe—a bad-faith debater with zero technique and even less self-awareness. By launching themselves into every argument with maximum aggression, they seem engaged. They are engaged. But the only thing they ever accomplish is making everyone involved regret logging on.

Trolls have chaotic brains, and chaos is the brain’s most destructive trick. The brain knows that the Average Internet User—who just wants a normal discussion—can be dragged into a pointless brawl if provoked correctly.

So the Troll’s brain sets up a battle that swings back and forth between misdirection and nonsense. And the beauty of this move? The Troll thrives in pure, meaningless conflict. It’s built on one central delusion—that winning = making the other person mad.

So a Troll will spend the whole day posting inflammatory nonsense, dodging direct questions, shifting goalposts, spamming memes, and misrepresenting arguments. And if they’re judging themselves by how many people they’ve pissed off, they’re a smashing success.

But when the screen goes dark, the satisfaction feels hollow. The “wins” don’t feel like wins. They may have convinced themselves they’re dominating the debate, but somewhere in their subconscious, they know they’re mostly just making noise. Their feelings of superiority come packaged with an undercurrent of irrelevance.

In reality, they’re living inside a grand, overarching failure, brilliantly crafted by their own need for attention. Rather than construct a coherent argument, the Troll’s brain tricks them into thinking that causing chaos is a form of success. And because the internet has an infinite supply of new victims, the cycle never ends. They do it again. And again. And again. Until they start believing they’re some kind of rhetorical genius.

the Troll’s playbook

The Troll doesn’t treat debate as a chance to engage. They do something much dumber: they treat it like a game where the only goal is to annoy people.

They don’t try to win arguments—they try to exhaust their opponent.

They derail discussions with the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

They make statements they know aren’t true, just to see who reacts.

They are never, ever arguing in good faith.

This means arguing with a Troll is pointless. Even when you demolish their argument, they’ll just move on to another bad one, pretending the first never happened. They’ll never admit they’re wrong. They’ll never learn anything. They’re just here to waste your time.

d. the Manipulator—bad faith & good technique

The last and absolute worst: The Manipulator.

The Manipulator doesn’t argue to find the truth. They argue to win. And they’re good at it. Really good.

Manipulators have razor-sharp minds, and sharpness is the mind’s most dangerous trick. The mind knows that the Average Internet User—who just wants an honest discussion—can be overwhelmed by someone who debates with the precision of a trial lawyer. So the Manipulator’s mind sets up a battle that swings between surface-level reasonableness and deep-seated deception. And the beauty of this move? The Manipulator doesn’t care if they’re right—as long as they seem right.

But winning isn’t enough. The Manipulator doesn’t just want to beat you—they want you to feel beaten. They want you flustered, exhausted, questioning your own sanity. If you walk away from the conversation frustrated, drained, and doubting yourself, they consider that an even bigger victory.

So a Manipulator will spend the whole day constructing airtight arguments with a hidden agenda, using rhetorical sleight of hand, cherry-picking evidence, playing semantics games, and subtly shifting the goalposts. And if they’re judging themselves by how many people they’ve outmaneuvered and annoyed, they’re a smashing success.

But when the debate ends, the victory feels… off. Hollow. Their “wins” don’t feel like wins. They may have convinced themselves they’re an intellectual powerhouse, but somewhere in their subconscious, they know they’re mostly just playing a game.

the Manipulator’s playbook

A normal person enters a debate expecting a mutual search for understanding. The Manipulator does something else entirely: they turn it into a courtroom where they’re both the lawyer and the judge.

• They never argue in good faith—but they make sure you do.

• They don’t debate to learn—they debate to trap you.

• They use real, well-structured logic—but only the parts that help their case.

• They’ll misrepresent your argument—but so subtly you won’t notice until it’s too late.

• They’ll force you to defend a position you never took—just so they can crush it.

• They don’t just want to win—they want to frustrate you until you break.

Which makes arguing with a Manipulator disorienting. Even when they’re wrong, they sound right. Even when you catch them twisting your words, they never admit it. They’ll use every intellectual trick in the book—misdirection, false equivalence, selective quoting, feigned ignorance—until you’re not even sure what you were arguing about in the first place.

3. dirty tactics

Alright, so we’ve covered how to handle the different personalities in a debate. The Philosopher? Just hit them with facts and logic. The Amateur? Guide them in the right direction. The Troll? Ignore and move on.

But then there’s the Manipulator. How do you correctly deal with them? And that’s where things get tricky.

So let’s talk about them.

According to two-time world debate champion Bo Seo, he resolved to list the common tactics that are used by bad faith arguers. The four common personas he came up with were:

• the dodger

• the twister

• the wrangler

• the liar

a. the dodger

You say, “We need to do something about wealth inequality—it’s getting out of control.”

The dodger, instead of engaging with your point, does what they do best: sidestep the actual argument.

"Oh, so you think people shouldn’t be rewarded for hard work? Should we just hand out free money to everyone?"

See what happened? You were talking about wealth inequality. Now, suddenly, you’re defending whether any form of financial success is legitimate. Your original point is gone, buried under a new debate you never signed up for.

how to deal with it:

Don’t take the bait. Just calmly bring it back: “That’s not what I said. I’m talking about wealth inequality.” and highlight that they are trying to change what the disagreement is about

If you let them, the dodger will drag you through a maze of semi-related but completely off-track arguments until you don’t even remember what you were originally trying to say. Stay firm, or you’ll be debating capitalism vs. socialism before you even get to make your actual point.

b. the twister

You bring up wealth inequality. Instead of engaging, they dodge.

"Oh, so you think success shouldn’t be rewarded? Should we just start giving out free money?"

You were discussing inequality, but now you’re stuck justifying whether financial achievement is legitimate. Your original argument? Pushed aside in favor of a debate you never asked or was ready for.

how to deal with it:

Don’t follow their detour. Steer it back.

"That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about wealth inequality—let’s stick to that."

Point out their deflection. If you don’t, they’ll keep shifting the conversation until you’re arguing about something completely different. Keep your ground, or you’ll find yourself debating economic systems instead of the issue you actually raised.

c. the wrangler

No matter what you say, the wrangler finds a flaw. They poke holes, tear down ideas, and point out every possible downside—but offer nothing in return.

You propose a solution. They smirk. "That won’t work."

You suggest an approach. They shake their head. "That’s unrealistic."

Great. Now you’re stuck defending every possible imperfection while they sit comfortably on the sidelines, never committing to an idea of their own.

how to deal with it:

Flip the script.

"Alright, so what’s your solution?"

Make them take a stand for something. If they have a real position, they’ll have to defend it. If they don’t, they’ll fumble. Either way, you’ve broken the cycle—and suddenly, they’re the one under the spotlight.

d. the liar

A good liar doesn’t just drop one falsehood—they flood the zone. It’s not one misstatement, it’s an avalanche. Before you can debunk the first, three more roll in. Suddenly, you’re drowning in half-truths, distortions, and outright fabrications.

how to deal with it:

Don’t take the bait. You can’t fight a flood by chasing every drop of water. Instead, pick your spots.

Find one or two key lies—the ones that best expose their game. Then do a simple swap: take their falsehood, plug in the actual truth, and show how the whole argument crumbles.

Once you’ve replaced fiction with fact, you’re not just proving them wrong—you’re revealing the entire strategy for what it is. And when the audience sees the pattern, the liar loses their power.

the importance of engaging bad-faith actors

One of the most valuable things that knowledge and mastery of this kind of defense against bad-faith actors give us is the ability to challenge the bullies in our lives.

Some of that is a necessity—bullies exist, and they often bring the fight to us. But beyond self-defense, it’s crucial to engage with bad-faith actors early and, in many cases, often. The more they go unchallenged, the more their influence grows.

Even when we feel powerless in the face of a bully or a manipulative debater, we need the right tools to respond. More importantly, we need strategies to reset the conversation—to reclaim control and shape discussions in ways that promote truth, clarity, and fairness.

4. some last things before the real battle

If you’re stepping into an online debate, you need to be prepared—not just to argue, but to argue well. Most people don’t. They wade in with half-baked opinions, cherry-picked stats, and the emotional resilience of wet tissue paper.

You don’t want to be one of them. So, take out your notebook, before you start typing, here’s what you actually need to have in place.

a. strong sources

First, you need an arsenal of strong sources. If you don’t have receipts, you don’t have an argument. The internet runs on vibes more than facts, and if you want to cut through the noise, you need solid references.

The best sources are peer-reviewed journals, government reports, and reputable news organizations—basically, anything that went through a rigorous fact-checking process before publication. The problem? Most people won’t read them, and some aren’t even accessible without a paywall.

A good middle ground is well-sourced Wikipedia pages, research-based explainers from credible institutions, and expert interviews. What you don’t want to rely on are random blogs (this one for example), Threads without citations, or YouTube rants filmed in a car.

The realest thing you can do is to anticipate counterarguments. If you already know the weak spots in your case, you can fortify them before anyone else even gets a chance to poke holes.

b. emotional control

Next, you need emotional control and stamina. The longer an argument drags on, the less it becomes about truth and more about endurance.

I realized this when I watched someone I have the honour to disagree with spend three days straight locked in the same debate—without adding anything of actual value. Just a whirlwind of fallacies, baseless assumptions, and sweeping generalizations.

At some point, you have to accept that some people aren’t worth the engagement. They're not arguing to understand; they’re just running in circles, and you’re the one getting dizzy.

You have to recognize when a debate is actually worth engaging in and when it’s just a time-sink. If someone keeps twisting your words, moving the goalposts, or refusing to acknowledge basic facts, they’re not debating in good faith—you’re just wasting energy.

It’s also crucial to avoid ego traps. If you find yourself arguing just to “win” rather than to actually make a point, you’ve already lost. The best debaters stay calm while their opponents spiral, which makes them look even more credible.

And most importantly, don’t let anger do the typing. Some of the worst arguments happen when emotion takes over, and you end up saying something impulsive that you regret later. If you feel yourself getting too heated, step away. The internet isn’t going anywhere.

c. block and disengage

Finally, you need to know when to block and when to ignore. Blocking isn’t cowardice—it’s strategy. Think of it as clearing the battlefield of distractions. If someone is trolling, engaging in personal attacks, or deliberately misrepresenting your points, blocking them isn’t a weakness—it’s efficiency.

There’s no rule saying you have to waste time on bad-faith actors. However, there are also moments where engaging is worthwhile. If the other person is genuinely open to discussion (even if they disagree), or if you’re in a public thread where bystanders might benefit from seeing the debate play out, it can be worth staying in the conversation. Sometimes, even a losing argument can sharpen your thinking for the next battle.

A strong debater doesn’t just fight for the sake of fighting—they know when to strike, when to hold back, and when to walk away. If you prepare well, argue with purpose, and manage your energy, you won’t just survive the battlefield of online discourse—you’ll own it.

conclusion

At the end of the day, “winning” an online argument is a bit like winning a staring contest with a goldfish — sure, you've technically triumphed, but no one really cares, least of all the goldfish. The fleeting satisfaction of proving someone wrong on the internet is like the thrill of snagging the last slice of pizza at a party — briefly glorious, yet ultimately hollow because it's still just pizza.

You might screenshot your victory, and share it with friends who'll give you a digital pat on the back, but deep down, you know the world has not been fundamentally improved by your prowess in virtual combat.

Perhaps the trick is balancing the urge to verbally annihilate someone with the awareness that no one actually reads 20-tweet threads anymore.

Maybe it’s less about “winning” and more about figuring out why we’re all so desperate to be right in the first place — and realizing that, sometimes, it’s okay to just let the goldfish win.

footnote

Did you wonder why you were so fucking alone last Valentine? And still are?

Did you find dating, more specifically online dating, is absolutely horrifying, and you would rather eat a toe?

Did/do you by chance have a penis?

Luckily I’m here to have an explanation for you.

It’s almost cliché to say that men are more visual than women.

That’s why they like big screens, fast cars, and those weird deep-sea fish with lights on their heads. It’s also why they’re supposedly the harsher judges of attractiveness, quick to decide whether a woman is a 10 or a nah within seconds.

Meanwhile, women are thought to be more interested in personality, humor, and a man’s ability to provide—whether that means financial security or just the patience to assemble an IKEA bookshelf without breaking down in tears.

But is that really the case? Here’s what I found interesting:

When asked to rate the attractiveness of an average man or woman, men are actually far more generous than women.

That’s right—despite all the talk about men being superficial, they’re significantly more likely to shrug and say, “Yeah, bang, next question” while women stare at a perfectly normal-looking guy like forensic scientists analyzing a crime scene.

But why does this even matter? Because dating has become a high-stakes game, where people decide your entire worth in the time it takes to dismiss a YouTube ad.

Worse, we’re living in a world where no one actually looks like themselves anymore. Social media has cranked up the beauty scale so high that normal human faces now seem defective, like a factory error. If women are already strict graders, this is only making things worse—raising the question: At what point does a man just give up and list himself on eBay instead?

So what happens next? Are men simply doomed to a life of being slightly below expectations? Should they invest in professional lighting? Or are we all just one bad filter away from realizing none of this even matters?

In the next bit, we’ll investigate whether dating is actually broken—or if we’ve just made it so complicated that no one wants to play anymore.

TABLE OF CONTENTS  
1. the unbalanced scale of hot
2. the macro online date-onomics 
3. the widespread lonely epidemic

1. the unbalanced scale of hot

I think it should be fairly safe to say that, in the grand scheme of online dating, the likeliness to get a date is closely correlated with the likeliness that people find you attractive.

Now, “attractive” can mean a lot of things. “Attractive” means “being able to attract", and a lot of things in a homo sapien can attract potential mates, like looks, humour, kindness, looks, humility, generosity, looks, etc.

But sadly, judging by how the most popular dating apps are designed, “attractive” often means “hot”. “Hot” in terms of looks, not temperature.

How does “hot” determine your chance of getting a date, and actually, how hot you are?

I came across this really interesting blog by OkCupid, one of the most popular websites that you have never heard of, analysing how different women and men judge the opposite gender’s hotness and, correlationally, how likely they are to text. I would try to re-explain the information.1

We’ll start with a simple line chart. The information I’ll present in this post is not normalized because, as we’ll see, it’s interesting how men and women evaluate looks differently.

Right, so here’s a chart of how men have rated women, on a very scientific scale from 0 to 5. And surprisingly, men have been quite fair about it.

The curve is all nice and symmetrical, a proper classic bell shape, which means men reckon women are just as likely to look like a Greek goddess as they are to resemble a melted candle. Most, though, sit somewhere in the middle, in what Gen Zs would call “mid”, short for “middle” if you don’t know.

Now, considering we’re constantly told that Hollywood, Instagram, and Photoshop have turned men into drooling idiots who expect every woman to look like they’ve just stepped out of a perfume advert, this chart is actually quite refreshing. It turns out that men are, on the whole, pretty realistic. Who knew? I’m a man and I’m surprised.

But before we go congratulating ourselves too much, let’s add another layer to this chart: the messages they actually send. And that’s when things start to get interesting.

When it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten. Statistically speaking, men don’t settle. They go big or go home jerking off by themselves.

The female equivalent of the above chart shows a different bias:

Right, so according to this chart, women apparently think that the majority of men look like they’ve been hit in the face with a wet sock. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? I mean, statistically speaking, most people should be average-looking because that’s what “average” means. Right in the middle, where most people are.

But no—women have decided that “medium” is actually somewhere near the top, and most men are just below average. Ugly little gremlins, if you allow me.

Now, here’s where it gets weird: despite rating nearly all men as visually offensive to the eyes, women still go ahead and message them.

This raises an important question—are they just sending pity messages? Or are they thinking, “Well, he looks like a human thumb, but maybe he’s got a nice personality”? Either way, something’s not adding up.

So, before we get the answer to that, which of course would need a more scientific approach than doing a survey on a dating site, in the end, it turns out it’s not men who have unrealistic expectations—it’s women. Shocking, really. The whole thing seems a bit like a game where no one understands the rules, but the winners are the people who look like they belong in a perfume advert.

This graph also dramatically illustrates just how much more important a woman’s looks are than a guy’s.

Now let’s take a look at how senders’ and recipients’ attractiveness affect reply rates, not just the number of messages sent.

As you’d expect, more attractive people get more replies. And since they themselves get so many more messages than everyone else, they write back much less frequently. Here’s the graph for female senders, plotted in evenly-spaced “attractiveness groups.”

And here’s the one for male senders.

Now, here’s something odd: when really good-looking men message women who’ve been rated less attractive, their success rate drops like a bad soufflé.

The obvious explanation would be that these men are just incredibly handsome spammers, firing off messages like some sort of well-groomed spambots. But OkCupid’s controlled for that—because they are very serious scientists—and besides if that were true, why would the more attractive women be falling for it?

No, something else is going on here. Probably a self-confidence thing. Or maybe these women just assume it’s a trap. Like, “Why is this man, who looks like he belongs in Hollywood, talking to me? Is he part of a hidden camera show? Am I about to be scammed?”

Finally, let’s throw all these numbers onto a chart so we can see, in cold, hard data, just how much your face affects your chances of getting a reply. Unsurprisingly, the more attractive you are, the more likely you get a reply. And the more Y chromosomes you have, the less likely you are also to get a reply.

2. the macro online date-onomics

Meeting online is the most common way to meet your partner now. Online and dating are the two words that now go hand in hand together, toward a miserable yet lengthy marriage. You cannot talk about dating without talking about online.

Online dating is a big sorting hat, instead of putting you into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, it puts you into "Gets Matches" or "Invisible."

Women, for example, swipe right on men over 1.8 meters tall, or if you want to be weird about it, around 6 feet, most of the time, even though in real life they’d probably settle for someone with a personality.

But that makes sense—when you’ve got two seconds to make a decision, you go with the visible and obvious: height, jawline, and whether or not he looks like he eats soup with his hands.

a. how online dating change dating dynamics

But it’s not just about swiping. Online dating has fundamentally changed how people approach relationships.

Back in the day, if you wanted to leave a relationship, you had to do it the hard way—by walking out the door and risking running into them on your way to school.

Now, you can ghost someone while sitting on the toilet, knowing there are literally millions of other people out there ready to replace them. If your partner so much as breathes weirdly, why stick around? Just keep swiping until you find someone who doesn’t sound like a punctured accordion.

Turns out, this has consequences. Couples who meet on apps are much more likely to break up in the first three years than those who meet through friends and family.2 Probably because friends and family actually know what you’re like and set you up with someone who won’t flee at the first sight of your “fun fact” about trains.

Also, there’s social pressure—if your mum introduced you, you can’t break up without her knowing. And no one wants that kind of conversation unless it’s super necessary.

The other thing dating apps have done is industrialize hypergamy, which is a fancy word for “dating up.” Women want the best men, no matter where they are on the social ladder. Men also want the best women, but crucially, they’re much more picky.

Biologically, this does not make any sense in the slightest—sperm is basically free, try to ask for any on social media and a bunch of creeps will fly into your inbox. But eggs, eggs are expensive. If sperm was money, it would be Monopoly cash. Eggs are the gold bars in the banks.

But dating apps don’t actually match people up into perfect couples.

The top 4.5% of men get most of the attention3, while the bottom 95.5% of men fight over the women who aren’t swiping right on the same top-tier guys. It’s like a game of musical chairs where most people don’t even get a chair, and the ones who do aren’t sitting down for long.

Women, optimally, will all try to date these top men, but crucially, they also want relationships, while the men mostly just want… not that. And why wouldn’t they? If you’re a man with infinite options, why pick just one when you can be the human equivalent of a sample platter?

So what’s left is this weird, lopsided system. Men swipe on everyone hoping for a match, women swipe only on a select few, and the dating apps sit back and watch, knowing that no one is ever really happy. But don’t worry—next time you get ghosted, just remember: it’s not you, it’s the algorithm.

Statistically, an average-looking bloke can expect about one “like” for every 115 women who see his profile. Which means that if he wants a date, his best bet is to just keep swiping until his thumb falls off.

This creates a weird paradox where both men and women end up lonelier. Women aren’t getting the commitment they want from the top men, and men aren’t getting anything at all.

A staggering 28% of men under 30 reported having no sex in the past year, which is double what it was a decade ago4. That’s not just an increase—that’s a medieval level of celibacy. In the past, these men would have been sent to monasteries or off to fight in wars. Now, they just stay in their bedrooms watching porn and arguing with strangers on Reddit. Progress.

b. the matching problem—supply and demand

Sex ratios shape dating culture in big ways.

Scientists have discovered that people change their romantic behavior depending on how many of them there are.5

If there aren’t many women around, women are very reserved, like Victorian heroines waiting for a marriage proposal. But when there are too many women, they decide casual relationships are fine after all.

On the other hand, if there are too many men, the men start pretending they’re deeply interested in commitment as if they’ve just discovered the concept of emotional stability. If there are too few of them, they start to act like the protagonist of a harem anime.

It’s almost as if dating works like a market—supply and demand.

Dating apps mess with this balance, creating an artificial sex ratio where there are way more "dateable" women than men. Men, having the standards of a Labrador retriever, swipe on nearly everyone. strategically. Women, on the other hand, filter ruthlessly.

Women tend to date across or up in terms of status, while men will date across or down. But here’s the issue: women are now 60% of college students. The median woman is starting to outearn the median man.

Meanwhile, a significant portion of men aged 25-54 are unemployed or have simply left the workforce altogether. More men aged 18-34 are living with their parents than with a romantic partner. Which means that even though lots of women want a relationship, there simply aren’t enough “successful” men to go around.

There are four possible solutions to this mess:

1. Women start dating down economically (unlikely, since most women would rather eat glass than date a man who calls himself an “entrepreneur” but has no income).

2. The median man magically starts outearning the median woman (but considering many men’s main hobbies are energy drinks and conspiracy theories, that seems improbable).

3. Generally normalised polyamory (so that the best men can date multiple women, and women can date multiple men).

4. [Most likely] Society just stops marrying altogether, and people turn to artificial wombs and AI girlfriends (so we all get a dystopian future and no sex). Not far fetch if we’re looking East and see Japan and Korea out there in the water drowning in low birth rates.

None of these options sound great. But history tells us that a society with too many single, frustrated men is a very bad idea. There’s even a theory for this: Bare Branches.

The idea is that if enough men are cut off from the family tree, they’ll eventually get angry enough that the government has to find something for them to do, like start a war. Throughout history, these surplus men were often sent off to fight, invade, or just generally cause havoc.

Monogamy used to be a social technology designed to keep this whole system from descending into chaos. Societies that practiced monogamy flourished because they solved the “extra men” problem. Everyone got a partner, more or less, and things were relatively stable. But that only worked when there were enough decent men to go around.

Of course, zooming out, even the idea of romantic love is pretty new. Historically, marriage had very little to do with love and everything to do with making sure your family didn’t lose their sheep farm.

Nietzsche (who, to be fair, was not known for his thriving love life) pointed out that romantic love had already started to ruin marriage by the late 1800s. Tocqueville observed that in America, they didn’t arrange marriages—but they did make sure their daughters picked wisely.

And even then, love wasn’t about butterflies and stolen glances—it was about picking someone who would be a good parent to your kids. Over time, that kind of partnership turned into something deeper, something more meaningful than just the desire to jump into bed with each other.

The real issue is that modern dating has swung so far in the opposite direction that it’s now mostly about optimizing for the shallowest traits possible. In the past, people didn’t choose their partners at all.

Now, we choose them based on their height, abs, and ability to take a mirror selfie. In trying to find “the best,” we may have lost sight of what actually makes relationships work.

Or maybe we’ve just collectively run out of good men.

3. the widespread lonely epidemic

I think I will never do the topic of dating justice if I don’t talk about actual economics related to dating. Because the problem of dating is not as minor as the problem of being slightly fed up with your mom's cooking.

When large numbers of men check out of the dating game, it doesn’t just mean more male loneliness epidemics, it does, but that’s beside the point—it means fewer marriages, fewer kids, and eventually, an aging population that is not at all suitable for working.

a. fewer marriages, fewer kids

Legally speaking, one can only marry one, unfortunately for the weeb who’s obsessed with the idea of a harem. But since one can only marry one, you can see the problem when everyone’s competing in the top 20% and pretending the remaining 80% don’t exist. 20% of men in the world are around 800 million men. These 800 million men will settle for another 800 million women. The rest of the world is just going to have to compromise, or die lonely, or both.

This phenomenon is part of the reason marriage rates are plummeting, and birth rates are following close behind.

It’s not just a trend—it’s a full-blown shift in how societies function. Countries like Japan and South Korea are already feeling the effects of this change, with record-low birth rates and an increasing number of people opting out of relationships altogether.

The consequences of this aren’t just personal—they're deeply structural. With fewer marriages come fewer kids, and when birth rates tank, a country starts walking toward demographic decline.

Fewer marriages mean fewer households pooling resources to buy homes, invest in their futures, and build generational wealth. Housing markets shift as demand fluctuates, and economic inequality widens.

The traditional path of "get married, buy a house, have kids, save for retirement" is becoming less of a default setting and more of a privilege reserved for a shrinking portion of the population.

b. an aging workforce

Sorry for looking at humans only in terms of their labour value and not who they are on the inside, but theoretically speaking, fewer babies today mean fewer workers tomorrow. And when a country’s workforce shrinks, the entire economy takes a hit.

Think about it—fewer young workers mean fewer taxpayers, fewer consumers, and an ever-growing population of retirees who rely on social services. Everything provided to the dependants does not grow on trees quite literally, they will have to come from someone else.

Countries like Germany, known for the high quality of their products, and China, known for the high quality of their knock-off German products, are scrambling to stop their populations from shrinking into oblivion.

Their strategies? A delightful mix of throwing money at families, pushing robots into factories, and politely suggesting that people just keep working until they drop.

Take China, for instance. For decades, the government enforced the one-child policy with an iron fist, only to realize—much too late—that if you stop people from having kids, you eventually run out of workers.

Worse, since Chinese culture is heavily biased towards men, if people get only one shot at having kids, you doctors better make sure my child has a penis when it comes out.

And since that, the male surplus problem has come become quite fucking disastrous, the whole countrywide.

Who would have thought? Since 2016, they’re frantically reversing course, rolling out incentives like tax breaks, housing subsidies, and even direct cash payments to encourage childbirth. But funnily enough, it turns out people don’t particularly want to have more kids when the cost of raising them is astronomical and work-life balance is a distant dream.

So, China is also leaning heavily into automation, building eerily efficient factories where robots do all the work. Meanwhile, there’s talk of raising the retirement age, because when the young won’t work, you can always just make the old keep going. Genius.

Germany, on the other hand, has taken a different approach. Instead of convincing Germans to have more babies—an effort about as successful as getting a cat to fetch—it has opted to import its future workforce. The country has been actively recruiting skilled workers from abroad and welcoming migrants to fill labor gaps, most notably during the 2015 refugee crisis.

On top of that, Germany’s government offers generous parental benefits, childcare support, and, crucially, paid time off—things that might actually make people consider having children. And like China, Germany is also investing in robots, because if humans don’t do the job, machines definitely will.

At the heart of it, both countries are facing the same crisis but responding in ways that highlight their cultural differences. China, with its strict control overpopulation policies, is relying on internal adjustments—automation, workforce restructuring, and incentives—while Germany, with its more open social model, is betting on immigration to keep things running.

In the end, though, both nations are just trying to answer the same existential question: if no one wants to have kids, who exactly is going to run the economy in 50 years?

d. incels

When you have a massive pool of men who feel left out of the dating economy, strange things start to happen. Throughout history, large groups of unmarried, disconnected men have been linked to political instability, extremism, and social unrest.

Evidently, back in late Qing Dynasty China, there weren’t enough women to go around, which—shockingly—turned out to be a problem. Thanks to a mix of female infanticide, rich blokes hoarding wives, and just some truly horrendous math, the country ended up with loads of unmarried men wandering about with nothing to do.

They were called "bare branches" (光棍, guānggùn), which sounds quite poetic until you realize it’s just a fancy way of saying "blokes with no chance of a date."

The big question isn’t whether the world will adapt—it always does—but how. And I can think of one of the most obvious and straightforward ways that people, men specifically, adapt to the modern dating scene: incels (involuntary celibate).

When large numbers of men find themselves locked out of the dating market, many start looking for explanations. In the age of the internet, that search often leads them to incel communities—online spaces where romantic frustration festers into resentment. At first, these forums serve as places to vent, but over time, self-pity hardens into anger.

The narrative shifts from "dating is hard" to "the system is rigged against us." Women are no longer individuals with preferences; they become shallow and hypergamous, always chasing the top 10% of men.

Society itself is blamed for “feminizing” men, making them less desirable and stripping them of the status they once had. Some take it even further, believing they are genetically doomed to be alone, convinced that no amount of self-improvement can change their fate.

This isn’t just harmless online frustration—it has real-world consequences. Some incels withdraw entirely from society, dropping out of work, social life, and even basic self-care. Others spiral deeper into conspiracy theories, feeding each other a worldview where women are the enemy.

In extreme cases, this resentment has turned into violence, with self-identified incels carrying out mass attacks as acts of revenge. What started as a dating imbalance has become a cultural and psychological crisis, breeding loneliness, radicalization, and, in some cases, real harm.

Put simply:

a society where a huge number of men feel disconnected from family life is not a stable society, regardless of whose fault that is.

where does this leave us?

Fixing this won’t be easy. Dating apps have no incentive to fix it (they make money off frustration), and people aren’t going to suddenly stop seeking the “best” partner available.

So, what’s the way out? It might require rethinking how relationships form in the first place—maybe shifting away from hyper-globalized dating apps back to more localized, community-driven ways of meeting people. Or maybe, just maybe, we’ll all just have to accept that the dating economy is just as broken as everything else.

Either way, if you’re stuck swiping with no luck—congratulations. You’re just another victim of capitalism.

conclusion

Online dating was supposed to democratize romance, offering limitless possibilities at our fingertips. Instead, it has formalized attraction into an algorithmic economy—one that mirrors real-world inequalities but magnifies them at scale.

The result? A small percentage of men reap most of the rewards, while the majority navigate a landscape of dwindling matches, fading hope, and an ever-growing sense of detachment.

As women outpace men in education and earnings, the traditional dating script is coming apart at the seams. The old model—one where men provided stability and women sought security—no longer holds. But no viable replacement has emerged. Instead, we see a fractured market where high-status men hoard attention, women raise their standards, and the median man quietly exits the game.

So what happens next? Society must recalibrate. Some will embrace new norms: polyamory, transactional relationships, or AI-driven companionships. Others will push for a cultural shift, urging women to "date down" or men to "step up." But perhaps the real question isn’t just about solutions—it’s about consequences. In optimizing for endless options, have we sacrificed what actually matters?

Dating apps promised us freedom, but in the end, they may have only delivered fragmentation.

footnote

"All communities eventually die, and yours is no exception.”

It’s a sobering truth that many once-vibrant online spaces now resemble the aftermath of a cosmic event—eerie silence, notifications collecting dust like forgotten relics, and a few valiant souls desperately trying to reignite the spark.

What starts as a bustling hub of interaction often collapses into a ghost town, haunted by lingering messages and a collective reluctance to hit that delete button.

Every so often, however, the silence is punctuated by a new message. Someone announces they've landed a new job, and suddenly, the air is filled with congratulatory texts, cheerful emojis, and a smattering of well wishes.

For a brief, fleeting moment, the community feels warm and inviting, akin to a cozy gathering around a virtual fireplace. The conversation hums with life, and you can almost hear the crickets cheering in approval—until, inevitably, the buzz fades. Within a day or two, the chat cools, and the familiar stillness returns, waiting for the next announcement to rekindle the flames of interaction.

In those early days, being part of an online community felt like a delightful house party where connections blossomed effortlessly. Fast forward to the present, and it's more like an uphill battle against entropy—struggling to keep conversations flowing, reviving engagement through events, polls, or the occasional giveaway.

One might wonder, why do so many online communities start with a bang reminiscent of a supernova but fizzle out like a dying ember? It's not merely poor management or lack of interest; burnout is a silent killer, particularly in small, tightly-knit groups where a few members bear the weight of engagement like Sisyphean boulders.

As time passes, even the most enthusiastic users begin to drift away, lured by the siren songs of new platforms or the allure of shiny distractions. This is the reality of modern digital life—it's a relentless cycle of engagement, and the constant influx of new options can be overwhelming.

But not every community is built to last. In fact, it's almost a universal truth that most communities are predisposed to wither away. Without a clear purpose, effective management, and a steady stream of new energy, even the most passionate enclaves can dissolve into nothingness.

This blog dives deep into the reasons why so many communities struggle to maintain engagement, explores the hidden challenges of community building, and examines how the very tools designed to foster connection can paradoxically accelerate burnout.

If every new group is destined to fade into the ether of inactivity, what’s the secret to keeping an online community alive? Or is the death of these digital spaces merely a foregone conclusion in an era plagued by endless notifications and digital fatigue?

In summary, it’s not just about creating a group; it’s about maintaining the physics of engagement. And as any good physicist knows, entropy always wins… unless, of course, you take proactive measures.

1. what is a “community”?

Is it food?

Is it an animal?

A TV show starring Donald Glover?

Probably, but no, let’s clarify something fundamental: a community is essentially a group of individuals connected by shared interests, values, goals, or geography who engage with one another in ways that are, dare I say, meaningful.

Communities are the delightful melting pots of belonging, support, and collaboration, whether through personal relationships, shared experiences, or common spaces—both physical (like your charming neighborhood) or virtual (like those ever-expanding online forums where chaos reigns supreme).

At its core, a community thrives on interaction, mutual support, and a collective identity. Today, we’re tossing around the term “community” for everything from a cozy book club to a meme-sharing group of friends.

It’s become so vague that it’s reminiscent of your brain after three hours of scrolling through TikTok—slightly mushy and unable to focus on anything substantial. More often than not, the term ends up subject to personal interpretation, leading us into treacherous waters where we risk lumping together things that really shouldn't share the same discussion.

For instance, your tight-knit childhood friend group could technically qualify as a community, given that you have shared rituals like gossiping about the latest drama or making questionable romantic choices. However, diving into the nuances of various community types might turn this post into a tome worthy of an academic lecture, which, quite frankly, I’m not prepared for.

So, for the purposes of this discussion, let's focus on closed communities—think online classes you reluctantly enroll in, hobby groups you join after a late-night internet binge, or fan clubs where collective enthusiasm reigns.

These spaces restrict access, revolve around a shared interest or practice, and, at least at some point, possess clear management. And yes, even the realm of pornography has its own dedicated communities for sharing and discussing various cOnTeNt. (That subject is ripe for exploration in an upcoming post.)

Think of it as these other communities and other ones like the difference between a public party and a secret club that requires a password to enter: both are gatherings, but one has a lot more rules, bots, and scheduled announcements.

The focus is on creating a controlled environment where members share specific goals or interests, contributing to higher engagement by filtering out noise.

Community engagement is constantly constrained by the force of gravity. And most communities are not rockets.

No matter the type of community—a Sunday church group or a hamster-loving subreddit—they’re all governed by the same law: churn. Just as gravity pulls objects down, disinterest pulls communities apart. People disengage, participation drops, and sooner or later, everyone bails. It doesn’t matter if it’s a place where people pray together or swap cute rodent pics—at the end of the day, every group faces the same existential threat: boredom.

Online communities have it even worse. Thanks to the beautiful chaos of the internet, anonymity makes it all too easy for anyone to pop in, make a mess, and disappear without consequences.

Trolls, bullies, and the classic lurkers—those silent spectators who ghost through conversations without contributing anything—abound.

In fact, lurking is the default behavior for most people online. And let’s not forget the bad apples who enter communities for the wrong reasons, sucking the joy and quality out of everyone else’s experience. It's like a digital version of inviting someone to your dinner party, only for them to eat all the food and leave without saying a word.

What do people actually want from communities? To have fun, to learn, and to connect with like-minded peers. No one logs onto a niche forum about succulents thinking, “I hope I get harassed today.”

People join groups hoping for good vibes and valuable conversations. Naturally, this desire for meaningful engagement means that people try to keep their communities pure. And what’s the solution to maintaining quality? The velvet rope of exclusivity—make sure only the “right” people get in. Welcome to the walled garden, my friend.

Research confirms that exclusivity boosts engagement by making participation feel like a privilege. When people believe they have special access—whether to a community, event, or resource—they are more likely to engage actively.

This aligns with participatory research frameworks, where exclusivity fosters commitment by signaling that members' contributions are not only valuable but also essential. It’s the “I’m special because I got in” effect—suddenly, showing up becomes a lot more appealing when you know others were left outside.

Exclusivity gives members a sense of importance, reinforcing their belief that they belong to something worth preserving. It’s like joining an elite book club where the wine is expensive, the discussions are thoughtful, and the guest list is small enough to make you feel like royalty.

But just like every high-society club risks losing its allure the moment people get bored or annoyed by the rules, closed communities also face stagnation if they aren't actively maintained.

Over time, if nothing exciting happens, even the most carefully curated communities start to feel like ghost towns. The exclusivity that once made participation thrilling can quickly turn into a gilded cage—beautiful but suffocating. A once-thriving subreddit turns into an echo chamber. The high-energy group chat becomes a dry trickle of “Seen” messages.

People start drifting away, chasing new dopamine highs in fresh communities, leaving behind nothing but digital tumbleweeds.

2. the life cycle of a community

a. the rise

Closed communities don’t just fling open their doors and hope the right people wander in—they recruit with precision.

One tried-and-true method is the invitation-only approach, where current members personally invite individuals they think will contribute positively. Think of it as the equivalent of the Omakase referral system—you need a referral to get in, which not only builds trust but also reinforces the exclusivity that keeps members feeling like they’re part of something special.

Some communities prefer the challenge route, asking applicants to jump through a series of hoops before being allowed inside. This includes pre-join questionnaires, detailed surveys, or even full-blown interviews to assess whether a person’s goals and values align with the community’s ethos.

Other groups take a more proactive approach, scouring niche spaces—whether that’s forums, online subcultures, or targeted social media communities—to find people who are already active in their areas of interest. This sort of recruitment isn’t about casting a wide net; it’s about finding that perfect fish and bringing them into the fold.

Then there’s event-based recruitment, where communities lure in new members by hosting webinars, workshops, or meet-ups.

It’s a strategy—participants show up for the event, realize they vibe with the group, and suddenly they’re hooked. Bonus points if the group offers exclusive perks like sneak peeks, early access, or discounts, adding an extra layer of temptation to join.

Combining these methods helps ensure the community doesn’t just get new bodies but people who are engaged, aligned with the group's goals, and likely to stick around long-term.

Once the group is formed, members start to naturally gravitate toward specific roles, with or without being asked. Some step into leadership positions, taking on duties like moderating discussions, organizing events, or running community initiatives. Others become reliable contributors, adding value by sharing resources, participating in debates, or lending a hand to help newcomers settle in.

Over time, these roles create a sense of structure, helping the community feel more cohesive and purposeful.

As the community evolves, norms, traditions, and even inside jokes emerge, building a shared language that strengthens members’ sense of belonging.

At this point, engagement is no longer driven by the initial excitement of joining something new but by the relationships and sense of purpose cultivated within the group. Communities that thrive long-term often introduce recognition systems—whether through shoutouts, achievement badges, or leadership roles—to acknowledge active members and encourage continued involvement.

Of course, no group survives without some form of moderation. A solid moderation framework ensures that discussions stay on track, interactions remain respectful, and the vibe aligns with the community’s values.

Moderators aren’t just rule enforcers; they’re also peacekeepers, stepping in to mediate conflicts and ensure no one’s voice gets drowned out.

When members start to lose interest or drift away, smart communities act quickly, sending out personal check-ins or sharing exclusive content to reignite engagement and remind people why they joined in the first place. But not all communities can save themselves.

b. the free fall

People have lives—jobs, relationships, hobbies, existential crises. Eventually, those things take priority, and the community they once cared about fades into the background. Either life gets in the way, or the community stops offering enough value to make showing up worth it. And just like a business, if a community isn’t growing, it’s dying.

It’s pretty straightforward: a healthy community grows at the same rate (or faster) than people leave.

But when the math stops adding up, things get grim. First, some members stop talking as much. Posts become infrequent. The feed goes quiet. Eventually, people don’t even bother to check in anymore, and what was once a vibrant little online town becomes a ghost town—an empty shell where echoes of past conversations haunt the forums.

For most communities, new members keep the gears turning, replacing those who inevitably drift away. But closed communities? They face a bigger challenge. The more restrictive the entry, the faster they wither. Ultra-exclusive communities, where getting in feels like applying for a secret cult, die even faster because fresh faces are rare. Semi-permeable ones—those with some entry requirements but still flexible—last a bit longer, but even they aren’t immune to decline.

Now, before you think open communities have it all figured out, they don’t. Open doors don’t guarantee success. If a community doesn’t offer value, no one’s going to stick around.

It’s like running a restaurant—just because it’s open doesn’t mean people will line up to eat. The food, service, and atmosphere still have to be good. Communities, closed or not, are no different. If the value proposition—what members get out of participating—is strong, people will stay. If it isn’t, they won’t.

In online spaces, that value can come in different forms: an endless stream of entertaining content (cue the infinite scroll of cat videos), virtual events like webinars with industry experts or influencers, or spaces where members can have meaningful conversations about important issues. The trick is making sure that people see a reason to keep coming back.

This is why closed communities need active management—you can’t just lock the doors, sit back, and expect things to thrive on their own. Without consistent effort, the rust sets in, and the wheels stop turning.

As Amy Jo Kim, a community expert and social game designer, highlights in her 9 Timeless Principles for Building Community, there needs to be a rhythm—cyclical events or activities that re-engage members and create a sense of anticipation. Without that rhythm, even the best communities lose steam.

Communities can absolutely generate their own buzz and activities, but they still need a spark to get things moving. More often than not, someone has to nudge that feedback loop along, like greasing a creaky wheel. Leave it untouched for too long, and the whole thing grinds to a halt. But if you keep the machine well-oiled—pushing along with events, content drops, and initiatives—you’ll have a thriving community full of life.

I’ve been part of plenty of communities—some thriving, some doomed to fail.

One particular Discord community stands out. It had promise: exclusivity, interesting conversations, and a dash of real-world connections. But, like so many others, it slowly faded into oblivion.

The entry process wasn’t as intense as a job interview, but there was a vetting form. We had to fill it out, explaining why we’d fit in and linking some of our social media profiles.

If you made it through, things were great—at least for a while. People introduced themselves, we had fun discussions, and the occasional live events and speaker sessions kept things interesting. There weren’t a ton of events, but the ones we had were solid. Plus, people who lived in the same cities got to meet up in person, which gave the community an added layer of value.

But the spark didn’t last. Conversations slowed. Posts became rare. The creators stopped hosting events. Eventually, the community just… stopped. It still technically exists—a ghost town of empty channels and forgotten threads—but its life is over.

Here’s what went wrong:

First, the churn rate was higher than the join rate. If you divided the total active days by the number of members, you’d see the math didn’t work in its favor.

While the community wasn’t completely closed—new people could join if they passed the form—it was semi-permeable. That layer of vetting filtered people out and discouraged some from even applying. And when you’re losing members faster than you can replace them, the end is just a matter of time.

What really sealed the deal was the lack of built-in growth loops. There were no mechanisms to encourage members to bring others in—no referral programs, no "invite-a-friend" challenges, nothing to counteract the steady churn. The creators missed an opportunity to create a self-sustaining cycle. Imagine if every member had to refer someone else to join—something like that could have kept the momentum going.

The community was also niche, which is not inherently a problem. There are plenty of niche communities that thrive. But when a community is built around a narrow interest, the pool of potential members shrinks fast. Not only that, but the value the community offered only resonated with a subset of those already-interested people. From there, everything depended on how well the creators promoted the group—and, unfortunately, the marketing wasn’t enough to attract enough new members.

Lastly, the fatal flaw: no active management. A community needs constant care and feeding—new events, discussions, and engagement initiatives to keep people interested. It’s not enough to build a space and expect people to show up forever. Without fresh activities or leadership pushing things forward, the community dried up.

Communities die not just from inactivity but from neglect. This Discord group was no exception. What started as a promising space eventually crumbled under its own weight, a perfect example of what happens when growth doesn’t keep up with churn, and management takes a backseat.

3. can we turn the ship around?

a. how to tell it was dying

Imagine a community is like the Titanic ship. It is pretty clear when the community is dead. The ship has hit the iceberg! Nobody bothers to talk to them anymore. These are beyond saving; you might as well make a new one. When a community is dying, however, it is not always clear, but it can be saved. The ship is seeing the iceberg, but there is time to steer it out of the way. And knowing when it is dying is essential to deciding when to take drastic measures. Or, in boat terms, to bear away.

Thus, quantifying churn and engagement is essential for maintaining a healthy community, especially online.

For tight-knit communities like those on Discord, quantifying churn and engagement becomes even more critical due to the smaller, more intimate nature of the group. Metrics such as Monthly Active Users (MAU), retention rate, and engagement frequency offer insights that can determine whether the community is thriving or quietly decaying.

Since smaller communities lack the sheer volume of users that open platforms rely on, every interaction counts. Tracking MAU helps moderators see how many members are still active each month, while the retention rate reveals whether the group is keeping its core members or losing them over time.

Engagement frequency—how often members participate in chats, events, or share resources—becomes a key metric for detecting early warning signs. A sudden drop in participation frequency is often an indicator of disengagement, signaling that members may be on the verge of becoming inactive.

In smaller groups, it’s often not enough to rely solely on numbers; pulse surveys and sentiment analysis provide valuable qualitative feedback to complement the metrics.

Many communities use pulse surveys—quick polls or questionnaires shared directly in a chat channel—to gauge how members feel about their involvement and the direction of the group. Regular check-ins, such as asking members about their experience or what activities they find valuable, can uncover frustrations or areas of improvement before members begin to disengage.

Establishing benchmarks for engagement tailored to closed groups is crucial, as these communities rely more heavily on a committed core of participants. For Discord communities, a monthly churn rate of 5% or lower is generally ideal, as even a slight uptick in departures can significantly impact the group’s cohesion.

Maintaining a participation benchmark of at least 20-30% of members actively posting or chatting monthly helps ensure that the community retains its sense of closeness and activity. In niche communities, having around 10-15% of members join or engage in events regularly can keep the group’s momentum going, even during quieter periods.

By tracking these benchmarks and combining them with surveys and sentiment analysis, moderators can build a sustainable rhythm of engagement that prevents stagnation and ensures long-term success.

In tight-knit groups, the small size makes it easy for disengagement to snowball—if even a few key members drop off, it can ripple through the rest of the group, creating an atmosphere of inactivity. Therefore, these communities need to focus not just on retaining members but also on cultivating organic interactions and strong social bonds.

Regular events like movie nights, book clubs, or voice chat sessions give members a shared experience, fostering relationships that go beyond the community’s original purpose. For communities to survive over the long term, active management is essential.

Simply letting a Discord server run on autopilot will inevitably lead to inactivity, so moderators should consistently spark conversations, introduce new content, and encourage member-led activities. Creating a rhythm of participation—through scheduled events or even light, playful interactions—helps maintain momentum and prevents the community from becoming just another ghost town.

b. the role of moderators and community leaders

The role of moderators is essential in maintaining the health and direction of any closed-knit community, particularly on platforms like Discord. Active moderators are responsible for guiding conversations, ensuring discussions stay on track, and curating the overall tone of the community.

Without effective moderation, communities can become chaotic, or worse, toxic, as unchecked conversations may lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, or misinformation. Communities with active moderators tend to foster more meaningful engagement and better member retention because they create an environment where members feel safe and valued.

In contrast, unmoderated or poorly managed groups are prone to inactivity or becoming dominated by a handful of voices, leading to disengagement among quieter members who may feel alienated. Moderators act as the glue that keeps conversations flowing and ensures that every member has a chance to participate without the fear of being overwhelmed or ignored.

However, volunteer burnout is a real challenge in community management. Many communities rely on unpaid moderators or community leaders who eventually experience fatigue from the continuous effort of maintaining order and activity.

The emotional and time investment required to manage conflicts, respond to members, and organize events can be draining, especially in smaller communities where a few individuals carry most of the burden.

To prevent burnout, communities need to implement incentive structures—whether through recognition, exclusive perks, or rewards like custom roles and badges—to make the work of moderators feel appreciated. In other words, the moderators must have in return something they deem valuable. Moderators should always be fairly compensated for a sustainable commitment. It is essentially a job.

Additionally, distributed leadership models can help spread responsibility across multiple people, reducing the pressure on any one individual. For example, assigning different moderators to handle specific areas, such as events, onboarding, or member engagement, helps divide the workload and ensures the group runs smoothly without exhausting a single leader.

Another important element in sustainable community management is understanding the various roles members play and how each contributes to the group’s health.

Members typically fall into categories such as lurkers, contributors, and organizers.

Lurkers may not engage publicly but still play a valuable role by consuming content and being part of the community’s silent majority. They contribute to the group’s visibility and perceived size, which encourages new members to join.

A sub-species of lurkers are parasites, those who contribute absolutely shit to a community but will pop up to promote their stuff. Fucking disgusting.

Contributors, on the other hand, actively participate in conversations, events, and activities, serving as the heart of the community by keeping discussions lively and relevant.

Finally, organizers—often moderators or trusted members—take on leadership roles by planning events, starting discussions, and helping guide the community’s growth.

Recognizing and nurturing each role is essential to maintaining balance. For instance, lurkers shouldn’t be pressured to participate, but the community can encourage them to contribute gradually through low-pressure activities like polls or reaction-based events. Meanwhile, contributors should feel empowered to take ownership of conversations, and organizers need to receive ongoing support to prevent burnout.

When these roles are understood and nurtured, a community becomes more resilient, with a diverse ecosystem that keeps it vibrant and active over the long term.

more than the occasional events

Building sustainable engagement in closed communities requires more than sporadic events and half-hearted interactions—it demands an architecture of ongoing rituals and commitment structures. Without this, communities risk becoming digital ghost towns, where members drift in and out like particles in Brownian motion, aimlessly colliding before disappearing forever.

One effective strategy is the creation of rituals and predictable habits. Think of it as Pavlovian conditioning, but with fewer drooling dogs and more humans showing up for their weekly book discussions or daily fitness check-ins.

These recurring activities act as psychological anchors, embedding community participation into members' routines. In behavioral terms, regularity transforms participation into automaticity—the more a behavior is repeated in the same context, the less conscious effort it requires. Essentially, we trick people into showing up not because they have to, but because they no longer remember a time when they didn’t.

Establishing these habits is particularly useful for reducing churn, which—if left unchecked—can turn a thriving community into an online mausoleum. By creating rituals that members anticipate, participation stops feeling like yet another bullet point on a to-do list. Instead, it becomes a familiar rhythm—an enjoyable pattern that subtly cultivates loyalty without coercion. After all, nobody abandons a ritual that feels as natural as brushing their teeth.

Then there’s badging and recognition systems, the digital equivalent of gold stars and Scout merit badges. Platforms like Stack Overflow and GitHub have perfected the art of gamifying contributions with badges, achievements, and roles.

These social proof mechanisms tap into intrinsic motivators—because, let’s be honest, humans (even highly evolved ones) crave acknowledgment. A badge isn’t just a PNG graphic on your profile like an NFT; it’s proof that you’ve achieved something others have not. Publicly recognizing contributions transforms passive participants into eager overachievers, driven by the irresistible urge to show off their digital trophies.

Smaller communities—such as Discord servers—can employ custom roles, flair, and leaderboards to achieve similar results. It’s essentially a hierarchical micro-society—people love climbing the ranks, even if the highest honor is just a neon-colored username. Recognition fosters belonging, and nothing quite sparks motivation like the opportunity to display your superiority over others—it's human nature, thinly veiled as community spirit.

For those communities aiming to separate the casual lurkers from the truly committed, financial incentives—such as subscription models or paid memberships—are highly effective.

Consider platforms like Patreon or Substack, which use paywalls to filter out half-hearted participants. When members invest financially, they’re more likely to engage because sunk-cost bias kicks in—once you’ve paid for access, participation feels mandatory. The result? A dedicated core group of individuals willing to engage deeply, not just skim the surface.

Financial incentives also motivate community leaders to maintain high standards. When money is involved, there’s an implicit value exchange that demands quality. In other words, if you expect people to pay, you’d better deliver something more compelling than a sporadic newsletter or lazy group chat.

Some critics argue that paywalls undermine inclusivity, but in practice, they tend to cultivate a more focused, high-quality membership. As the Vulcans say: The needs of the many who don’t care outweigh the needs of the few who pay.

Integrating tiered subscription models adds yet another layer of motivation. Offering exclusive perks or enhanced privileges to top-tier members appeals to our innate desire for status—think airport lounges, but for online communities.

This system ensures that those who demonstrate the highest level of commitment are appropriately rewarded while also nudging others to aspire toward greater involvement. It's a win-win: the community thrives, and members feel validated—assuming they survive the social competition, of course.

In the end, community building is about designing for both structure and spontaneity, balancing habits with rewards, and ensuring that every participant feels they belong—even if that belonging comes with a paywall.

And if it takes a few badges, subscriptions, and cleverly timed rituals to keep people engaged, so be it. After all, humans are remarkably predictable creatures. Why fight it when you can harness it?

conclusion

A closed community without a consistent core activity is like Schrödinger’s cat—it exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. Sure, you may have people technically in the community, but without something meaningful to do, they’re just dormant particles waiting to decay into irrelevance

Communities need shared activities—whether it's education programs, speaker sessions, or even regular check-ins on a group chat. Without such rituals, there’s no shared experience. And without shared experience, there's no common language.

Trust me, if members don’t have at least one collective activity they can reference—like the time everyone cringed over a guest speaker who overshared their life story—they won’t form bonds.

The mere act of joining doesn’t magically create connections. No, people need something to do together or at least alongside each other. Humans are social creatures, and—let’s be real—they tend to bond best over shared suffering or mutual complaints.

Communities without shared activities are doomed. It’s just entropy at work. I've seen it before: they either stagnate into oblivion or become digital graveyards where old posts haunt the feed like relics of a bygone era. Why? Because if there’s no activity, there’s no glue. And if there’s no glue, people drift away faster than Sheldon when someone suggests karaoke night.

Managing churn is non-negotiable. The math is simple: if your growth rate doesn’t exceed your churn rate, your community is on the same trajectory as Blockbuster.

To survive, you need new members replacing the ones who ghost—or better yet, you build growth loops that turn existing members into ambassadors. Think about network effects: the more people in the community, the more valuable it becomes to everyone else, just like the annoying way Facebook got all of us stuck with it for a decade.

And let's not forget, marketing matters. If you’re not actively working to attract new members, you’re essentially inviting entropy to take the wheel.

Communities thrive on network effects, so it’s not just a nice idea to encourage promotion—it’s an absolute necessity. Either make promoting the community one of your members' core activities or at least make it laughably easy for them to invite their friends, family, or random strangers.

At the end of the day, communities need momentum. No activity means no shared moments. No shared moments means no relationships. And no relationships? Well, that means no community. It’s not rocket science—it’s basic social physics.

If you’re going to run a closed community, you need to treat it like a delicate ecosystem: nurture it, manage it, and make sure it has things to do. Otherwise, you’ll just end up with another abandoned Discord server, waiting for some future anthropologist to unearth it as evidence of early 21st-century digital decay.

In the end, closed communities rarely die from sudden implosions—they wither slowly, drained by neglect, a lack of direction, and an unwillingness to evolve.

What starts as a thriving space bound by shared interests and mutual goals gradually becomes stagnant. Conversations turn repetitive, and participation dwindles, with only a handful of loyal members clinging to outdated rituals that no longer inspire. Rules that once maintained order become barriers to growth, innovation, and new perspectives. Leaders lose momentum or become too rigid, alienating newcomers while failing to rekindle the spark for long-term members.

Over time, the community's purpose becomes muddled—what was once a safe space for connection begins to feel like a closed loop, suffocating the same voices it was meant to amplify.

Eventually, members start to drift toward fresher, more open networks that better match their evolving interests and offer greater freedom to explore.

It’s not that they stop caring about the original community—they just find themselves caring about something else, somewhere else, a little more. And without active engagement or renewal, the community becomes a shadow of itself—a forgotten archive of old discussions, preserved only in the memories of those who’ve already moved on.

Communities don’t die all at once; they fade quietly as people outgrow them, leaving behind only the faint traces of what once was.

I wrote this in light of the possibility that two communities I’ve been a part of—HCH and VDVH—might be approaching their final days. A part of me deeply hopes that we’ll stay connected, continue supporting one another, and keep those meaningful interactions alive. 

That said, I’ve also come to realize that while it’s wonderful if a community endures, it doesn’t need to. What matters most is that it fulfills the intentions of those who built it and offers value to those who participated. When a community has served its purpose, it’s okay for it to transition into something different—a cherished memory. 

And hopefully, that memory will linger in each of us for a long time to come.

He was born in front of a live audience.

- Christof, The Truman Show

There is no movie that predicts the future better than my favourite, “The Truman Show.”.

In The Truman Show, Truman Burbank's life is a meticulously crafted spectacle. He grows up in a world that isn't his own, surrounded by hidden cameras capturing every moment for the entertainment of millions, controlled and broadcast from birth by an unseen corporation. But then he slowly and slowly unveils the curtain of lies and attempts to escape.

At the time of the movie's release, it seemed like a far-fetched critique of media consumption and voyeurism.

But today, it reads more like a prophetic warning as the lines between personal life and public entertainment dissolve.

The Truman Show was a warning about a world where privacy is an illusion, and now we find ourselves living in that world—only this time, it's real, and it's our children who are at the center of the spectacle.

We live in an age where children's lives are increasingly commodified for content, not by a fictional media giant, but by their own parents. The rise of "family vlogging" and "sharenting" has turned childhood into a spectacle, a continuous stream of first steps, birthday parties, and even emotional breakdowns—all carefully curated for likes, views, and sponsorships.

These kids aren’t actors being paid for a role; they’re unwitting participants in a 24/7 reality show, often with no say in how their lives are portrayed or monetized.

This modern dynamic begs uncomfortable questions: What happens when a child's identity is shaped not by private experiences but by the pressure to perform for a public audience? Are they developing their sense of self or being molded into marketable content? And perhaps most troubling, what are the long-term effects on children who are thrust into the digital spotlight before they can even speak for themselves?

1. children are a powerful attraction

Child influencers have become a significant part of the social media landscape. Recent statistics indicate that the global influencer market, including child influencers, is projected to reach $22.2 billion by 2025.

We love child influencers because they offer a blend of innocence, authenticity, and entertainment that resonates deeply with audiences. In a digital landscape where so much content feels curated and contrived, children often represent a raw, unfiltered version of life that feels more genuine and relatable.

Whether they’re sharing their playful antics, reactions, or everyday moments, child influencers offer a glimpse of unspoiled joy and curiosity, which many adults find refreshing. Who wouldn’t love a child’s innocence?

Children also tap into a sense of nostalgia. Watching them explore the world and express themselves reminds us of our own childhood experiences, offering a vicarious return to simpler times. Their wide-eyed excitement, humor, and unpredictability can spark feelings of joy and comfort, creating an emotional connection that drives engagement.

Parents often follow child influencers for parenting tips, product recommendations, or simply for the sense of community they provide, while younger audiences relate to them as peers or role models.

From a marketing perspective, child influencers are immensely powerful because they appeal to a broad demographic. Almost everyone loves the adorability that comes from babies and toddlers, even more so for a well-known one like an influencer. So these influencers are incredibily attractive for brands, paying a fortune just for their children’s endorsement of their products.

2. the three paradoxes of a child influencer

Talking about child influencers in media is a guaranteed ticket to online argument. This is because the whole area is a murky, messy swamp of paradoxes. More often than not, intentionally or unintentionally, they are using these paradoxes to shield themselves from criticism and controversies. There are three paradoxes that haven’t been solved yet in the landscape of child influencers:

• paradox 1: work and play

• paradox 2: autonomy and control

• paradox 3: privacy and success

These paradoxes are difficult to resolve because they exist within larger societal debates about childhood, labor, autonomy, and privacy. The influencer industry pushes boundaries that have yet to be fully addressed or regulated, leaving these contradictions at the heart of debates about child influencers.

paradox 1: work and play

Associating children with work can spark a blazing shitstorm in media spaces. The common agreement is that to protect children, they must be kept from employment until a particular age.

This is why parents of child content creators often claim their child is playing rather than working.

The challenge is that there is no single definition of play, likely due to its elusive nature, which varies based on individual perspectives. Most broadly, play is seen as fun, free-spirited, childlike, and driven by intrinsic motivation. Fun is the key.

Through play, kids flex their creative muscles, learn to cooperate, solve problems, and come to understand both themselves and the world. It's even considered a fundamental right, extending to the digital playground.

However, Garwood points out that play is also the ‘work’ of being a child, which complicates the whole idyllic notion of it being carefree and liberating.

a. the case of Ryan’s world: full of play or full of work?

Ryan's World is a popular YouTube channel aimed at children. Ryan from Ryan’s World is one of the highest earners, if not the highest earner on YouTube. The channel features young Ryan Kaji, his parents (Loann and Shion Kaji), and his twin sisters (Emma and Kate). It typically publishes new videos daily.

Forbes revealed that Ryan Kaji made $11 million from 2016 to 2017, ranking as the eighth highest-paid YouTuber at that time. He dominated the list in 2018, 2019, and 2020, earning $22 million, $26 million, and $29.5 million, respectively, from his videos and related merchandise.

Unboxing sponsored toys might seem like pure fun to the child influencer, which could technically qualify it as play. But, of course, it isn’t quite that simple. Sponsored content bites deeply into that playfulness, infecting it with work—deadlines, expectations, and, let’s not forget, payment.

Toy unboxing videos frequently feature a 'staged' element since advertisers oversee the content created by child influencers. Nonetheless, children authentically experience excitement from the toys they showcase. To meet advertisers' demands, child influencers must adhere to scripts, meet campaign deadlines, and obtain approvals from brands.

So, while it feels playful, it can’t be purely classified as such because it also has labor-like characteristics. This creates an odd interdependence, where the playful and the professional are two sides of the same coin. Yet, calling it purely labor also misses the mark, because—well—it’s still play, after all.

b. what does Karl Marx think of child influencers?

Karl Marx distinguishes work as a free, vital activity for all societies, while labour is a purposeful, value-creating activity where the worker loses ownership of production and must sell their labour power. The sale of labor power refers to the commodification of labor, in which workers trade their capacity to work for a commodity from capitalists.

Marx contends that when labor is treated as a commodity, it leads to the alienation of workers from the processes of their work. Exploitation and alienation are closely related, with alienation being both a condition and a result of exploitation. This is a fundamental aspect of capitalism.

Thus, people who produce content and upload it on social media are involved in labour in the capitalist economy.

The process of commodification is present in the digital capitalist system, activating alienation for content creators on YouTube. While YouTube allows content producers to make money, interact with their audience, and express their creativity, the creators are also subject to the algorithmic systems and laws of the platform.

The term 'child labor' refers to the exploitation of children, robbing them of their childhood, education, and overall development. In essence, child labor is detrimental to both the physical and mental growth of the child. Similarly, children involved in social media face risks akin to those of traditional child performers, including financial insecurity, health dangers, and significant loss of privacy.

Yet existing child labour laws do not perceive child influencers as child labourers, despite their time and effort in content creation, which is essentially a form of labour.

Although influencer work may not involve the same immediate dangers as children working in mines or sweatshops, there are potential long-term negative effects from constantly being in the public eye. This highlights the idea that modern child labor has evolved into a new form.

the blurred lines between work and play

The authenticity of play adds to the tension of labour and play, revealing a transversal paradox. De Veirman et al. claim ‘the influencer does not pretend to play and have fun with toys; he/she really does’.

The carefully crafted spontaneity of sponsored child play may stem from children striving to meet parental expectations, resulting in emotional labor. Emotional labor involves altering one’s emotions and outward expressions to align with the psychological and emotional demands of a particular task or environment.

The ideology of play promotes the idea of liberation and fun—being the opposite of work. But, if we’re being honest, work is never just work, and kids' play isn’t always purely play either. There’s even a genre of video games whose sole purpose is to simulate our work in real life.

Masterson argues that child influencers' content creation "cannot just be considered play—it is work.” Insisting that play is purely play only reinforces the outdated binary of work versus play, when, in reality, they often exist together in a ‘both/and’ scenario.

Play frequently includes work-like activities. First and second graders felt both enjoyment and pressure when their teachers urged them to finish their coloring assignments.

It's the same in the digital world of child influencers—media critics argue that working for brands robs these kids of their childhoods.

According to W.K. Smith and Lewis, this is the kind of paradox where the elements seem perfectly rational on their own, yet utterly absurd when they exist together. And here we have children, engaged in what looks like carefree play, all while being compensated for their efforts. The lines between play and professional obligation blur, dropping us into what can only be described as a ‘grey zone.’

At the end of the day, the determining factor of whether [this particular thing] is play for the child or not is whether they genuinely enjoy doing it or not.

Playing with their younger brother can be work; mopping the floor can be play.

Fun is the key.

paradox 2: autonomy and control

You don’t think that a child who is barely in kindergarten can really operate a multimillion-dollar business, do you? Good. Of course, some adults will step in. Most of the cases, it’s their parents.

A child needs their independence and self-expression, but because children are scientifically dumb, they also require parental oversight and regulation. These two things negate one another, and evidently more so in the case of child influencers.

The child and the parent’s relationship in this case remarkably resembles the relationship of a K-Pop idol and their managing company.

a. autonomy of joining

The first thing that parents control is how a child is appearing on screen. Not just his appearance literally. A child being themselves is not necessarily always interesting to watch. So the parents have to define what kind of content the child has to make to attract audiences. Being interesting to watch is essential in building a profitable brand and influencer business.

Additionally and obviously, most children do not know nor care about the nuanced technique of creating content and monetizing from it. They know even less than zero about how to manage a production crew, how to do market research, and how to book interviews that boost their images. But their parents do. Advertisers do not directly engage with child influencers; it is the responsibility of the parents.

Parental support is the prerequisite for a child to become an influential star. Winckler emphasizes that child influencers cannot operate without parental involvement, as parents manage most behind-the-scenes aspects of content creation.

Parents must guarantee their child fulfills advertising obligations, using play as a deliberate strategy to achieve serious goals. Within the socially constructed realm of the child, where fun and labour merge, children create content often directed by parents and advertisers to attract viewers and generate income.

Despite legal protection for parental freedom in the law, there is limited academic attention on the social implications and conflicts at the intersection of laws, parental authority, and online information sharing in the context of child influencers. Children are left in the hands of their parents, who manage their commercial success.

Play is, thus, intentionally turned into a consumeristic act. This intent, driven by parents’ efforts to meet advertiser demands, impacts the child’s motivation for content creation and the authenticity of their engagement.

The power imbalance between child influencers and their parents presents significant concerns.

As children mature and become increasingly aware of their digital presence, they remain under the control of their parents, prompting questions about their actual agency. This dependency fosters a top-down dynamic from parent to child. Sadly, cases of exploitation and abuse, like those on family vlogging channels such as 'DaddyOFive' and 'FamilyOFive,' demonstrate how excessive parental authority can undermine children's autonomy and well-being.

b. autonomy in creating your persona

Whilst parents play a crucial role in shaping their child’s online presence, ultimately, the child’s image is often what drives product sales.

When a child’s online persona is curated and distinct from their offline life, it creates confusion about their true identity. As they grow older and try to establish their personality, children may struggle to reconcile the exaggerated, often highly visible online identity with who they are in real life.

Additionally, potential employers, friends, or partners might form preconceived notions based on the child’s online persona. The inability to control how they are represented as children can hinder their ability to manage future relationships on their own terms.

A mother of three child influencers, in an interview, told WIRED about her influential children, ‘If there are days they’re totally not into it, they don’t have to be… Unless it’s paid. Then they have to be there. We always have lollipops on those days.

This conditional autonomy contradicts genuine autonomy, suggesting that choice may be influenced by advertisers or personal obligations rather than the child’s preferences alone.

Furthermore, exploring the potentially conflicting motivations driving parents and child influencers is warranted. The parent-child relationship often resembles a power contest, with parents generally wielding more authority, though influence can operate from both ends.

paradox 3: privacy and success

The struggle between being open to success and keeping a child safe online isn't just a tricky balance; it’s like trying to ride two horses in opposite directions.

Pamyeuoi, or Pamela Hải Đường, is a young social media sensation from Vietnam, known for her massive online presence despite being only a toddler. Her journey began with her parents, influencer Salim and businessman Hải Long, who have shared glimpses of her life on social media. What started as endearing family content quickly caught the attention of brands due to Pam's overwhelming popularity, especially on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where she garners millions of interactions.

Pam's brand collaborations began with her becoming the face of Comfort's gentle care products, aligning her pure and adorable image with the brand’s family-oriented values. Her presence in advertising extended to major brands such as Huggies, Zara, UNIQLO, and Crocs, often in collaboration with her mother.

The combination of her cute charm and her parents' influence has made Pam a sought-after figure in Vietnam's influencer marketing landscape, earning her sponsorship deals and participation in high-profile campaigns.

Despite her success, her parents face public scrutiny about the ethical implications of using their child's image for commercial purposes. However, they have taken steps to protect her privacy while navigating the balance between sharing her life and capitalizing on her fame.

When parents share their child’s life online to build fame, they give up a piece of that child’s privacy. But if they keep everything private, they can’t achieve the level of openness that’s needed to succeed on social media. It’s a lose-lose situation: You can’t win in the child influencer world without posting content, but posting exposes the child to risks. Posts invite traffic, traffic invites followers, and followers bring sponsorship deals.

Influencer parents are caught in this paradox because they have two jobs: protect their child's privacy but also create content to build their online presence. Normally, this kind of privacy dilemma comes up when people reveal personal information, but with “sharenting” (parents sharing their kids’ lives online), it’s even more complicated.

Sharenting involves posting pictures, stories, and videos about a child’s life. Most of the time, this is harmless. When children become influencers, this takes on a whole new level—now, the child’s face and life become a brand. But with this comes a big question: how much of the child’s privacy is sacrificed for fame?

While sharenting is a hot topic, we still don’t fully understand how vulnerable child influencers are in this environment. The real question we need to ask is: how does this privacy paradox make child influencers more vulnerable? And how does it affect their overall well-being as they grow up in the digital spotlight?

Imagine a child walking a tightrope between fame and privacy. The more they lean toward success, the more they lose their balance with privacy. To truly understand what’s going on, we need to dig deeper into the tricky dynamics at play—how being vulnerable and authentic online collides with the goal of building a brand.

vulnerability and authenticity

Children, as digital citizens and consumers, face unique vulnerabilities in the marketing landscape. Compared to adults, they are more susceptible to temporary, situational-based risks as they navigate the online world. This vulnerability is heightened when parents commercialize their child’s images, often without the child's consent, raising complex ethical concerns.

Children typically have limited agency over how parents share their personal information online, which can inadvertently put them at risk. Even with well-intentioned efforts to create online content, such as parents of child influencers, privacy risks persist.

The drive for perceived authenticity—sharing personal details like a child’s name, age, and daily activities—fuels the success of content creators, but at the cost of increased privacy risks. For child influencers, this pursuit of authenticity often heightens their vulnerability.

This raises a critical question: Do the benefits of an online presence, such as sponsorship deals and fulfilling audience expectations, outweigh the privacy risks?

Monetizing content featuring child influencers also presents a double-edged sword. While an active online presence is essential for attracting brand partnerships, weak legal protections for child influencers leave them vulnerable to various online threats. This underscores the urgent need for stronger legislation addressing children’s online privacy.

As children engage in monetized content creation, they become socializing agents, learning consumer behaviors early on. However, this process makes them even more vulnerable, particularly during the formative stages of their online presence and consumption.

3. shouldn’t we leave parents the fuck alone in raising their child?

At first glance, the argument that parents should be left alone in raising their children feels fundamental to the principles of freedom and autonomy.

After all, families have always been seen as sacred spaces, where external judgment has no place unless there’s evident harm. But when a child’s life is transformed into a series of Instagram posts or YouTube videos, we are no longer witnessing private moments of parenting—we’re engaging with a performance on a public stage.

This brings us to a deeper question: What does it mean to raise a child in a world where the boundaries between the public and private are dissolving? Traditionally, childhood has been a time for personal growth, a period of protection from the harsh realities of the adult world. By exposing children to the unforgiving arena of online visibility, are we robbing them of that essential developmental space?

Some might argue that in good faith, parents, who know their children best, have the right to navigate this space as they see fit. But to Rousseau, who stressed that childhood is a distinct phase of life that should be shielded from adult pressures, that is a garbage opinion.

People don’t magically gain all necessary parental knowledge and philosophy when they birth their child into this world. Parents, despite their good intentions, might unknowingly entangle their children in a system that prioritizes likes and views over genuine personal development.

There are just so many child movie stars that spend years to unpack the trauma that the early fame has brought to them, a lot of the time greatly amplified with the help of their parents. Parents don’t always know best. Influencer children might be next. Stop with the bullshit.

This is not to accuse parents of malice but to ask:

Are they navigating a system designed for the child’s well-being or one optimized for profit and engagement?

And if it's the latter, don't we, as a society, have a moral obligation to protect children from becoming the product?

Children, by nature, lack the agency to consent to being a part of this spectacle. They’re unable to fully understand the long-term consequences of growing up online. If their parents don’t help them and society turns a blind eye, then who will?

Are there any exclusive benefits that participating in an advertisement offers to the development of a child?

As The Truman Show draws to a close, Truman finally breaks free from the fabricated world that held him captive for so long. He steps out of the artificial bubble that controlled every aspect of his life and into the unknown, finally reclaiming his freedom. But can the children raised in today's digital age ever hope to do the same?

Unlike Truman, they aren’t locked in a physical dome, but their entire existence is documented in the vast, inescapable expanse of the internet. The digital footprint left by years of content is permanent, shaping their identities in ways they may not understand until they’re older. They grow up with millions of strangers knowing their names, faces, and even the most personal aspects of their lives—an audience they never consented to entertain.

The question is: Will they have the same chance Truman had to walk away? Can these children reclaim a sense of privacy and autonomy, or are they forever bound to the online personas created for them by others?

Perhaps one day they will break free from the virtual dome that now encircles their childhood. But unlike Truman, they’ll need to wrestle with the complex reality of a world that remembers every click, every post, and every video.

Ryan, hitting his adolescence in 2025, is still posting videos daily.

No child deserves to be commercialised. No child deserves to be an influencer.

Many thanks to Trang Nguyen who has generously donated – your support is not just appreciated, it's what keeps this blog, unlike me, alive and thriving.
If you'd like to support my work, you can make a donation through this link – any amount is greatly appreciated.

If you ask me, there isn't a better embodiment of cringe than LinkedIn, the crown jewel of performative professionalism. If social media is a stage, LinkedIn is the over-enthusiastic actor who keeps forgetting they're not auditioning for an Oscar.

LinkedIn has 1 billion active users as of 2024. Every second, three new people jump on the bandwagon. If it were a country, LinkedIn would be the third most populated.

But it’d definitely be the cringiest country.

There, the humblebrag has reached an art form, and self-promotion is disguised as "thought leadership." Every post feels like a carefully scripted monologue, where job titles become badges of honor and endorsements are the standing ovations everyone craves.

This disconnect between intention and execution is where we find ourselves cringing—not just at the awkwardness of the delivery, but at the blatant violation of the social codes that keep our interactions comfortable.

But exactly why do we cringe on LinkedIn? What makes us do what we do on the platform, and can we honestly stop using it? These are the kind of questions that I will attempt to answer in this blog.

1. why we cringe on LinkedIn

Let’s talk about cringe.

Cringe is that gut-wrenching feeling of secondhand embarrassment we get when we see someone trying too hard—usually to impress, but sometimes to be funny, vulnerable, or authentic in a way that just doesn’t land.

Like the class clown who keeps repeating the same unfunny jokes.

Turns out, cringe has roots on us psychologically. According to psychologist Philippe Rochat, we cringe when we see someone violate the “codes” of social interaction.

See, as human beings, we have a list of “codes” to keep things comfortable and familiar for everyone. Some rules are grounded in essential moral principles, like the prohibition against taking another person's life, while others are more trivial—guidelines that might matter to me personally but have less impact overall.

To not cringe, a LinkedIn post has to consist of one of these two things:

1) Value: Either educate or entertain people

2) Authenticity: Share genuine experiences

When someone breaks these norms—by oversharing, overbragging, or failing to read the room—we cringe because we’re hardwired to care about how others see us. It's a reminder that we, too, could mess up. It’s like seeing someone slip on ice and thinking, “Glad it wasn’t me, but also, yikes.”

Imagine an entire platform designed for professional self-promotion, where the invisible rules are constantly teetering on the edge of overstepping. That’s LinkedIn.

The thing with LinkedIn is that there is a 90% chance that this kind of post is trolling, but there’s a solid 10% chance that he’s serious. And sometimes you cannot tell which is which.

So, why do we do this to ourselves? Why do otherwise normal, intelligent people morph into robots programmed to spew buzzwords the moment they hit “Post” on LinkedIn?

Here’s my theory: LinkedIn is a place where everyone feels like they have to perform. It’s a stage where every act of you exists permanently, and all of your co-workers and future employers are invited. So what do we do? We turn the cringe up to 11, because we think that’s what the audience wants to see.

This creates a positive feedback cycle. You scroll LinkedIn, see someone’s cringe post racking up likes, and think, "Hmm, maybe I need to post like that." Next thing you know, you’re posting an inspirational quote about how “Leaders eat last” with a selfie of you holding a protein shake in your home office.

It’s our fault, but not entirely. LinkedIn is designed to promote this phenomenon.

2. how LinkedIn is designed for you to cringe

Let’s step back and think about LinkedIn for a second. Unlike Instagram or Twitter or Substack, where you can curate different versions of yourself—party self, thought-leader self, blogger self—LinkedIn demands that you show up as your most professional self. Your profile picture? Buttoned-up. Your posts? Packed with buzzwords. Your connections? People you barely know from a conference three years ago.

It’s like showing up to a party where everyone’s wearing suits, shaking hands, and talking about KPIs, but deep down you just want to chill in your pajamas. This constant pressure to perform fuels the cringe: LinkedIn forces us to sell ourselves while pretending we’re not. We all know we’re in this space to advance our careers, but we also know that blatant self-promotion feels gross. The result? LinkedIn Cringe.

Research by Goffman’s theory of self-presentation tells us that people constantly manage how they’re perceived, and authenticity always gets thrown out the window. LinkedIn magnifies this with algorithms that reward engagement, likes, and comments—leading to behavior that feels performative. And because everyone is trying so hard to be seen as "professional," even small missteps (like over-enthusiasm or forced humility) stand out in ways that feel cringe-worthy.

Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have pushed the art and science of ‘mass self-communication’ to a new level. Their interfaces cajole users into releasing information about themselves, both consciously and unconsciously. Users, for their part, have become increasingly skilled at playing the game of self-promotion, while advertisers and other interested parties, such as (prospective) employers, are getting leverage out of these tools for their own purposes.

The power over interfaces naturally resides with platform owners, but they constantly have to balance users’ demands with business interests—a struggle that reveals the deeper ideological and economic interest at stake in online identity formation.

At the core of this tussle we find three stakeholders: users want to build connections and preferably deploy multiple modes of self-performance aimed at different audiences; employers seek ‘true’ information about a prospective employee’s behavior and also need SNSs to monitor their employees’ online behavior; and, finally, platform owners have a vested interest in uniform narratives to maximize connectivity.

All three stakes are rooted in strategic paradoxes: each act of self-performance or personality assessment requires tactical maneuvering and awareness of the power plays involved in the game

the LinkedIn cringe loop

To survive the world of social media, you created two little characters inside your brain: Professional You and You You.

• Professional You are decked out in a blazer, carrying a briefcase. They’re nervous because every single post they make could be seen by potential employers, co-workers, or industry leaders. This person spends hours crafting the perfect post, tweaking it for just the right level of humblebragging. They’re thinking: “How can I get likes and not seem desperate?”

• You You, on the other hand, are wearing pajamas and lying on the couch with Cheeto dust on their hands. This person doesn’t care about buzzwords; they just want to say, “Honestly, I’m stressed about this new job, but I’m learning!” However, Authentic You rarely sees the light of day on LinkedIn because, well, Professional You keeps them locked in the basement.

What happens when Professional You win every time? The LinkedIn Cringe Loop: The more performative we are, the more engagement we get. The more engagement we get, the more we crave it. And the cringe grows.

3. the LinkedIn cringe duo

So, why does scrolling LinkedIn feel like walking through a field of rakes that all hit you in the face? Because LinkedIn has given birth to something I call The Cringe Trifecta, a perfect storm of uncomfortable behavior that only exists in the professional world.

Let’s break it down:

a. the humblebrag

There are many names to call these people by: humblebrag, indirect brag, brags in disguise, etc. This is basically a brag, but the author is self-aware enough to tuck it under camouflage.

The Humblebrag is like the social media equivalent of a magician not showing you the trick but expecting applause anyway. It's a performance—an attempt to sound modest while slyly slipping in some impressive feat or accolade. And trust me, it’s not just Steve from accounting who’s guilty of this. Humblebragging is practically a cultural epidemic.

Psychologists have even studied this phenomenon. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that humblebragging is actually counterproductive—it makes people like you less. In fact, researchers concluded that people who humblebrag come across as less sincere and more self-centered than if they’d just been straightforward about their accomplishments. So, not only is Steve showing off, but he's also making everyone dislike him in the process.

The brilliance of the humblebrag is in its thin veneer of humility, like the phrase “I’m so exhausted from traveling between my multiple TED talks.” You hear it and immediately know it's not about being tired—it's about how impressive it is to give TED talks. The subtlety of the brag lies in the balance: not too obvious, but just enough to make sure you catch it. If you ever catch yourself saying, “I can’t believe I’ve won *yet another* award for my groundbreaking work in something obscure but intellectual-sounding,” you’re deep in humblebrag territory.

And it’s all over LinkedIn. Take a scroll, and you’ll notice the pattern: the casual “so honored to be recognized” posts, the faux surprise at winning an award, or the classic “I’m truly humbled to have led this successful merger of two Fortune 500 companies.” Truly humbled? Probably not.

b. the guru

Ah, the LinkedIn TED Talk Syndrome—where every post looks like something a person would write from memory after a glance at Tony Robbins’s notes. This is where LinkedIn users transform into self-proclaimed life coaches, delivering profound insights that are about as deep as a kiddie pool.

The formula is as predictable as it is cringeworthy. First, you start with a #hustle or #grind metaphor that makes you wonder if the poster has ever actually been on a mountain, or if they’re just reading motivational books on a beach somewhere. “Life is like climbing a mountain…” they begin, as if scaling Everest is the only way to understand their deeply profound thoughts about quarterly earnings.

Next, they drop a platitude so vague that it’s practically a cosmic riddle. “Success is what happens when you stop waiting for the elevator and start taking the stairs.” Ah, yes. Because, clearly, the key to corporate success is not about strategy or hard work but simply about choosing the staircase over the elevator, or maybe just hitting the gym a bit more often. It’s like saying, “Happiness is found in the journey, not the destination,” but without the commitment to actually defining either of those terms.

The pièce de résistance is the awkward selfie, usually taken in a poorly lit room with a backdrop that screams, “I just rolled out of bed.” The selfie is coupled with a promise to keep grinding, an obligatory call-out to the LinkedIn community: “Keep pushing forward, LinkedIn fam. #MotivationMonday #Leadership #NoDaysOff.” It’s as if the selfie is supposed to be the visual equivalent of a motivational speech, inspiring hundreds of likes for reasons known only to the algorithms of LinkedIn’s engagement metrics.

So why do these posts get so many likes? It’s a mystery, much like why anyone would willingly watch a TED Talk on how to tie knots. But here’s the secret: it’s not about the content. It’s about the performative hustle and the visual proof that the poster is, in fact, climbing that metaphorical mountain while we’re all here, waiting for the elevator. The result? An endless loop of likes, engagement, and the occasional eye roll.

4. why do people act cringe on LinkedIn?

People act this way on LinkedIn because of a potent mix of social media dynamics, professional pressure, and psychological tendencies. Research into social behaviors on social media platforms like LinkedIn provides insights into why users feel compelled to post in ways that are, frankly, cringe-inducing.

a public stage

At its core, LinkedIn is a professional network, but it has increasingly become a public stage where people feel the need to perform success. This performance pressure stems from a combination of impression management and the "fear of missing out" (FOMO), which is amplified in career-focused environments.

According to a 2018 study published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, people actively curate their online personas to influence how others perceive them. On LinkedIn, this translates into posts that highlight achievements, sometimes excessively, in order to boost one’s professional reputation .

But why the humblebrag? Social scientists have long studied this phenomenon. The term, coined by comedian Harris Wittels, refers to a brag disguised in self-deprecation or modesty, and it's all over LinkedIn. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that humblebragging is counterproductive; it makes people like you less.

According to the research, people who humblebrag come across as less sincere and more self-centered than those who are straightforward about their accomplishments . This means Steve from accounting isn’t just showing off his “surprise” award—he’s also shooting himself in the foot socially. The humblebrag’s subtle bragging wrapped in false humility isn’t fooling anyone, but LinkedIn encourages it because users believe it paints them as both accomplished and modest.

cross-pollination effect

The cross-pollination effect refers to how behaviors and trends from one social media platform influence and migrate to others, particularly as users adapt familiar habits from more personal platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter into a professional context like LinkedIn.

LinkedIn didn’t evolve in isolation. As platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter became central to personal branding, the habits people developed on those networks naturally bled into LinkedIn. Self-promotion, once limited to sales pitches or annual performance reviews, has become a daily activity, with people packaging their achievements and life lessons for their professional network.

The rise of the motivational guru is a prime example of this. A 2020 study in Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace analyzed the rise of pseudo-inspirational content on professional platforms like LinkedIn, identifying it as an extension of Instagram's “influencer culture.”

The formula is simple: post a vaguely profound insight, wrap it in metaphors, throw in a couple of hashtags, and voila—you’re now a thought leader.

This approach isn’t about sharing deep insights; it’s about crafting content that’s bite-sized, easily shareable, and designed to get likes.

These posts get engagement not because they’re insightful, but because they signal to others that the poster is part of the “hustle” culture. It’s performative—people aren’t writing these posts because they’ve cracked the secret to success, but because they want to be seen as someone who has.

feeding the algorithm beast

Let’s not forget the algorithm.

LinkedIn’s algorithm is horny for posts with higher engagement by pushing them to more users, which incentivizes people to post what will get likes, shares, and comments. A 2022 study in Computers in Human Behavior looked into LinkedIn’s algorithmic impact and found that posts with emotional appeal, particularly motivational content, were more likely to be promoted by the platform. This is why we see the same formula over and over again: a humblebrag post, a motivational speech, or some corporate jargon dressed up as life advice. The algorithm doesn’t care about depth or originality; it only cares about engagement. Because engagement, again, invites ads.

This creates a feedback loop: the more likes and comments a post gets, the more it’s seen, and the more people are likely to emulate that content, thinking it’s the key to success on the platform. Thus, we get a flood of "Keep grinding!" posts and humblebrags about winning "yet another" award.

The customer demand is so great, and the tone is so uniquely LinkedIn, there is even an AI made specifically just to parody these types of posts. And the Internet, being moronic as it is, had a fuck field day.

insecurity and social comparison

Underlying all of this is insecurity.

Social comparison theory, developed by psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s, explains how people determine their own social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others. LinkedIn, with its professional focus, is fertile ground for this kind of comparison. A study published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture in 2019 explored how LinkedIn fosters a comparison trap, where users feel the need to project an image of perpetual success.

People post their accomplishments not just to celebrate them, but to reassure themselves—and others—that they’re doing well in their careers.

This is why so many LinkedIn posts feel less like genuine updates and more like performances. People aren’t just sharing for the sake of it—they’re crafting a narrative, ensuring they’re seen as valuable, successful, and constantly climbing that metaphorical mountain. It’s not enough to be successful; on LinkedIn, you have to look successful, too.

5. why are we still on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn: the platform that’s as unavoidable as a work meeting and as awkward as making small talk at a networking event. We’ve all had that moment where we thought, "Why am I even still here?" You know, when you’re 45 minutes into a scroll, and the last thing you saw was a post about someone’s third consecutive promotion, followed by a #MotivationMonday quote that left you questioning your entire career path. Yet, here we are, still logging in, still scrolling. Why?

To answer that, we need to dive into the strange psychology and mechanics of LinkedIn. Let’s break this down.

a. LinkedIn is a necessary evil (because, yes, networking)

First off, we can’t ignore the obvious reason: LinkedIn is a professional necessity. You know it, I know it. The platform was literally built for you to look good in front of future employers and professional connections. In a world where jobs come and go faster than you can swipe left on a bad Tinder match, LinkedIn offers a sense of security. You don’t want to miss out on potential opportunities, so you log in, even if it’s just to make sure your profile picture still screams, "I’m hireable!"

The networking power of LinkedIn is no joke. Studies show that 85% of jobs are filled through networking, and LinkedIn is responsible for nearly 77% of all job placements online. If you’re not on LinkedIn, you’re essentially missing out on three-quarters of the job market. Because who even hires offline now?

So yeah, we’re here because, at least for now, we have to be. LinkedIn, in a sense, put food on our and our cat’s plates.

b. LinkedIn knows how to hook you

Let’s get real for a second. LinkedIn is social media, even if it wears a suit and tie. And like all social media platforms, it taps into a deeply human need: validation. The moment you post a new job update or share a humblebrag about your latest side hustle, the dopamine rush begins. The likes, comments, and congratulations start pouring in, and suddenly you’re feeling pretty good about yourself.

That fleeting moment where your professional ego gets inflated by all the likes from people you haven’t talked to since high school. It's a quick hit of self-worth that keeps you coming back for more. After all, why do we post anything online if not to feel noticed?

According to behavioral scientist BJ Fogg, social media platforms (yes, even LinkedIn) are designed to create habit loops. The feedback loops (likes, comments) on LinkedIn trigger a reward system in your brain, making you associate logging in with positive reinforcement.

This is why LinkedIn’s feed feels like a professional slot machine—you keep pulling the lever, hoping to win some validation.

c. the fear of falling behind

Now, here’s the existential one: FOMO—the Fear of Missing Out. On LinkedIn, it’s not just about missing a party; it’s about missing the entire career ladder. Every time you log in, you’re confronted with posts about other people’s successes. Promotions, new job titles, certifications, international speaking gigs—LinkedIn becomes a feed of “Here’s why you’re falling behind,” and that taps into one of the deepest anxieties we all have: Are we doing enough?

Once you fall into it, it’s hard to escape. You start off just checking notifications and end up spiraling into a black hole of someone else’s career achievements. Why? Because LinkedIn, like all social platforms, is driven by comparison.

Psychologists have studied something called social comparison theory, which explains that humans evaluate themselves based on comparisons to others. Like a monkey feels ugly only if it has one less boyfriend than that oragutan the next cage. And on Linkedin, we are all monkey. These comparisons are especially painful because they revolve around career status—a core part of our identity. Seeing someone else succeed triggers feelings of inadequacy, pushing us to log in more often to stay competitive.

d. the illusion of opportunity

Let’s talk about the carrot at the end of the stick. LinkedIn sells the idea that at any moment, a game-changing opportunity could drop into your inbox—a dream job offer, a lucrative freelance gig, a high-profile connection. So, you stick around because, what if? What if that recruiter DM’s you tomorrow with the chance of a lifetime? What if your next post goes viral, and suddenly you’re a thought leader in your industry? Someone’s gotta win, right?

LinkedIn capitalizes on what psychologists call intermittent reinforcement—the same mechanism that makes gambling addictive. Sometimes you’ll get a message from a recruiter or a post that gets tons of engagement, and that’s enough to keep you logging in, day after day, even if most of the time you’re just seeing fluff posts.

e. we all want to look good

Finally, let’s not forget the image factor. LinkedIn is where you perform your professional self. It’s like a never-ending job interview where you have to look polished, competent, and successful. That’s exhausting, but it’s also incredibly hard to walk away from. No one wants to be the person who quits the only platform where your career might get noticed.

The more time you spend on LinkedIn, the more you feel like you have to maintain the perfect version of yourself. And the higher the stakes get, the more invested you become in sticking around.

Studies have found that people tend to create “idealized” versions of themselves on social media platforms, including LinkedIn. According to Erving Goffman’s theory of impression management, LinkedIn isn’t just a tool for networking—it’s a place where you craft your professional identity, carefully curating what others see.

This makes LinkedIn less about connection and more about performance, and once you’ve built your persona, it’s tough to walk away.

In the end, we’re still on LinkedIn because it’s like a weirdly addictive cocktail of career necessity, validation, comparison, and opportunity. It’s the professional space where we feel like we have to be, even if it makes us cringe sometimes. And like any performance, LinkedIn requires an audience, so as long as everyone else is there, we’ll probably keep showing up too.

Until, of course, someone creates a better version.

And when they do? I’ll be the first to announce it on LinkedIn.

#Blessed #ExcitedToShare #NeverStopLearning

I was so curious to see how Meta’s Threads play out.

Meta announced the app right when Twitter was in a hot mess of shit under Elon’s newly acquired control. So everybody was making their own guess whether this new app could potentially be Twitter’s killer.

Given Meta's commitment to maintaining a family-friendly environment across its platforms, their approach to content moderation on Threads is notably stricter compared to X. Unlike X, which has become more permissive under Elon Musk's leadership, allowing adult content to proliferate, Threads enforces stringent guidelines that prohibit explicit material.

This censorship is implemented through a combination of advanced AI algorithms and human review teams, ensuring that any content deemed inappropriate, such as nudity or sexually explicit images, is swiftly removed. By maintaining these standards, Meta aims to create a space that is accessible to a broader audience, including younger users and those who prefer a cleaner, more moderated online environment.

However, this raises questions about the balance between free expression and the need for content control and how this impacts the overall user experience on Threads. Given its notorious censorship, would it really be any less toxic than the state of X now?

My curiosity was piqued because, up until then, Twitter wasn't particularly popular in Vietnam, except for its use as a porn platform. So, I was eager to see if the culture on this new app would be any different.

I have been on Threads for a while now. And, unfortunately for us, it was exactly the same.

1. the state of threads

Our favorite conspired-lizard-man billionaire hastily pushed Threads out, despite having only barebones features, in a bid to capture users evacuating from the sinking ship of Twitter under Musk’s leadership (their relationship got so bad they almost had a case fight).

But for Vietnamese users, this presented a second chance: a chance to engage with a short-form, text-based platform outside of X—an app notoriously plagued by pornography and aptly living up to its name. Threads is a Twitter clone, but Meta is introducing the concept to never-tweeters who have been on Instagram.

In Vietnam, Threads has quickly become a focal point for discussions, particularly around celebrity culture and public scandals. The platform’s rapid adoption, apart from its direct connection to Instagram, can be attributed to its ability to facilitate real-time conversations and its relative “novelty” compared to more established networks like Facebook.

Meta's Threads has rapidly become a hub of chaotic online activity, shooting opinions information left and right to everyone’s face at an overwhelmingly violent speed. The platform is distinguished by its high volume of interactions and the rapid dissemination of information.

Threads, at the same time, has also become the ideal breeding center for online toxicity, especially in the context of Vietnamese online culture. Threads foster echo chambers where groupthink prevails and dissenting voices are quickly silenced. This environment has made Threads a hotbed for cancel culture, where reputations and careers are destroyed almost overnight, fueling a cycle of negativity.

Vietnamese culture, traditionally grounded in respect, deference, and the collective good, seems almost at odds with these behaviors that Threads promotes. The design of Threads, which rewards brevity and instant engagement, amplifies these sharp bursts of commentary and serves them as its most unique selling point.

So why has Threads in Vietnam evolved into such a chaotic state? Is it merely a consequence of the platform’s design, or does it reflect something deeper about our digital culture?

It seems the tools intended to connect us are instead encouraging us to fragment our thoughts, prioritizing the ephemeral over the substantive. This raises a troubling question: Are we losing our ability to engage in genuine dialogue, think critically, and appreciate depth in an increasingly superficial digital age?

2. different platforms, different interactions

design and purpose of Threads

The conversation that is happening on Threads is mostly weaved by the design of the platform, i.e., the features that Threads includes and the way those features are presented to the users.

The platform's design supports fast, conversation-led exchanges, which Meta intended to capitalize on the shifting dynamics in social media, especially as Twitter faced its own challenges under Musk’s rule.

Threads, as a platform, was intentionally designed to prioritize brevity and speed in user interactions. This emphasis on short-form content means that users are encouraged to share quick thoughts, reactions, and opinions, often in a matter of seconds. The platform’s interface and user experience are tailored to support rapid exchanges, where the primary focus is on immediacy rather than depth.

This design choice reflects a broader trend in social media towards instant gratification, where users can quickly post and consume content without needing to engage in more extended contemplation or analysis.

impact on dialogue

The inherent structure of Threads limits the potential for more nuanced and considered dialogue. When users are confined to short posts, there is less room for complex arguments, detailed explanations, or the exploration of multiple perspectives.

Sure, many people like shorter dialogues, shorter videos, shorter everything. They are more memorable, more exciting to the brain, and more easy to consume. Like how we all collectively remember Einstein’s famous equation E=mc^2: it’s simple, it’s impactful. But most of us cannot quote shit on the general theory of relativity. But literally no one would give any less fucks if Einstein just throws the equations out there on Threads. The equation barely makes sense with 40 pages of paper elaborating on it.

Instead, the platform fosters a communication style that is more direct and, most of the time, oversimplified. This can lead to a reduction in the quality of discourse, as users may resort to soundbites, slogans, or catchy phrases that can be easily shared and quickly consumed but which lack the depth required for meaningful conversation.

The rapid-response nature of Threads encourages more impulsive reactions. The platform’s design rewards immediacy, often pushing users to post their thoughts and opinions as quickly as possible. This can result in content that is more reactionary and emotionally charged, as there is less time for reflection before responding. In environments like Threads, where the pace of interaction is fast, users may feel pressure to keep up with the flow of conversation, leading them to post hastily without fully considering the implications or consequences of their words.

I have never thought I would praise Facebook’s design, but in contrast to Threads, its structure allows for a different type of interaction. Facebook supports longer posts, which gives users the opportunity to develop their ideas, maybe not perfectly, but more fully. Whether through detailed status updates, shared articles with commentary, or extended captions accompanying images and videos, Facebook’s format enables users to express more complex thoughts and engage in more thoughtful discussions. The ability to include various content types—such as images, videos, links, and polls—adds further layers to the interaction, allowing for richer and more diverse communication.

Threaded comments on Facebook also play a crucial role in facilitating in-depth discussions. Users can respond directly to specific points made in a post or comment, creating a nested conversation that unfolds over time. This structure encourages back-and-forth dialogue, where participants can ask questions, clarify points, and build on each other’s ideas. The asynchronous nature of Facebook discussions means that users can take their time to craft responses, leading to more reflective and well-considered interactions.

I have to say that I’m heavily biased towards long-form content, as you would have guessed seeing the length of this post. But I dare to argue that, some discussions aren’t meant to be short. But we are seriously trying to discuss everything on the universe, on a platform that limits how many words we can put in a post.

identity experimentation vs. established norms

When new platforms like Threads emerge, users often see them as fresh spaces to explore and push boundaries. This leads to more extreme behavior as users test the limits of the community and the platform’s moderation.

When Threads first launched, many quickly drew parallels with X (formerly Twitter). So it was only natural that some users tried posting porn on Threads as well. However, those attempts failed spectacularly, given Facebook's far stricter policies on explicit material. There are kids using the platform too, you sick fuck. Still, this hasn’t stopped users from pushing the boundaries on Threads, constantly testing how far they can go, from asking overly sexual questions to stating cannot-be-more-obvious rage bait statements.

Facebook, having been around for much longer, has more established norms and community standards that have developed over time. Users on Facebook often belong to specific groups or communities with their own rules and expectations, which moderate behavior. You don’t go around arguing with everyone because you’re afraid your mom will see it.

But your mom is not on Threads, neither are most of your friends or the group or community that you have been participating in.

Threads, being newer, lacks these established norms, and the communities that were formed elsewhere. This certainly created a more chaotic environment where users are less certain about acceptable behavior, and more frequent to be pushing boundaries.

algorithmic amplification and celebrity cancellation

Threads has been around for only one year, and let’s be honest, not that many of the people who you care about post on it. I have over 200 friends on Instagram, and I have only seen 2 people regularly post anything on Threads.

But Threads desperately need something interesting to push to your feed for you to keep scrolling, to keep opening and staying on the app.

Platforms like Threads or Facebook need to keep users engaged because their business models often rely heavily on advertising revenue, which is directly tied to the amount of time users spend on their platforms. The more time users spend, the more ads they see, and the more data the platform can collect to improve ad targeting. This increases the value of the ads they sell, making it critical for these platforms to maximize user engagement.

So the algorithms that power content discovery on Threads prioritize posts that generate high engagement, most of which more often than not include controversial or provocative content.

But the biggest problem with Threads isn’t toxic disagreement; it’s toxic agreement.

Threads, like Tiktok, is algorithmically curated. That means when you come in on the app, you see a bunch of different posts based on your interests, i.e. what you interacted with, whether they were posted five or ten hours ago.

That’s a major difference from Twitter, where the organization of the feed is the reverse chronological timeline of tweets. That means you see every single post from people you follow in reverse order, which made Twitter the perfect instrument for breaking news and live events.

The most alarming sight of this design of Threads is its tendency to polarize people. People enthusiastically agree with each other. Every day, herds of threaders instantly rally around The Correct Opinion on today’s trigger topic. Everyone offers, at best, minor variations on the theme and rarely develops it with any original thought. But at scale, it becomes smug, sickly, and mindless, infuriating even when you agree with the opinion.

But this does not stop as merely people talking around a topic; just like any civil discussion happening from 1789 until now, enough people get triggered, someone’s head getting chopped off.

Every week there is a new witch hunt for the next canceled celebrity. Almost every celebrity cancellation movement in Vietnam now takes roots from Threads and is mainly discussed on Threads before the discussion gets brought up to other platforms. I’m not saying that they might or might not deserve to be cancelled. Some really do, some really don’t. But it’s frightening that every two weeks people just found the next public figures whose career they would like to destroy. At least this shows that Threads in fact succeeds in creating a discussion.

While Facebook also uses the algorithms, Threads' design creates an even more intense feedback loop, where the most sensational or divisive posts are more likely to go viral.

ephemeral nature of interaction

The fast-paced nature of Threads, where content is quickly buried by newer posts, contributes to a sense of impermanence. This encourages users to post more extreme or off-the-cuff comments, believing they will quickly be forgotten. Imagine it like this, everything you ever said to anyone will be forgotten in 30 seconds. Would you not try to say something just completely batshit banana crazy sometimes?

Is this phenomenon inherently bad? Not really. The knowledge that your words are ephemeral, quickly replaced by the next wave of content, might make you more willing to take risks, push boundaries, or express controversial opinions that you wouldn’t normally share in a more permanent or slower-paced environment. To some, like myself, this is a more desired state of conversation that should be happening more on social media.

However, of course this would have its own negative effects. The drive to stand out in an ocean of million pieces of fleeting content pushed out every day leads to increasingly extreme behavior as users try to one-up each other in the rat race for attention. Over time, this creates an echo chamber where the loudest, most provocative voices dominate, while more thoughtful, measured contributions are drowned out by the noise.

user demographics and behavior patterns

As much as I hate to say it, younger people are fucking nuts. And as a platform designed for your younger people, Threads is a fucking nut tree. But science has a beautiful explanation for this.

brain development and risk-taking behavior

The adolescent brain is still undergoing significant development, particularly in the prefrontal cortex—the region responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and rational thought.

This part of the brain doesn't fully mature until the mid-20s, which fits neatly into the user demographic of Threads.This means that during adolescence and early adulthood, individuals are more prone to impulsive decisions and risk-taking behavior.

This biological factor is compounded by an overactive reward system in the brain, specifically in the nucleus accumbens, which drives young people to seek out novel and exciting experiences. The thrill of taking risks can outweigh the potential consequences in their minds, leading to behaviors that older, more mature individuals might avoid.

the influence of peer influence

Social dynamics play a crucial role in shaping the behavior of people. Peer influence is particularly potent during adolescence and early adulthood. The desire to fit in and gain approval from peers can push young individuals to engage in reckless activities that they might not consider when alone.

In group settings, this effect is magnified, as the collective energy and the fear of social rejection can drive risk-taking to new heights. The need for social acceptance often overrides individual caution, leading to actions that can seem irrational or dangerous.

emotional regulation and conflict resolution

Emotional regulation is another critical area where young people are still developing. Adolescents and young adults often experience more intense emotional reactions due to the ongoing maturation of their emotional regulation systems.

When confronted with challenging situations or differing opinions, they may struggle to manage their emotions effectively, leading to more frequent and heated arguments. Additionally, because they are still honing their conflict resolution skills, young people may find it difficult to de-escalate disagreements, causing minor disputes to spiral into significant confrontations.

cultural and generational factors

Cultural and generational shifts also contribute to the behavior of young people, particularly when it comes to expressing opinions and engaging in debates.

In many cultures, younger generations are encouraged to be more outspoken and to challenge established norms. This empowerment leads to more visible and fervent discussions, especially on topics that resonate deeply with them, such as social justice, climate change, and politics. The current generation of young people is more connected and informed than ever before, which can lead to passionate, sometimes heated, exchanges as they advocate for the causes they believe in.

Given these developmental, social, and cultural factors, it’s no surprise that Threads, a platform designed for young people, often reflects this intense, impulsive, and sometimes, fucking psychotic.

So, with all this in mind, the big question is: Can we actually turn Threads into a more constructive space, perhaps a litle chill, even? Is it possible to steer all that energy into something more positive, or is the chaos just part of the deal because of who’s using it and how the platform is set up?

3. can we fix Threads?

If a random kid who has a blog on the Internet can discuss the problems that Threads have, clearly the developers of Threads, clearly Mark Zuckerberg would recognise and fix them, right?

The problem with the problems on Threads is that they are only our problem, not the platform’s problem. When we talk about what’s “wrong” with Threads, we’re discussing issues that affect our personal experience or clash with our expectations of what the platform should be. But from the perspective of the platform’s creators, these aren’t necessarily problems—they are the intended features.

Threads wasn’t snatched out of a space vacuum and put on people’s faces. It was built with a specific purpose, influenced by Meta’s broader goals, market research, and strategic vision. The platform’s design choices, from its user interface to the way it encourages interaction, are deliberate decisions aimed at achieving those goals.

If the ephemeral nature of content on Threads frustrates you, it might be precisely all goes according to plan. This isn't an oversight—it's a reflection of the intended user experience, one that aligns with Meta's business model and vision.

From this perspective, what we see as problems may not be problems for the platform at all. They might be considered successful implementations of its core design principles. The platform is working exactly as intended—it’s just that our expectations don’t align with that intention.

So, can we fix Threads?

The answer depends on what we mean by “fix.” If fixing Threads means aligning it more closely with our personal preferences or the ideals of discourse we value, the odds are slim. Our ideals do not invite ad revenue; Zuckerberg’s ideals do. These platforms are money printers in the making, guided by a complex mix of user data, business goals, and corporate strategy. While user feedback is undoubtedly important, it’s weighed against these broader objectives. In other words, who gives a fuck about your opinions?

But if fixing Threads means making it more aligned with its creators' vision, then perhaps it doesn’t need fixing at all. The platform’s problems, as we perceive them, are our problems—not necessarily the platform’s.

The truth is that Threads, like TikTok or Twitter, aren't social networks. At least on how you and I know it. All are broadcasting platforms for big brands, celebrities, politicians, and media outlets to share information with their followers. And when individuals engage on Threads, we tend to copy one of these people. It’s like suddenly everyone was given a TedTalk stage without any guidelines.

This kind of network doesn't reflect how people naturally socialize in communities. In social clubs, people gather in smaller groups based on shared interests. They don't cram into a massive conference hall and shout over one another, as we often do on platforms like Twitter and now Threads.

I was not an early adopter of Threads. I was not even the on-time adopter. I just started to use Threads recently, when the hype is almost as lively as a skeleton on a desert. I was not a really big fan of the premise of the app: something Musk churned out to try to replace Twitter.

But eventually I gave in. Partly because I was curious, partly because Instagram fucking nagged me about my absence on Threads every time I went on the app.

I think that it’s hard to say whether you should use Threads or not. I think like any other tools or technology, it depends on what you want out of the apps and what your needs are. If you want to be educated on the world’s latest news, to engage in meaningful conversation, and to interact with your close friends, Threads is definitely not the right app to use. Matter of fact, there is no app for that at all. Try going to your local cafe or something.

Threads is still in its basic form at the moment. Threads, like any other behemoth apps out there in the wild, will evolve into something much worse than it initially is. Knowing Mr. Zuckerberg, I know that eventually I would see an ad for every two threads if he was feeling generous.

At the moment, I’m caught in the inconvenient juggling act of posting different content to five different platforms, and it's the opposite of the word "enjoyable.” But I’m assuming something will eventually die off. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

I’ll prefer Twitter, to be honest. The memes are funnier there.

1. English Translation:

Comment by thaib1nh: There’s something about a portion of young Vietnamese people wanting to be black so much that they use their culture as if it’s their own and think they grew up in the hood, while their families live in neighborhoods where kids are still going around going feast on the Mid-Autumn Festival together.

Reply by wxrdie102: Maybe we need to live like you and your family to meet the traditional standards of Vietnamese Asians, right? Others have their own stories, and that's okay. It’s quite amusing—a kid living in a neighborhood celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival commenting on the lives of people in other neighborhoods. Worry about yourself first.

(I cannot for the love of God, fully translate the actual sass of these two people.)

some housekeeping: this is not my usual publishing schedule, I know. I have been struggling to put this piece together and make it less garbage-y. I’m not sure if I have just made it more garbage-y or not in the process. So let me know if you enjoy/not enjoy it.

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