Seems to me more common on Twitter, moreso as a way of shortcuts to figuring out who (most followers) and what (most retweets/favorites) to pay attention to.

It sort of makes sense there, but it still would seem lame to me for the average person to publicly admit to caring about FB, Instagram, and Hacker News likes and engagement (obviously everyone does at least a little privately). I'm not hip though. Is this still the case or not?