Imgur is an example of social media that pulls this off perfectly. Yes it's still a silly place designed for wasting time rather than personal enrichment, but it doesn't -feel- like other social media does.
Here's the trick: No selfies. No profiles. No follows. You post your meme pseudo-anonymously and hope it makes the central stream. Everything else dies in obscurity.
It's a lot like Hacker News in that way, which is also social media but feels different. Because 99% of the time I don't even read the usernames of who I'm talking to. We live and die on the basis of our ideas, not our identities. Even the famous people.
That's a great point and interesting because I'd thought of HN as much like fora, but there it was (is?) common to address people by username (or partial) - 'Thanks cheesepuff[86] that worked perfectly' - which is seldom seen and would be a bit jarring, wouldn't it Swizec, on HN.
Not sure how you could differentiate, but there has to be a way, as forums -feel- different than, say, Instagram.
Maybe something around media? Banning sites that allow or host media(pics/vids/audio) sharing directly?