Not sure if this is sarcasm or sincere, but I will take it as sincere haha. I came back to work from parental leave and everyone had that same Studio Ghiblized image as their Slack photo, and I had no idea why. It turns out you really can unplug from social media and not miss anything of value: if it’s a big enough deal you will find out from another channel.

I missed it until this thread. I think I’m proud of myself.

You're one of today's lucky 10.000

https://xkcd.com/1053/

I’m not, I still don’t know what it is, just that it was some kind of fad.

Why does everyone keep calling news "social media"? Have I missed a trend? Knowing what my friend Steve is up to is social media, knowing what AI is up to is news.

You did miss a trend: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/17/more-amer...

I'm afraid a lot of Americans consume the news like they consume sports media. They root for their team and select a news stream that presents them with the most favorable coverage.

As a non-American, I can assure you that's pretty much everywhere.

If you primarily consume text-based social media (HN, reddit with legacy UI) then it's kind of easy to not notice all the new kinds of image infographics and comics that now completely flood places like instagram or linkedin.

Facebook, discord, reddit, HN. Hadn’t heard of it either. But for FB, Reddit, and Discord I strictly curate what I see.