social media in 2026 and beyond
the new social is coming, and we aren't quite prepared for it
social media in 2026 and beyond
Much of today’s commentary now looks less like real cultural analysis and more like white collar fan fiction and conspiracy theories about what’s happening “backstage.”
Matt Klein • The Art of (Attention) War
social today
this is not about anti-technology or anti-ambition. It is pro-focus, pro-intention, and pro-discernment in how we understand broader historical contexts and apply the affordances of modern technology and media to our own ambitions. This is a call to reclaim our attention as a finite, precious resource.
Matt Klein • The Art of (Attention) War
Perhaps being pointedly low-key on Instagram speaks to a different kind of hustle: the effort to escape the allure of the screen and build clout in physical spaces. Keeping your follower count down is its own kind of discipline.
Link
a new aspirational signal
a huge audience today could mean little in terms of human enthusiasm—the majority of followers might be bots, hate-followers, and dead profiles, as evidenced by low engagement on the user’s actual posts. Moreover, now that social media has dominated culture for more than a decade, many big accounts belong to figures of an earlier era of notoriety;... See more
Kyle Chayka • It’s Cool to Have No Followers Now
“the establishment versus the vanguard”
implications:
1/ what does this then mean when it comes to measuring success for brands on social?
2/ are we truly going into a IYKYK type of social success? (see: RADAR’s new model of trust)
Grace Clarke, the head of community at a large e-commerce tech company, told me, “Audience-amassing is actually no longer ‘expensive,’ a.k.a. hard or rare. It’s easy to game.” At the same time, users have been drawn to more individualized digital publishing platforms, ranging from YouTube to Patreon, where small and devoted audiences can congregate... See more
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We are just drifters on big social. It doesn’t quite matter as much who we follow there, but it’s in the niches, the smaller social platforms that truly reflect what we love to consume and are actively engaged in.
Right now, we are seeing IG and TT all being overrun by what can be termed as the intellectual influencers, all who are parading and shilling their expertise as a type of content to buy into. However, Reddit is the one platform that, given its veil of anonymity, preserves that spirit of community in the sense of wanting to help and offer guidance
... See moreUnderstanding reality isn’t about infinitely chasing truth with our finite attention. It’s about understanding which worlds are becoming more or less consequential .
Matt Klein • The Art of (Attention) War
The large numbers don’t quite mean what they used to as signals of relevance or clout, as social media has become more aged, more manipulable, and more automated by artificial intelligence.
Kyle Chayka • It’s Cool to Have No Followers Now
MORE IS LESS IN THIS CASE.
1. Original thinking begins at the origin.
As we imagine the future, it’s worth returning to the past—honoring the masters and elders, drawing from ancient philosophy and Indigenous wisdom, practicing age-old rituals, and seeing artificial intelligence as ancestral intelligence.
As we imagine the future, it’s worth returning to the past—honoring the masters and elders, drawing from ancient philosophy and Indigenous wisdom, practicing age-old rituals, and seeing artificial intelligence as ancestral intelligence.
The return to first principles!