Russell: Public metrics turn Instagram and Facebook feeds into happiness theater
Kyle Russell · a16z Podcast | QR. AR. VR. · Jan 2, 2019 · at 16:29
Kyle Russell, partner at Andreessen Horowitz, discusses social media dynamics and how public metric counts change consumer posting behavior on Western platforms.
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“So a little bit of a counterpoint or pushback against that is, you know, if you look at Instagram or Facebook, the nature of having metrics publicly exposed to people and comment counts and things like that means that content typically can devolve into something like happiness theater. You post your photos from the big family trip or when you got to go see that concert, but you, oh, we got the VIP tickets, and so we got to be even closer, and we took a selfie near the stage. It's all oftentimes You're going for impact, and it makes your social feed evolve into something that's, oh, I'm in touch with my friends and family because I want to know what they're doing to kind of everyone's in this, like, arms race of I'm having the cooler life. And by making the mundane more interesting, I think it pushes back against that trend, which is maybe actually healthier.”
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