Reading up on social-media
100 deep · digging since nov 19, 25
- How much of HN is AI?
The article finds that AI-related stories constitute about 12% of Hacker News front-page submissions over the past month in recent weeks.
- ActivityPub Won by Being Boring - Owl Owl OÜ
ActivityPub’s success stems from its intentionally plain design using basic web primitives, and its next revision must remain boring to support wider federation.
- ‘Maybe I’m Psycho’: Why Tech Founders And VCs Are So Online
Tech founders and VCs stay glued to social media to keep up with fast‑moving AI trends, even as they admit it harms focus and well‑being.
- ActivityPub Won by Being Boring - Owl Owl OÜ
ActivityPub’s success stems from its intentionally simple, web‑standard design, and future updates must preserve that ordinariness while scaling to large networks.
- The Parents Are MAGA. The Kids Are Liberal. Can YouTube Help?
The YouTube show “The Necessary Conversation” demonstrates how families with MAGA‑aligned parents and liberal‑leaning children confront and discuss their political differences in a public forum.
- Bradley Cadenhead: The Boy Who Became 764
The article details how bullied Texas teen Bradley Cadenhead created the extremist Discord network 764, coercing minors into self‑harm and CSAM, leading to an 80‑year sentence.
- Why Reddit's ChatGPT Citation Drop Isn't Fully Explained
Reddit’s ChatGPT citation share fell from ~3.8% to 0.5% in mid‑August, but the timing of ChatGPT’s site:operator shift doesn’t fully explain the drop.
- The history (and future) of technology form factors
The article tracks mobile form‑factor evolution from iPhone to Stories to full‑screen video, arguing the next AI leap will be an autonomous agent that may lead to brain‑computer interfaces.
- SubTrends | Free Subreddit Stats & Analytics
SubTrends offers free analytics for over 100,000 Reddit communities, showing posting activity, engagement metrics, and optimal posting times without requiring login.
- Kithly: Family-Safe Social Media — No Ads, No Tracking
Kithly launches a family‑focused social network that eliminates ads, tracking, and addictive feeds while giving parents full control and offering free membership.
- ReplyHey: find your customers on Reddit
ReplyHey scans Reddit, X, and LinkedIn daily for problem statements matching your product, scores them, drafts personalized replies, and provides a rule‑respecting posting plan.
- X open sources its ranking algorithm, letting users see if they've been 'shadowbanned'
X has open-sourced its For You feed ranking algorithm and introduced tools for users to check if their content was affected by ranking systems, aiming to address transparency concerns around shadowbanning and algorithmic influence.
- How Social Media Spurred a Refugee Crisis Between Spain and Morocco
False social media rumors about open borders in Ceuta triggered a migrant surge, leading to approximately 90 deaths as people attempted to reach Europe via Morocco.
- A Self-Help Influencer With Troubles of Her Own
While Nicole LePera has amassed a large following as a self-help influencer offering advice on emotional well-being and relationships, her personal life reveals a complex and troubled history.
- No More Sex, Flirting, Scrolling or Swiping
The author describes a personal retreat from social and digital intimacy, seeking solitude and self-protection by rejecting sex, flirting, scrolling, and swiping.
- The Return of the Vanity
After fading from American homes, dressing tables are making a comeback, fueled by TikTok influencers rediscovering their historical role as personal performance spaces.
- URL Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/sideprojects/s/KfUhNPBdUm
The user attempted to access a Reddit post in r/sideprojects but was blocked by network security, preventing content retrieval.
- Ariana Grande to Step Away From Public Life After Tour Ends
According to her spokesperson, Ariana Grande will step away from public life and reduce her visibility after completing her Eternal Sunshine Tour, which ends next month.
- Mangos AI — The Agentic Distribution Platform for Founders
Mangos AI offers a desktop app that runs approve‑first AI agents to find and engage qualified prospects on social media for founders.
- The Internet Suddenly Loves Emeril, Years After His TV Stardom
Clips of Emeril Lagasse's live cooking shows are trending on social media, attracting younger fans who enjoy his basic kitchen demonstrations.
- The Cold Email
Zach Holman recounts how cold emails got him into CMU, a GitHub job, and soccer‑club ownership, urging genuine outreach despite many silent failures.
- Gen Z Is Turning to AI Chatbots to Guide Even Their In-Person Social Lives - WSJ
Gen Z increasingly relies on AI chatbots like ChatGPT to craft social interactions, from pickup lines to real‑time conversation aids, raising concerns about over‑reliance.
- Would Your Life Make a Good Documentary?
TikTok and Instagram users are turning personal experiences such as toxic workplaces and unpleasant group chats into imagined documentary-style dramatic interview scenes.
- The Breakup Loop: Why the TikTok Algorithm May Keep You Heartbroken
Mental health experts warn that TikTok's algorithm floods users with breakup content, illustrating platforms' failure to protect against addictive design.
- posts.design - social post design inspiration
posts.design presents a curated gallery of 60 out of 291 social‑post design examples, serving as a reference wall for designers seeking ideas and trends in social‑media visual content.
- Is Instagram’s Latest Travel Trend a Disaster Waiting to Happen?
Instagram’s surge of travel accounts showcasing hazardous cross‑continent trips alarms security experts, who warn the trend could lead to serious safety incidents.
- Meta Gives Facebook Marketplace Its Own App Called Seller
Meta launches a standalone Seller app for Facebook Marketplace to spur innovation on its core social network.
- Show HN: HN Hall of Fame – browse 3,100 legendary Hacker News links
The HN Hall of Fame site lets users browse a curated collection of 3,100 legendary Hacker News links, showcasing the community's most impactful posts.
- Late.sh – a command-line Clubhouse for computer people
Late.sh offers a terminal‑based voice chat platform reminiscent of Clubhouse, enabling computer‑savvy users to hold real‑time audio conversations without leaving the shell.
- I Now Pronounce You … Mr. and Mrs. Beast
YouTube star MrBeast married fellow content creator Thea Booysen in a private ceremony on Richard Branson’s Necker Island, marking a high‑profile union of two online creators.
- In Travel Hot Spots, Gatekeepers Are Hiding Their Favorite Places
Residents of popular travel hotspots such as Mexico City, Milan, and Copenhagen are increasingly hiding their favorite local spots from the surge of tourists.
- Twitter Turns 20: Two Decades of Memes, Movements and Hot Takes
Twitter's first public tweets appeared on July 15, 2006, and the platform was later rebranded as X after Elon Musk's acquisition, marking two decades of cultural and political impact.
- URL Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/s/bA7Lg1rLgS
The page indicates that access to the Reddit SaaS discussion was denied due to a network security block, preventing further viewing.
- A California Man Took a Selfie at a Crime Scene. It Led to His Arrest.
A California man's selfie at a burglary scene gave police evidence that led to his arrest after $100,000 in tools, copper and vehicles were stolen from a Napa Valley business.
- URL Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/founder/s/lIJCOgIueI
The user attempted to view a Reddit founder community post but received a network security block message indicating access was denied due to protective filtering.
- World Cup Tourists Are Giving Americans Exactly What We Crave
Foreign World Cup visitors are posting TikTok tours of Walmart, Buc‑ee’s and Bass Pro Shops, delighting audiences with their fascination for quintessential American retail experiences.
- Threads, Meta’s ‘Twitter Killer,’ Finds Its People
Threads has grown to 500 million monthly users and shifted from a Twitter rival to more closely resemble Reddit.
- 250 Years of Dressing for the American Dream
An examination of fashion choices across 250 years shows how clothing has reflected immigrants' pursuit of the American Dream.
- Ask HN: Why are so many "AI evangelists" posting such insufferable content?
Hacker News commenters agree that LinkedIn's AI evangelist content is insufferable spam, often AI-generated, and driven by hype and marketing rather than genuine insight.
- Bring back crappy forums
Chronological forums better support long-term focused discussions and revisiting, while tree-view systems like HN/Reddit excel at surfacing diverse voices in short-lived threads.
- Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds
A Hacker News discussion argues that social media feeds, including HN, have shifted from connecting friends to delivering addictive content and fads.
- Dopamine Fracking
The article coins 'dopamine fracking' to describe how modern internet platforms extract concentrated attention hits, drawing a parallel to environmental fracking's long-term damage.
- birdclaw — Local Twitter memory in SQLite
Birdclaw is a local-first Twitter workspace that imports archives and caches live reads into a single SQLite database, accessible via CLI and web app.
- Those World Cup Tourists Loving American Food? They’re Not All What They Seem.
Some viral stories about World Cup tourists marveling at American food customs are fabricated or exaggerated for engagement, not reflecting real fan experiences.
- Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?
Meta has reassigned 30-50% of engineers from core teams to data labeling for AI, sparking morale collapse and skepticism about leadership's strategy.
- Sick of Swiping, Some Daters Would Rather Sweat Together
New dating apps are shifting from swiping to shared workouts, matching users based on fitness routines and activity preferences.
- Why I email complete strangers
Cold-emailing strangers with genuine intent often leads to meaningful connections, and the anxiety of sending is outweighed by the potential for unexpected positive outcomes.
- How Talking to the ‘Chat’ Crossed Over Into Real Life
The piece examines how the term 'chat' from Twitch streams has evolved into a collective voice for an isolated online generation.
- Tradwife Influencer Opens Store in Small Town. Tourists Abound.
The Ballerina Farm Store, opened by a tradwife influencer in Midway, Utah, has become a tourist attraction, drawing visitors to the small town.
- People Love to Hate This Fake Private Equity Guy
Johnny Hilbrant Partridge gained social media fame as PE Guy, a character that satirizes obnoxious entitlement in the private equity world.
- Is LinkedIn Entering Its Post-Cringe Era?
LinkedIn blends professional utility with celebrity posts and paid influencer content, attracting a broader audience while risking its core networking mission.
- Companies Are Using Reddit to Manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search
Peptide companies are spamming Reddit's biohackers subreddit to manipulate AI chatbots and search engines like ChatGPT and Google into recommending their products.
- Be There for Every Customer With Meta Business Agent
Meta launches Business Agent AI for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, automating customer responses, sales, and operations for businesses of all sizes.
- Can Content Creators Get Rich Off A.I. Slop Like Tung Tung Tung Sahur? - The New York Times
AI-generated slop videos on TikTok and Instagram are becoming a profitable business model for creators like Norbert Barszczewski, who earned over $37,000 in a month through Affiliate Network's viral ad campaigns.
- Show HN: Hallucinate – Massively Multiplayer Online Rave
A live, browser-based rave where anonymous users dance together synchronously to the same music, now experiencing moderation issues and downtime.
- What’s Your ‘Mom Aesthetic’?
The rise of 'mom aesthetic' branding pressures mothers to commodify their parenting identity into marketable vibes.
- The Copy and the Guru – On my Om
The author argues that digital twins of thought leaders represent the final abstraction of an already curated self, replacing authentic encounters with static archives.
- Qwen
Social media use intensity positively predicts academic procrastination among college students, mediated by psychological capital and moderated by time management disposition.
- Where Anxious Tech Workers Get the Lowdown on Layoffs
Blind, an anonymous professional network, has become a hub where tech workers share layoff news, job-hunting advice, and gallows humor, reflecting the industry's shift from optimism to anxiety.
- OpenAI Bought Company That Offered A.I. Tools for Cloning Voices
OpenAI acquired Weights.gg, a social network for creating and sharing AI algorithms, which offered voice-cloning tools.
Takes
before selling Tweet Hunter for $10m, I had a long talk with @levelsio he almost convinced me not to do it his main reasoning: - getting this money at once is unhealthy - I could get more by not setting both ended up being true so I wonder why he did it with RemoteOk I really hope he goes public with this
@tibo_maker
i love that @jonathan_wilke has made nearly $100k on http://outbid.lol in less than 48 hours. you can be mad about it, try to copy it, say it's dumb or that it won't last. none of it matters. jonathan caught lightning in a bottle on a whim. the internet is amazing.
@Shpigford
@jarekceborski
@rsms
- Cool project goes live. - I move fast and sponsor it with https://founderstack.pro. - Elon Musk shares it. - The project goes viral. - I'm making 💸 Being an online entrepreneur is dope 🤩
@SimonHoiberg
Over a year ago, I essentially stopped posting on YouTube and social media. I crossed 100k subscribers on YouTube, but I never explained why I "quit" until today... First, I sold my company Link Whisper over a year ago in a significant exit and I no longer needed to "hustle".
@nichepursuits
The timing 😂
@levelsio
Why are there suddenly so many indie social scheduling apps? Is there something open source that people are tweaking and building on? I somehow don’t believe that these are all vibe coded from scratch.
@yongfook
Notes on building products people love when software gets cheap
@hnshah
If I got laid off tomorrow & had to replace my salary asap, here’s exactly what I’d do: 1. Go to Instagram and start a fresh account. Use a spare email. No one has to know.
@Alexie_Ai
OMG. What just happened?! @elonmusk reposted @Scobleizer saying I was legit bc of the June Oven when I was saying how good @grok @bot is.
@mvanhorn
@kristoph @OmarchyLinux I'll let @mitchellh answer this one for all of us obsessive builders. https://x.com/mitchellh/status/2074225453217505494
@dhh
I don't know him but if I look him in the eyes like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm I think he's telling the truth so he deserves a follow He's switching from mobile apps to web apps!! @willbakerships
@levelsio
If you want a proper remote job this year, you need to get on Reddit immediately. You’ll hardly be broke again once you figure out how it works. If you’re currently job hunting, here’s how to find your next client on Reddit:
@Chioma__Amadi
Dude.....now there is something called @herdrdev ........I don't have time for this. I'll make time.
@NetworkChuck
Tomorrow was invented in the Last30Days. That's the idea behind the @slashlast30days podcast, launching today. Episode 1 is with @BillyM2k, the founder of Dogecoin. "I quit because I was making more money being an idiot online." He pulled up his X analytics live on the show: → The $177,000 X has paid him for posting memes "I don't know why I'm getting paid to post on X. It's not hard and it's stupid. This is just bonus money for posting stupid shit." → The time @elonmusk offered him a job "He did eventually ask if I wanted to work at X. I was like, probably not at the moment." → How he actually got into X HQ to meet him "I was wandering around asking, I have an appointment with Elon Musk. And they were like, he is not here. I'm like, okay, but he texted me." 📌 Watch now:
@mvanhorn
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster. I'll be stepping back from leading product for 𝕏 and will continue on as an advisor. Serving the X community has been the privilege of a lifetime. X is, and will remain, the most important communication technology in history. But running this app is a 24/7 job and it's now time for me to take a breather. The app is seeing unprecedented growth in new users & engagement. We continue to break records every month. We've climbed 70 spots in the App Store since this time last year. And in the last 400 days, we rebuilt almost every aspect of X: the Timeline, the Android app, onboarding, notifications, chat and more. We also launched nearly 30 new products while protecting the integrity of the town square: becoming the first app to show Country-of-Origin on profiles and mounting defenses against AI bots. There's certainly much more work to be done, but our foundation is stronger than ever. None of this would have been possible without the incredible team here. The next leaders will take X to even greater heights with @benjitaylor on design, @singhai on core product engineering and @dinkin_flickaa on mobile engineering -- among many other great people. Thank you to Elon and the X team for welcoming me into the company. See you on the Timeline.
@nikitabier
I’ve come to the realization that X might be the least toxic space for a woman in tech. I was recently featured in a @wsj_com article about solo founders, and it was one of the few bits of media I’ve done that has escaped containment: posts on Facebook, high school friends, random relatives, etc. seem to all have been served the article on social and pinged me nice notes & links. And WOW the public comments on gen pop social posts were a very unwelcome reminder on what it’s like to put yourself out there as a female entrepreneur: being called a fraud, reprimanded to put mothering first, called a liar, presuming “tech exec” is code for “low level product owner”, calling me a no-nothing MBA fake (what?), calling me a Bay Area baby born with a silver spoon (what??!), denigrating my technical chops, comments that my only advantage is being hot, or a TikTok influencer, and getting LinkedIn connections from men asking how I stay looking 25 in my 40s 🫠 Anyway I could not be more grateful for this hellsite where you all take me at face value, I can share honest experiences and thoughts, debate in relative good faith, beep boop my AI hacks, laugh, and only occasionally poke the trolls. I never thought I’d say this: but X is the place I get the most respect online as a leader, engineer, and mom. What a world. If only we could get rid of the AI reply guys and fix search, this might be heaven.
@clairevo
Rishi (@0xRishi) on X
@0xRishi
Y Combinator (@ycombinator) on X
@ycombinator
follow up: every single post removed.
@Shpigford
This single video changed my business. → +$35K in MRR → 1M+ views across social media → Hundreds of reposts And now? We’re running it as a Facebook ad at $1,000/day. Planning to scale to $10,000/day soon. It is bringing tons of clients daily. One great video can completely change the trajectory of your SaaS.
@Dylan_txa_
🎯
@jasonfried
The content machine at @tenex_labs is cooking, and @businessbarista is at the center of it. He did the impossible: figure out how to use AI to draft social posts that don't suck. In this ep, he shows how to: - scan your company data for daily content ideas - use an AI interview panel to get his thoughts - train the model on sounding like him - run a critical editorial council and editing loop - turn his feedback into skills so the system gets better But my favorite part of his flow is decidedly human: the reply-guys slack channel where the whole team hypes up eachother's social posts. Brough to you by our awesome sponsors: 🔥 @firecrawl - Power AI agents with clean web data 🤝 @CustomerIO - Build customer engagement campaigns from a single prompt Full ep on YT:
@clairevo
Postiz is on $159k in the most crowded SaaS in the world - Social media scheduling. Almost everyone who tries to build a scheduler fails. The main problem is that there are market dominators and like 10,000 competitors. That usually happens with every mass-market product. So usually the solution is to niche down. But niching down can also be problematic because you can cut too large an audience. For 2026, I think the best niche is agents. > It's still a pretty big market > Not a lot of competitors (very early) > High demand I shared the easiest way to find startup ideas in the video.
@wickedguro
so a public co ceo posted ai slop bad enough that all of tpot called him out so he deleted it and said his account was hacked what a timeline
@brendanjshort
To my loyal subscribers... please share what you're working on below. to my 1.5m followers, please take a look at the top .1% of my followers who are donating $1 to chartiy every month with me!
@Jason
i thought this was satire, kept looking for the handle to be spelled c1audeai or something
@sama
@tibo_maker I have always struggled promoting my startups in reddit, posts getting blocked or accounts disabled. Would definitely be interested for this
@geobotsar
Nothing to see here
@Jason
Introducing iMessage video ads in Claude We taught Claude to make iMessage video ads in one shot with a single skill. These iMessage ads are absolutely killing it on Meta right now. The skill teaches Claude to make a full video ad in one shot with iPhone frame, SFX, music, and end card. And it's just HTML. It doesn't use any video generation models, so it's cheap! Comment Goose below and I'll send you the skill.
@shivsakhuja
I am so curious to see how @WisprFlow team handles this PR situation on X
@_nishankj
This is becoming my favorite way to read Twitter. http://birdclaw.sh
@steipete
I built Polsia into a $250M company in under 3 months. Solo + AI. Zero employees. Everyone asks me how I did it. Introducing aisloP, a docu-series on how I build Polsia. Episode 1: The Launch. How I orchestrated the biggest Twitter launch of 2026.
@Bencera
Today we're introducing the world's first influencer Agent. Tell it what you want to promote and it finds creators, reaches out, manages campaigns, handles payments, and gets content live. Try it now at http://okara.ai/influencer
@askOkara
@clarefinds Probably TikTok has the best free organic reach
@FelixKerlin
Screen Charm is live on @ProductHunt i made a funny video about my relationship with PH (thanks to my wife for recording it!). on my first PH launch 2.5 years ago, i got only 2 upvotes. because of that terrible experience, i started taking X more seriously. so basically, Product Hunt and especially that failure is the reason i started posting on X. today, i want to say thank you to that experience. i guess i'm a bit more mature now and don't expect anything, but I'd really appreciate your support 👇
@sergeynazarovx
i'd say SEO efforts for http://replysocial.co have been paying off.
@Shpigford
give your OpenClaw these 2 skills & get millions of tikt0k views this month and 1000s of free downloads to your mobile app... here's how, with prompts and links to 2 skills i made just for this for my own OpenClaw: first off, either copy and paste the following prompt into your OpenClaw, or use the skills i made directly - the skills are just markdown you can view with nothing of harm inside of them, this is the better route IMO to give full context and not have to repeat yourself. - links to skills to give your OpenClaw - b2c mobile app marketing:
@jackfriks
Show me the thing you’ve built with AI you’re most proud of. Reply with a working product URL and what model / agent you primarily used.
@rauchg
@mikehterris I’m more okay with OpenAI than usual. Know a lot of people that work there. https://x.com/sporadica/status/2055348718640288224?s=46
@Stammy