User-Defined Rituals
Platforms provided the nouns (Facebook, Twitter), but users invented the verbs. These "-ings" captured the complex emotional and social texture of digital life that the official interface glossed over.
Key Artifacts
- Friending/Unfriending: The accumulation and curation of social capital. "Unfriending" became a Word of the Year in 2009, marking the moment digital boundaries became real.
- Liking: The currency of the attention economy and the "economy of approbation."
- Lurking: The invisible engine of the web (The 1% Rule). The silent majority who consume but do not post.
- Shadowbanning: User language for the experience of algorithmic suppression.
- Doomscrolling: The ritual of compulsive engagement with anxiety-inducing content.
Field Notes
The Insight: Platforms own the code. Users own the "-ing." The history of the social web is written in its verbs.
Primary
Source / Field Note
The
"-ing" of Web 2.0
The foundry thesis exploring how
user-generated verbs became the true landmarks of the social web.