Reading Response: the Internet trend in Presentational versus Participatory Designs.

In this reading response, I want to use the presentational versus participatory design lens towards content creation online, particularly its development over time.

When the Internet was young, many of its designs were participatory, examples including chatrooms and Internet forums. Tumblr is one of the still-surviving designs from this era—it enables users to create blog posts but also reshare and comment on others' posts. In some ways, Tumblr's features are those of Twitter, but missing the recommendation system ("trending" and "explore" features) that push the platform towards "presentational" rather than "participatory."

When YouTube was young, the culture of content creation and sharing was also radically different. Amateur home videos were common, with users frequently uploading videos to respond to other videos (as opposed to just commenting on the video). Compared to now (2023), while the video and computer technology to use YouTube was less developed and accessible back then, people had lower inhibition to start creating and uploading content compared to now.

Since the early days of the Internet, we see a surge of presentational designs where users primarily become consumers instead of content creators. YouTube is now primarily a video-watching platform filled with large, popular content creators, the format similar to the movie/show streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu.

While social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok initially empowered its users to upload and share photos, videos, and important memories with others, the head designers of these platforms are continually incentized by the advertising business model to install addictive presentational designs in place of participatory ones. While these platforms continue to be a place where indie creators and bloggers gather to display themselves, the culture has shifted towards mindless "doom scrolling."

There are some parts of the Internet that refuse to be converted entirely, however. While indie content creators have been pushed out by bigger content creators and media platforms that effectively deny them the same space and attention (through recommendation algorithms that favor certain "popular" content), many online participatory communities remain strong and gather on platforms like Reddit and Discord. Despite efforts by the Reddit admin team to push the advertising model by commercializing the Reddit API, collective action and strong backlash by the Reddit communities forced the admins to revert the change.

In light of the Internet shifting from participatory to presentational due to corporate capitalist forces, it is more than ever critical that Internet-goers protect their online communities from vanishing and continue to fight for the space to gather online.