Strava, The World’s Sweetest Social Network
Whether you’ve completed an Iron Man triathlon or barely managed three push-ups, Strava users will mash the “kudos” button for you
The ills of social media are well known by now.
You’ve got sociopathic big-tech algorithms ceaselessly scrounging for hot-button posts that rile the masses. You’ve got doomscrolling. You’ve got trolling and dogpiling and entirely new bespoke forms of coordinated harassment being A/B tested as we speak. You’ve got Nazis, literal Nazis, all over the place now. You’ve got the persistent low-key Heisenbergian uncertainty about the authenticity of your own everyday behavior — i.e. whether you’re engaging in an activity because it’s fun or because pictures of it will look fun when posted online.
But I come here today not to recite these creeds with which you, fellow prisoner of the Internet, are well familiar.
I’m here to praise one of the sweetest and nicest forms of social media I’ve ever engaged with.
I will suggest that the success of this app is proof that it is, in fact, totally possible for us to socially network in a fashion that feeds and delights the human spirit.
