AN EDUCATIONAL CUP OF TEA

For Part Two of my social media search series, I am going to look at the Hive Social app. This is the platform I am exploring with a personal account. First, I’ll share how I stumbled upon it. After that, I’ll let you know what potential it holds and what I like about it. Finally, I’ll give you a run down on the problems or concerns I have.

During the Thanksgiving Break, I set aside time to research Twitter alternatives. As I was scrolling through Twitter, one of the people I follow shared her Hive Social handle. I immediately found the app and read up on it.

Here’s what you need to know: it is like an Insta/Twitter mashup that lets you pick music for your profile page. Additionally, it was created in 2019 and is being run by two college students – I hear now it is three. It recently experienced an increase of over 1 million users in an absuredly short amount of time.

It is a very pretty interface. It looks almost identical to Twitter but with the more visual appeal of Insta. There is even the option for people to ask you questions that you respond to in your feed. There does not appear to be a limit on characters which makes a wordy person like me happy. You can include images, GIFs, and polls in a post. Additionally, you can set each post individually for a particular audience (followers vs public, etc.). You can also set your account to what you do or don’t want to see. For example, I have mine set not to see NSFW images. I can also use block and report features if there are users whose content I’d rather not see or engage with. Currently, most of the accounts I am finding are either tied to the comic book industry or kid lit authors. Totally cool with both of those.

Unfortunately, it still feels very wild west. I truly believe the developers are doing the best they can with the resources they have. However, I don’t believe they were ready for such an increase in usage. Load times are longer than they should be, and at the moment all Hive Social servers are down for maintenance and have been for a couple of days. In terms of account creation, there is no claiming of a username. If 20 other people and I all wanted to be @cupoftea, we could. That makes it incredibly difficult trusting an account is a person or group you want to follow. For example, the @dallasstars account is NOT the official Dallas Stars account even though it says so on the page.

In addition to the logistical issues with an app picking up speed so quickly, I’ve had to exercise extreme caution when navigating the content. Hive Social has excellent Community Guidelines. However, some users are not marking their content NSFW, and some users are tagging inappropriate images with #food or #pets so they show up in those feeds. Eventually, I stopped using the Discover feature to find new users because I would come across multiple pictures of genitalia and/or full body nudity. The dilemma then became how to block these accounts because I would have to click on the post to do this. By clicking on the post, did it tell the algorithm I wanted to see more?! Good grief. That means I can only find new people to follow by looking at followers of those I already follow which means I cannot expand beyond certain groups. I definitely do not see educators picking up steam on here yet. (However, if I am wrong, someone please contact me to let me know some user names to follow.) Really, there just aren’t the users out there for me to follow quite yet like sports teams, news outlets, celebrities, and so on for me to say this would be a perfect alternative.

I want this app to make it. I love the idea of college kids creating an alternative to a massive presence like Twitter. The potential is there. For now, I will keep my personal account and check in periodically. I don’t see it as a professional way to communicate just yet.

Today’s tea: Get Your A** in Bed by Snarky Tea – The tea names are a bit extreme in the ProfaniTEA line, but this one definitely does its job. I only drink it if I really need to rest my brain while I sleep, and it works quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t believe they make this particular blend anymore.