i think we need Cracked-style articles back. desperately. or like, a guy doing a weird thing and writing a piece on it. sites like those are declining faster than the glaciers.
Forums. I found forums the most engaging, interesting structure for "social media" that has ever been invented. I actually tended to get to know the people on them over time.
I have no idea why we ditched that structure in favor of "platforms".
Here in Germany forums are still quite active. I have several forums I actively use.
The thing with forums though, is that they oftentimes end in drama. People really do get to know one another over time on forums and that often leads to meltdowns on a scale you don't have on lemmy or similar pages.