The networks themselves always were, well before Zuckerberg, before Babbage and Ada dreamed of a mechanical computer, before Lucy got fossilised.

The apps are increasingly cringe, and even when someone wins a monoploy so hard their app is defacto mandatory they get rejected and mocked by their own users for presenting content like they're a third wheel on a date who only wants to talk about their hobby and doesn't get a hint.

Peak actually-being-social is somewhere between IRC and slack, or if you really like long-form, Dreamwidth. If you've got e.g. a thousand followers, it isn't social media any more, it is parasocial media.