# Pre-Poll Survey -- "Social Media" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 15, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765 "2014-03-15T14:50:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/21 "2014-03-16T18:56:01Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I know about that first one, but what can you tell me about those other two? [Thieves’ Cant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons) [Juárez and Peralta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_and_the_Snowman) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/22 "2014-03-16T19:02:22Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > [Thieves’ Cant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons) > [Juárez and Peralta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_and_the_Snowman) I don’t understand. Too esoteric for me. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/23 "2014-03-16T19:21:29Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > BBM Big Beautiful Male? ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/24 "2014-03-16T20:19:25Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I don’t understand. Too esoteric for me. Esoteric? 😕 Thieves’ Cant = A secret non-verbal language used by the thieves’ class in AD&D. Putting an “X” at Juárez and Peralta is how Boyce & Lee alerted their KGB contact in Mexico City. What’s so hard to understand? ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/25 "2014-03-16T20:32:43Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Esoteric? 😕 > > Thieves’ Cant = A secret non-verbal language used by the thieves’ class in AD&D. > Putting an “X” at Juárez and Peralta is how Boyce & Lee alerted their KGB contact in Mexico City. > > What’s so hard to understand? Thanks for the additional clues. They are esoteric to me since I have never played D&D and the last time I saw that movie was back in the 80’s maybe. From [esoteric - Yahoo Search Results](https://dictionary.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEVzt6CSZTmhkAsbZXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0aTJ1YWtiBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDM1MV8x?p=esoteric&.sep=) > [@](#): > > esoteric > > Houghton Mifflinadj.adjective > > 1.Intended for or understood by only a particular group. > an esoteric cult. > > 2.Of or relating to that which is known by a restricted number of people. > > 3.Confined to a small group. > esoteric interests. > > 4.Not publicly disclosed; confidential. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/26 "2014-03-16T23:14:59Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I guess the more generic “blog” covers it but tumblr? Byu that logic, Twitter would also be a blog, as would Facebook and Google+, albeit to a lesser extent. Tumblr has pretty much all the same features as MySpace, as far as I can tell. It’s a fully-fledged social networking website. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/27 "2014-03-16T23:17:55Z")
Tumblr is a website that hosts blogs (and gives you tools to create them). There are many like it but that is the most popular, especially with teens and twenty somethings. Adding an additional entry: Reddit Reddit is essentially a huge message board where people vote on the most popular posts. ETA: My definition was in response to Zeldar’s request we define what we suggest, not a response to you BigT (only saw your post after I wrote it). ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/28 "2014-03-16T23:48:29Z")
I’m curious what you mean by “Pre-internet methods involving text.” > [@Ludovic](#): > > Big Beautiful Male? I don’t judge. 🙂 ETA: In case that wasn’t a joke…Blackberry Messenger. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/29 "2014-03-17T00:11:24Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > I’m curious what you mean by “Pre-internet methods involving text.” An effort at a catchall designation for such things as snail mail, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, letters to the editor, and any other media in that same general non-internet realm. As opposed to limiting the poll’s options to those things that have come along since the internet pretty much ran some of those older methods out of business, or at least out of popularity. I dislike polls with over about 30 meaningful opytions. At the rate we’re going it would be no problem getting over 50. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/30 "2014-03-17T02:33:33Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > An effort at a catchall designation for such things as snail mail, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, letters to the editor, and any other media in that same general non-internet realm. As opposed to limiting the poll’s options to those things that have come along since the internet pretty much ran some of those older methods out of business, or at least out of popularity. > > I dislike polls with over about 30 meaningful opytions. At the rate we’re going it would be no problem getting over 50. Works for me. I was worried that you were going to make the common mistake of treating the internet as if it has only been around as long as the web. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/31 "2014-03-17T03:58:53Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > Works for me. I was worried that you were going to make the common mistake of treating the internet as if it has only been around as long as the web. It does persuade me to ask if the notion of “social media” (as used these days) predates the web. If so, what were we calling it in the 70’s or 80’s? For me personally, the internet and the web are concurrent. HTML made the internet what it is for many (if not most) of us, I would submit. And even though I was using my Commodore 64 for BBS chats and such, which might be included under the all-purpose “social media” umbrella, I wasn’t making use of the internet until the mid-90’s. HTML made that possible for me and my company and my friends. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/32 "2014-03-18T03:15:35Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > It does persuade me to ask if the notion of “social media” (as used these days) predates the web. If so, what were we calling it in the 70’s or 80’s? For me personally, the internet and the web are concurrent. HTML made the internet what it is for many (if not most) of us, I would submit. And even though I was using my Commodore 64 for BBS chats and such, which might be included under the all-purpose “social media” umbrella, I wasn’t making use of the internet until the mid-90’s. HTML made that possible for me and my company and my friends. BBS’s would certainly qualify as a social media to me. There were connected BBS networks before the internet was mainstream, as well. Offline equivalents back then - clubs? Network meetings? Toastmasters? This is probably veering off the path you want to take the poll, though. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765/33 "2014-03-18T04:27:56Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > BBS’s would certainly qualify as a social media to me. There were connected BBS networks before the internet was mainstream, as well. > > Offline equivalents back then - clubs? Network meetings? Toastmasters? > This is probably veering off the path you want to take the poll, though. As is so often the case when I start these pre-poll data collection threads (there are at least a dozen of them in the past few years) I find my original ideas of what to put on a poll are way too skimpy to be very inclusive of the items others would have named if I had just left a slot for “other.” And as it turns out so often I just find the topic is really too broad (much broader than I originally thought) for one meaningful poll. So the choice breaks down to multiple polls as precursors or just admitting that the task was too big to handle properly. I’m approaching that point and have about decided just to let this thread do it. That wiki article suggests there’s way more to “social media” than I would have guessed before looking into it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-poll-survey-social-media/683765.md?page=1)