Zehra Naqvi recalls the magical days of the early social internet.
She grew up in the One Direction and Marvel fandoms in the early 2010s. This was back when people posted photos of lattes using the Valencia filter on Instagram, and Twitter was still Twitter, a place where people came together to exchange jokes and cultural analysis.
But now Instagram is full of influencers, and Twitter is X, a digital town hall with a fierce political divide.
“The platforms that won were the ones that kept people scrolling the longest, not the ones that made them feel the most connected,” Naqvi told TechCrunch. “Now there is an abundance of content but a scarcity of joy.”
But that is starting to change. Naqvi is part of the new wave of social media: interest-first, niche online communities. This month, she announced the launch of her company, Lore — a site that helps fans keep up with their fandoms.
Users increasingly want to spend less time on generalized sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and instead join online communities tailored to their interests, she believes.
Natalie Dillon, a consumer investor at venture firm Maveron, says she’s starting to see an increasing number of founders build interest-first networks.
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“At its core, consumer behavior is pushing a shift from performance to participation,” Dillon told TechCrunch. “For the next generation, community isn’t a feature layered on top of a product. It is the product.”
She offers examples like Beli, an app that lets users share their favorite restaurants with friends, or Fizz, which connects people going to the same college. Others include the astrology-bonding app Co-Star, or even Partiful, which lets people connect with friends to plan events.
These are the types of participatory apps that Naqvi wants to build — something resembling the early social internet before it “became fractured and joyless.”
“Niche spaces give people permission to be specific and to show up as their whole selves without being lost in the algorithm,” she said.
The previous generation of social media companies found success through “more,” she continued; more followers, more reach, more noise. But some founders and users are now coming to a different conclusion — maybe there isn’t one social media app that will become “the next big thing. ” There will be several.
Maybe that’s the point.
“What we have learned is that depth matters more than bread …