Social media is where one shares one's social life (it's in the name!).
Granted there is often crossover between technical discussion forums and social media (I'm thinking of a motorbike forum I frequent), but to suggest the likes of HN is social media is rather silly. Isn't it.
I've always thought of it (and seen it defined) as media where the content is generated, liked, and commented upon by users (i.e. socially) rather than the media being controlled by a small group serving in an editorial role (traditional media).
Usenet is (IMO) the original social media. Very few usenet groups had anything to do with sharing one's social life.
Based on my understanding of your comment, the crossover exceptions dominate the discriminative power of the categories, so the taxonomy feels useless.
It is, but it is way harder to self-promote yourself and derive other than intellectual satisfaction. It was not purposely built as a platform for advertising and branding like social networks.
You don't even have the dopamine hit of counting your content upvotes.
What do you mean? Every post and comment can receive upvotes, your account has total upvotes, the dopamine hit is there when you can simply look at the top of the screen next to your username and see the number go up after posting. There's even rewards if you make the number go high enough, such as being able to downvote and flag stuff once you reach a certain level.
Social media is where one shares one's social life (it's in the name!).
Granted there is often crossover between technical discussion forums and social media (I'm thinking of a motorbike forum I frequent), but to suggest the likes of HN is social media is rather silly. Isn't it.