If you think that Facebook has suffered the same fate as the Walkman, think again. The social network is doing just fine.

Facebook is still the number one social medium, leaving Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok as smaller ripples in its wake. With a staggering 2.93 billion active users per month at the time of writing—the same number as the entire world population in 1958—two-thirds of its users are logging in every day. 

For comparison, Instagram’s user base is 1.45 billion strong. Twitter is significantly smaller at 0.47 billion—only ranking 14th among social media behemoths—surpassed by the likes of WeChat and Snapchat. TikTok clocks in at 0.97 billion users over 18 years old. Younger users are not included in this figure, since they remain ineligible for ads. As much as 25% of TikTok users in the US are believed to be under 19.

The reason you might feel Facebook has become less popular has more to do with you than with the platform. The platform is “aging up”: new users are more likely to be older, while young adults are leaving the platform and teenagers don’t even bother.

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How things have changed. Think about the days you wrote full paragraphs on your wall, with or without a selection of 0.3 megapixel photos from your questionable smartphone. Your heart would leap at a notification that someone had tagged you.

Reaction buttons, allowing you to reply with a heart or angry emoji, didn’t launch until 2016. For years, it felt impossible to keep track of your plans without responding “going” to a Facebook event, resulting in dozens of automated reminders in anticipation. What is left of that world?

Part of it is lost forever. But Facebook groups are alive and kicking, still providing plenty of posts to wreck your flow state and ruin your career. Whether you are looking for memes, book recommendations, bug IDs, or LGBTQ+ friends, the platform hosts a plethora of active groups with thousands of members interacting on the daily.

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Koeien (meaning “cows” in Dutch) is a group in which farmers share pictures of their cows and discuss topics like feed, logistics, and animal health. Because of increasingly strict laws regulating nitrogen output in agriculture, tension has been coming to head between farmers and non-farmers in many European countries. While the Dutch farmers point to the government for making it impossible to run their businesses—driving their tractors all over the country in protest—others say agriculture needs to change fast to combat climate change and biodiversity loss.

As happens so often, polarising debates have a blind spot for the beauty in things. Satisfied cows laying down in the mist of the morning, the joy of witnessing the birth of a calf, a selfie with your favourite heifer. To keep the peace, the group’s moderators felt obligated to make it private in August 2016.

things that arent inherently queer but have queer energy’s name says it all. Although a lot of content is inherently queer, and commenters will say so, the perfect post is layered. A 70s Ericofon advertisement appraising their new model, which integrates the horn and the rotary dial in one unit. It’s a phone. But our 21st-century brains see a sex toy available in 18 bright colours. Not inherently queer, but exuding some queer energy if you read between the lines.

Scrolling down, there is a video of two girls plopping 15 kilos of wet clay on a spinning turn in an effort to create a humongous ceramic vase together. It looks like hard work. Or like the start of a short film romance. Then, there’s a post saying: “not elegant enough to be a vampire, not jock enough to be a werewolf … goblin it is.” Someone replied with a drawing of a charming-looking goblin girl.

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On the scientific side of things, there are groups like Insect Identification and Solitaire Bijen en Hommels (“solitary bees and bumblebees” in Dutch). While both groups are committed to helping strangers with identifying insects, they are also places to meet people with similar interests. Experts lend their knowledge, thankful for the sincere curiosity that is often lacking at birthday parties. 

The bee group has become a successful outreach project by the Belgian study group Aculea, focussing on wild bees—all bees except the domesticated honeybee—and wasps. Group members even meet each other in real life during the group’s outings, bringing together butterfly net-wielding strangers in a buzzing meadow.

For those who prefer to stay indoors with a good book, there are groups like Vaguely Lovecraftian. H.P. Lovecraft, the early 20th century author best-known for his terrifying sea creature Cthulhu, inspires a broad range of posts incorporating supernatural mysteries in the natural world. As the title of the group suggests, there is room for interpretation of the otherworldly and monstrous qualities defined as “Lovecraftian”. 

That adventurers find more than they were looking for proves a common trope in Lovecraft’s work. Unable to put the genie back in the bottle, their discoveries usually haunt them terribly. Stranger Things is a perfect current example of such a dark and dangerous reality flooding into your own. Not even vaguely Lovecraftian.

Lovecraft’s legacy seems to be haunted too, raising questions about if, and how, we should separate problematic artists from their work. In the group rules, admins explain that they will not allow political discussions, writing: “No arguments of these subjects ever improves a group, so none are allowed.” 

It is one of many strategies in reckoning with H.P. Lovecraft’s virulent racism. But as Aja Romano points out in an article for Vox: “For the problem with Lovecraft is that Lovecraft is everywhere. His influence is so ubiquitous within horror and fantasy that you simply can’t ignore it—nor is it always easy or simple to subvert it. What we can do is explain it.” 

The admins’ stance is harsh but effective in minimising conflict within the group. Indeed, a Facebook community might not be the right place for settling one of the oldest issues in art criticism.

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Admins play an important role in all the above groups, and it is hard to imagine them lasting for long without moderation. Even if Facebook profiles are tied to someone’s real identity in principle—Meta estimates that about 5% of Facebook accounts are fake—the risk of rude or hateful contributions is always looming. And it doesn’t take an anonymous profile for people to go rogue, either. A vicious comment might just link you straight to the profile of an ordinary-looking guy, smiling next to his wife and two kids. To keep the group going, a dedicated team of admins wields the power to remove those who try to sabotage the discussion.

Just like in real life, we like to talk to and share with people who are into the same things as we are. And just like in real life, it takes an effort to make everybody feel welcome and at ease. Filter bubbles can foster hate and alienation, but fortunately there is another side to this phenomenon that celebrates identities, interests, and eccentricities. Facebook groups show that it takes work, but that even a big tech platform—often proclaimed to be dying—can provide space for people in search of one another.