Let’s talk about the Social Media Gaming Experience in 2025. Imagine a game where your success, and failure, depend on how other people react to it. Indeed, your success isn’t entirely dependent on your own actions. It depends in large part on how others perceive you and your actions. With enough practice, you learn how to manipulate others’ actions. You learn what ticks them off, what makes them more likely to engage with you and which actions of yours are likely to trigger the most intense reactions.
In time, you optimise your actions to maximise the potential to generate reactions. You have to continuously calibrate your actions. What is popular today may not be popular tomorrow. What is trendy certainly does not last forever. You have to be at the top of your game every day. The best part about the video game? It can and does have real life consequences. That is the ultimate thrill. The fact that your actions could swing the results of an election, destroy the life of your enemies and dominate news headlines for a day. What’s better? You get to make a living out of it.
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To top it off, you are always teetering on the brink of collapse yourself. Just as you are searching for avenues to destroy your enemies, your enemies are trying to do the same to you. You have your band of brothers looking out for you, defending you, providing you with ammunition and rallying to the cause. All of this is tied together with the thread of moral superiority. Your companions do not rally behind you because of your great skill sets. Oh no.
They do so because you are a righteous warrior, a moral crusader. You and your companions are not playing this video game for entertainment. God forbid anyone suggest such blasphemy. All your actions, even those that are morally questionable, are justified by the overarching righteousness of your case. After all, which hero has not committed one or the evil actions?
The Ultimate Gaming Experience
That, my dear readers, is the state of social media politics in 2025. I am not referring to political parties here although this theory does apply to quite a few of them. I am primarily speaking about the political influencer class and the various factions within. Also, it’s not a phenomenon that is limited to India. This is observable in the United States and most major democracies.
Like all games, social made has its own rules. Its gameplay employs real-life events. It’s narratives are also based on the beliefs of people in real life. Success is measured by engagement and followers. The more engagements and followers you get, the more successful you are. You get rewards for your success. A lot of people make a living out of it.
The thin veneer between reality and social media only add to the rich experience. The game affects reality, although being detached from it. Indeed, the very fact that, often, players cannot determine the line separating the virtual from the real is what makes it the ultimate Gaming Experience. Every political influencer is the main character in his own story arc.
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You make a post and realise that it did not attract sufficient attention. You rephrase your words, add some masala to it and say the same thing in a more scintillating manner. And Voila! The engagements shoot up. Soon, you get a feel of the pulse of the people. You know which post will get more engagement and which won’t.
You have your own team, a bunch of users who band together. A person from the opposition camp makes a move? You have to respond. And all your teammates flock to your side. Oh! Your enemy committed a blunder. Quick, you have to be the first to reply to get more engagements than others. Congratulations, you ratioed that freak!
Like all games, you cannot succeed unless you invest significant time into it. If you are a casual player, you won’t occupy the top ranks. Obviously, you can still play it for entertainment alone. In that case, you will have few followers and few engagements. If you really want to succeed, you have to invest a lot of energy into it. And social media is the game that requires the most time and effort. Nothing comes close.
The Structure of the Gaming Experience
Gamers have been one of the most successful lots on social media (Remember GamerGate?). That’s not surprising. Skills are often transferrable. But you don’t have to be a gamer to succeed. Since social media is so integrated into the fabric of our reality, it has its own metrics that awards certain people an inherent advantage.
For instances, journalists will obviously do well in this high stakes game. Celebrities and Politicians will fare better than the rest. Likewise, it also selects for certain personality traits. Recluse introverts who quickly develop an obsession are likely to fare better. Intuitive individuals who quickly learn the pulse of the people have an advantage.
People might think there’s a contradiction in the previous sentences but there isn’t really. Extroverts are better at gauging people’s emotions but they usually prefer real life interactions to virtual ones. Therefore, they are likely not to invest a lot of time and effort on social media.
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One of the core features of the Gaming Experience is the Adrenaline Rush and its addictive nature. Online Games are by their very design addictive. They are designed to incentivise people to spend more time on it. Online Games are also designed to give you ‘hit’ every time you succeed. You ratioed an enemy? What a rush. Your enemies have attacked you and you managed to thwart them? Damn, that is the thrill of the ride.
Like all games, you win some and lose some. Every win leads you to ecstasy. Every defeat feels like the end of the world. But the real thrill often lies in the battle itself. Because that is when the adrenaline rush is at its peak. The journey if often more exciting than the destination.
The Game Developers constantly mix things up by tweaking a rule here, tweaking a rule there, more interesting rewards and introducing more chapters. Social Media does the same through the mystical element known as algorithms. No one apart from the developers really understand how it works. But when you have played the game long enough, you realise what elements the algorithm is currently favouring. And you optimise your posts on those lines.
Is it really Gaming though?
Some may argue that just because the entertainment avenue is based in the virtual world does not mean it’s not real. They might argue that just because something is online does not mean that it’s a video game. OTT platforms try to attract maximum audience as well. Does that make it a video game? Well, it’s a ridiculous argument on the fact of it. Online Streaming or any other form of entertainment apart from video games do not rely on interactions between its audience en masse to determine the final product.
Just because some fans did not like a movie, the filmmaker cannot edit in real time or delete it. The filmmaker, his crew and the audience are not bound by any rules. Most of all, online streaming is passive entertainment for the audience. Social media requires active participation.
The Political Aspect of It
Another defining feature of social media that is in line with Gaming is its detachment from reality. During an ordinary Gaming Experience, you are well aware that you are in a Virtual Reality. By blurring the line between the two, social media intensifies the experience greatly. However, that demarcation exists. That is why we talk about echo chambers and social media bubbles.
As I have written before, the Congress party has improved its performance greatly on social media. But that has had no fact on election results. Indeed, one could argue that its obsession with social media narratives could have been to its detriment.
The Congress Party appears to be under the impression that its social media performance indicated they were getting popular with Indians at large. But that is not the case. Their performance improved because they got really good at the game. However, that game has nothing to do with the sentiments of the people.
The game is about engagements and virality. It has nothing to do with people’s voting preferences. Right now, it’s clear, people who confuse the two are completely and totally wrong.
I will end my article here. Perhaps, I will come around to it at a later time to talk more about it.
