What if the next big social media app is ... Nothing?

Twitter and Threads’ faux battle for digital domination masks an ongoing decline in the public appetite for online activity, writes Max Chafkin

The numbers signing up to Threads sound impressive until you understand what Threads actually is: a sterile knockoff of Twitter, designed to make Meta’s commercially dominant brand of social media even more so. Picture: AP Photo/Richard Drew

Have you heard about the hot new social media app, from the makers of Facebook? It’s called Threads, and some pretty big names are already on board: Tom Brady, fresh off a spokesmodel gig for a failed, possibly fraudulent cryptocurrency exchange, alongside a roster including aging boy band members, various Kardashians, rise-and-grinders, thirst trappers, crypto bros, brand managers, #brands, and — slotting nicely into a rogues’ gallery of declining relevance — the co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.

To be fair, it’s early. Zuckerberg, who recently emerged from paternity leave posing as a jacked-up cage fighter, has been busy quoting the Backstreet Boys, sucking up to mixed martial artists and bragging about Threads’ every success.