Technology, communication, and the spread of information that goes with have all improved dramatically over the years. At first, long distance communication was very limited, specially through written messages. Then things like the telegram and Morse Code. Then came radio and television. Currently penultimately came the internet and e-mail.
Finally, we have a Social Network, a site where people can interact with each other immediately through a phone or computer. This can result in clubs, sharing of photos and artwork, or new good/bad relationships that would've never been made otherwise.
Generally a Bland-Name Product of Facebook, Twitter, or possibly MySpace if the creator is trying to go off the beaten path a bit. Sometimes it's limited, such as a network only for the faculty and students of a particular school. This permits the storytellers more freedom when, for instance, a suspect pool can be only a few hundred users rather than a few million, or when the protagonist finds himself the guy in charge of the whole thing.
May be used to impart a Social Media Is Bad aesop. Compare The Alternet, Shallow News Site Satire.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Referenced in a commercial
for Esurance insurance with an out of touch senior telling the camera that she posted all her vacation photos to her "wall" — Description Cut to the senior showing off the photos she pasted to her living room wall.
Woman 2: That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.
Anime & Manga
- EDENS ZERO has a send-up to YouTube called "B-Cube", which is both a website and a Holographic Terminal that lets users (B-Cubers) record and edit videos to upload onto said site. A handful of B-Cuber characters are based on real-life YouTubers (mostly from Japan), who also wind up playing themselves in the anime adaptation.
- The eponymous CROWDS in Gatchaman Crowds is a social network with built-in GPS tracking which allows its members to do things from rapid exchange of information to crowdsourcing various tasks that are typically done by the governmental services, such as disaster relief and emergency medical help.
- Valvrave the Liberator has WIRED, an interstellar website created by the Hikikomori Akira Renbokoji. It works like a futuristic version of Facebook and the main communication hub for the Sakamori Academy. Once the war begins with Dorssia and our heroes, it becomes the world's link to everything that's going on. Exploited since Akira has control, specifically when New JIOR loses its PR to the Magius, where the students used the same method and flipped the tables back at them.
Asian Animation
- BoBoiBoy: Ejo Jo shares his plan to get revenge on BoBoiBoy on a Bland-Name Product of Facebook, Spacebook, where other previous villains post comments to show their support.
Comic Books
- The microblogging site Chirper, first introduced in The New 52 Animal Man, is frequently featured in post-Flashpoint DC Comics. For a while, the Previously on… page for Action Comics was the Daily Planet's Chirper feed. A parody of Twitter, obviously.
- Before there was Chirper, Knight and Squire had Beryl maintaining Cyril's presence on Twutter.
- Chirper also appears in the non-DCU Vertigo Comics book Unfollow, along with Headspace.
Fan Works
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged: Most everything on Earth is available as Space "X" elsewhere, with Space Hulu and Spacebook. The only one that's not a Bland-Name Product? MySpace, of course.
- Magebook, a medieval fantasy version of Facebook for sorcerers that is accessible through the Mirror Net (the medieval fantasy version of the Internet using Magic Mirrors), in Empath: The Luckiest Smurf.
Film — Live-Action
- In Antisocial, Jed's friend Brian uses a social media site called Social Redroom to chronicle the spread of the Hate Plague.
Literature
- Peter and Valentine Wiggin of Ender's Game participate in debates over a blogging platform which are apparently prominent enough to influence world politics as a whole.
- The Furry Fandom novel Windfall has Howl, an app designed for canines where they can post anonymous messages to everyone in the area. Presumably as an alternative to actual howling.
- Nowhere Stars has the Lighthouse, a Keepers-only social media platform where Keepers can talk to each other, let each other know about Harbingers, call for back up, or just chat. Liadain, being something of a loner and very socially awkward, doesn't use it, and Shona is actually dumbfounded to learn that Liadain doesn't even know it exists.
Live-Action TV
- BIA Laix and El Fundom are competing web platforms modelled after YouTube.
- The Blacklist has OnScreen, a social media platform that's an Expy of Facebook by Miles McGrath during his time in Princeton before he went underground and became a criminal.
- Black Mirror has Persona (a Facebook stand-in) and Smithereen (a Twitter stand-in).
- Lampshaded in one episode of Castle when the title character wakes up to find out Alexis has been helping his mom/her grandmother set up a "MyFace" page. Castle starts to say something to the effect of "That's not the name of the site," and Alexis says she's been trying to explain that all morning.
- The IT Crowd has Friendface and Chitter.
- In Legends of Tomorrow, the Heyworld-timeline version of Zari is an internet celebrity who is obsessed with her status on Cat Chat, a 2040s social media app with an alert that sounds like meowing.
- Love Alarm revolves around the eponymous fictional phone app, Love Alarm, which tells you if there's anyone with a crush on you within a 10-meter radius.
- MADtv (1995): One of their many Sesame Street parody skits has Bobby meet a new friend on MyPlace, "An internet website where you can make new friends." Bobby's new friend goes by the handle DrFuzzyBalls1969 — he's into fashion (always asking Bobby what he's wearing), and knows a lot about computers (he can type with one hand) — of whom Gordon is suspicious about. It turns out DrFuzzyBalls1969 is Bert who has become an internet predator.
- The Middleman had Myfaceinatube.com, a mashup of Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube.
- One episode of Community has all of the students of Greendale download the new app "Meow Meow Beanz", where users can rate each other as people on a scale of 1-5. This being Greendale, it quickly devolves into a dystopian Fantastic Caste System.
- M.I. High:
- An episode has a student at St Hope's mention that they'd like to add one of the athletes visiting the school as a friend on "Stutter" (a Bland-Name Product of Twitter), only to learn from another student that Social Networking Sites are banned in that country.
- Another episode has the spies take a look at a "Twitcher" (a parody of Twitter) account of a scientist and see what his last message was before he got kidnapped.
- Odd Squad has Oddstagram, a parody of Instagram. There's also OddTube, which is implied to be the show's equivalent to YouTube in addition to being the name of Olympia's (and later Orla's) Character Blog.
- Ransom has Hypersip, portraying a similar function to Reddit with Jab Jab as a similar counterpart to Twitter.
- Season 2 of Ted Lasso introduces Bantr, a newly-released dating app that Keeley arranges to sponsor AFC Richmond. The idea is that unlike most dating apps, it doesn't have the option to upload pictures, so people can only connect through conversations.
- Victorious had The Slap, which was equal parts twitter and Facebook in universe, and out of universe was a De Fictionalized Character Blog.
- Often done on Investigation Discovery crime documentary series like See No Evil, where a recurring generic social network is used to represent victim's or survivors' actions on Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms.
- An episode of The Orville deals with a world much like early 21st century Earth, with a social network called the Master Feed taking over all aspects of life, including legislation (with public opinion treated as an equivalent to a fact) and the justice system. Everything becomes about upvotes and downvotes. Whenever someone accumulates a million downvotes, whether they have committed a heinous crime or just a harmless faux pas, they're arrested and have to do an Apology Tour, which involves appearing on various talk shows in order to try to convince the public they were wrong. If by the end of the set time they avoid accumulating ten million downvotes, they're freed. Otherwise, they are sentenced to undergo "social correction", which is basically the local equivalent to a lobotomy. A later episode reveals that things have gotten far worse on the planet, with everyone afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, which is clearly a jab at cancel culture.
Puppet Shows
- In the Muppets Now episode "Socialized", Robin the Frog, as the Muppets's social media intern, tries to get them trending on The Pad, which looks like a lilypad-themed Twitter.
Tabletop Games
- In Eclipse Phase, the entire economy of the Autonomist faction is based on social networks and the "reputation" scores they assign to members. Over half a dozen networks are listed and it's stated that there are many more, @-net for Anarchists, G-net for criminals, I-net for the Benevolent Conspiracy most players characters are part of...
- A Pyramid article updating GURPS Technomancer to The New '10s features Goodwitch (Yelp for magic users), Wizbook (Linkedin for magic users) and two based on the magic-transmitting Mananet: SoulSpace (a spell sharing platform) and Energizer (a crowdfunding site where you donate Mana rather than money).
- Red Markets has LifeLines, a Linkedin-esque whose corporate headquarters were nuked in the Crash but who stored their data on Ubiq’s fortified campus allowing one of the surviving employees to hack their website and turn it into a means of organizing Enclaves and eventually setting professional scavengers or “Takers” up with clients.
Video Games
- Cities: Skylines has Chirper, an obvious spoof of Twitter which acts as a way to know about the issues your citizens face (and is also the game's mascot). It is also a more modern take on its spiritual predecessor SimCity's News Ticker.
- In Coffee Talk, the Barista has an account on Tomodachill, which they use to keep tabs on their patrons. Episode 2 adds a new feature where they can check their status updates daily and "heart" their posts.
- Dave the Diver: Dave advertises for Bancho's sushi bar on Cooksta, a service that seems to combine Instagram with a restaurant guide. Getting likes on Cooksta from good food and service will unlock new decorations and recipes.
- Grand Theft Auto V has LifeInvader, a parody of Facebook, which invites subscribers to 'stalk' each other's posts in the same manner as Facebook's 'Likes' system, as well as "Bleeter", an obvious parody of Twitter. The online part of the game downplays their existence however due to the relative lack of long term storyline.
- The loading screens in Kingdom Hearts III appear as the heroes posting photos and hashtags in own Instargram-resembling social media with Kingdom Hearts χ-style profile pictures. You can't make custom posts with the Gummiphone, however.
- Mortal Kombat X: As part of Cassie Cage's Selfie Fatality, she will dislodge the opponent's jaw and throat, take a picture, and then upload it to social network called "Friendships" in which several characters and some real-life individuals (Ed Boon as "noobde" and Dan Forden as D4n 4den) will comment on her selfie pic.
- The Twitter-esque Bl@h is the social media network used by characters of Ventura Bay of Need for Speed (2015), used to message or call you in relation to story missions, getting notified by users after a race, or providing in-game tips during the Loading Screen.
- Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom: Shortly after the start of the game, Evan is given access to Leafbook, a news and photo sharing tool.
- In South Park: The Fractured but Whole the characters all use "Coonstagram" as the main social media network. Lampshaded by Morgan Freeman, who posts that he's not sure why the kids went through the trouble of creating their own social media network but he might as well join in.
- Twisted Wonderland has Magicame, likely the stand-in for Instagram.
Web Animation
- Deep Space 69 has "Spacebook" play a major role in one episode.
- Red vs. Blue introduces "Basebook" in Season 11, the first season of the Chorus Trilogy, which is nothing more than a small social network for the few soldiers stuck on Chorus. Oddly enough, they mentioned "Facebook" back during Blood Gulch.
Webcomics
- Darths & Droids #1165: "Forceful Takeover" has Darth Vader shut off his shuttle's computer while one of the clone troopers is browsing CloneBook.
Annotation: CloneBook is a great social network for clones. You're automatically friends with everyone else.
- Unwinder's Tall Comics features one comic from an alternate future where Realtree Energy (a failed Facebook clone by a hunting supply company in Real Life) is the most popular social network in the world.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball features Elmore Stream (YouTube) and Elmore Plus (named after Google Plus, but more similar to Facebook and Twitter). Earlier episodes have brief appearances of a site called "Fessebook" ("fesse" being French for "buttock"). "The Slide" shows Trawlr, a dating app equivalent to Tinder.
- Jellystone! has Jellygram, which is mentioned in "Pants". Squiddly apparently has a large following on there, and freaks out when Loopy threatens to unfollow her.
- The characters on Kaeloo often use the website "Fakebook", which is an obvious parody of Facebook. In the original French dub, it's called "Face de Bouc" ("Goat Face").
- In The Owl House, the Boiling Isles have they own variant of the internet with Social media like Penstagram, their equivalent of Instagram. Earth also has MewTube, a YouTube parody filled with cat videos and conspiracy theories.
- In Planes, a replica of YouTube named FlewTube appears as a Freeze-Frame Bonus when Dusty becomes popular after his first victory during the race.
- The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder has TicTic, Hologram, and Twiddler.
- The Simpsons episode "The D'oh-cial Network" has Lisa creating a friending network called Springface.
- On both 6teen and Stōked, a social networking website called "MyFace" (a portmanteau parody of Myspace and Facebook) is mentioned in some episodes of both shows—Caitlin Cooke from 6teen and George Ridgemount from Stoked are mentioned to have their own profiles on the website.
- In the Sonic Boom episode "Chain Letter", there's FriendSpace, SnarkChat, and Scrambler.
- The YouTube equivalent in Steven Universe is called "TubeTube". In "Too Short to Ride", Peridot uses an unnamed Twitter equivalent that has "Cheeps" instead of "Tweets", and each post corresponds to one made in a real Twitter account as the episode aired.
- We Bare Bears has several, most of them introduced by Internet addict Panda. The most prominent are "Yo Date!", a Tinder expy on which Panda struggles to find any match, and "Everyone's Tube", where the bears want to become famous like Nom Nom the cute Koala.
- On the revived series of Danger Mouse, the stand-in for YouTube and Facebook is a social networking site called SpamChops.
