Hello! I'm your financial journalist and friend who also specializes in economic analysis. Today, we're going to talk about a very practical issue that affects every WeChat user – "Can we still really trust what we see in our Moments?"
This article comes from the official account "Shark成龙," and it doesn't just complain about the excessive amount of ads. Instead, it dissectes the human nature, business logic, and technical challenges behind the Moments feature in a way that's as clear and insightful as a surgical analysis.
Let me first summarize the key points in simple language, and then we'll delve into these five core aspects in more detail.
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📝 Summary of Key Points
In one sentence: Moments is facing a crisis of "identity mismatch." It's nominally a space for friends, but in reality, it's become a showcase for maintaining "weak relationships" with clients, colleagues, and strangers. Commercial content (ads, marketing) is overtaking genuine life updates, devaluing users' attention. Although AI and new WeChat features like "Status" are trying to address this, the complexity of social relationships and privacy concerns mean there's no perfect solution yet. The future of Moments depends on how we find a new balance between "showcasing ourselves" and "protecting our private lives."
Key conclusions:
1. Functional Alienation: Moments has shifted from a space for close friendships to a tool for maintaining semi-public relationships.
2. Commercial Invasion: The attention of acquaintances is being commercialized, leading to a "tragedy of the commons" where people increasingly feel reluctant to engage.
3. Technical Limitations: AI cannot accurately understand the nuances of social interactions, and forced algorithmic recommendations can undermine social trust.
4. Product Division: WeChat's "Status" feature aims to separate long-term personas from momentary moods, but users' habits are hard to change.
5. Essential Change: What's unchanged is Moments itself; what has changed are our complex social relationships and utilitarian attitudes as adults.
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🔍 In-Depth Analysis: Five Aspects Explained in Plain Language
1. The Name Is "Friends," but the Task Is About Maintaining Weak Relationships
[Plain Language: The posts you make in Moments are not really for your close friends; they're for people you're only semi-acquainted with.**
The article points out a poignant paradox: Your truly close friends don't need Moments to understand you—they already know about your anxieties, mistakes, and the stories behind your travel photos. Those who need to form an impression of you based on your photos, career views, or company updates are often your clients, colleagues, or old classmates. These are what we call "weak relationships."
This leads to an awkward situation where you're not thinking, "I want to tell my best friend what I had for lunch," but rather, "I want those who don't really know my life to think I'm professional, family-oriented, and successful." It's like having a meeting at work—you can't yawn or use foul language; you have to maintain a "proper" image. Moments is like that meeting room, with your boss, clients, relatives, and exes all watching your performance. In communication theory, this is called "context collapse"—you can't be honest with everyone, so you have to present the safest, most boring, and most respectable version of yourself.
2. Why Do You Think There Are So Many Ads? Because Your Circle Has Too Many "Impurities"
[Plain Language: The degree of annoyance you feel from ads in Moments depends on who's in your WeChat circle.**
Many people complain about the ads, but others find them interesting. Why? Because everyone's "audience" is different:
- If you're a university professor, your Moments will mostly contain students, colleagues, and relatives, so the commercial content is less noticeable.
- If you're an entrepreneur or salesperson, your circle will be full of investors, suppliers, and clients.
The article introduces the concept of "relationship field commercial capacity," which refers to how much commercial content your social circle can tolerate without making you want to delete WeChat. There are two types of ads:
1. Platform ads: These are sponsored by WeChat, and Tencent can control their frequency and quality.
2. Social ads: These are posted by your friends. For example, an insurance agent's post about their child's camping might seem trustworthy to a client but just a casual update to an old classmate.
The problem lies with the latter type. Algorithms struggle to determine the relevance of these ads to specific relationships. For salespeople, posting ads is part of their job, but for users, it's annoying. When your circle is filled with salespeople, intermediaries, and delivery workers, and the underlying logic remains the same (i.e., your friends = your audience), Moments becomes a digital "yellow page" full of business contacts and ads, lacking personal touch.
3. The Attention of Acquaintances Has Become a "Tragedy of the Commons": Everyone Posts, but No One Really Reads
[Plain Language: People see your posts because they know you, but since everyone does the same, no one really reads them anymore.**
This is the "tragedy of the commons" in action. On TikTok, you stop watching a video because it's interesting; on Moments, you stop because it's just from someone you know. This attention, based on familiarity, is the most valuable aspect of the platform. Once people realize that posting can attract attention and potentially lead to sales or build trust, commercial content floods in:
- Step 1: Salespeople post ads.
- Step 2: Users start blocking them.
- Step 3: Salespeople become more clever, posting about their kids, running, or personal reflections, hiding their products (personalized marketing).
- Step 4: The commercial content density increases, squeezing out genuine life updates.
- Step 5: Users find it boring and stop checking Moments.
- Step 6: The value of acquaintances' attention declines, and everyone falls silent.
This is a vicious cycle. Moments is losing its most valuable asset: genuine, trust-based attention from close friends. When the "showcase" is full of products, no one wants to browse it.
4. AI Can't Solve Moments' Problems: Relationships Are More Complex Than Content
[Plain Language: Using AI to filter Moments? It won't work because AI doesn't understand the subtleties of human relationships and can easily make things worse.**
The author initially hoped AI could help with information overload, but it quickly became clear that it wouldn't work. There are two reasons:
1. Context is dynamic: The same friend's news about a company award might be interesting if you just talked to them about a collaboration; if you haven't contacted them in half a year, it might seem irrelevant. AI struggles to capture these subtle emotional changes.
2. Asymmetry of Errors: If AI shows you an irrelevant ad, you can just ignore it; if it misses an important update (like a friend's illness, marriage, or job loss), you never know what you missed, and there's no way to fix it. The error of missing something important is invisible and irreversible.
TikTok's content is unlimited and relies on algorithms, but Moments' content is limited and tied to complex interpersonal networks. If the platform gets too involved in sorting content, it changes your social relationships as perceived by WeChat, undermining trust.
Therefore, the author believes WeChat's current approach of moderation is the right one: AI can help filter repetitive ads, but it can't decide who's important. The final judgment should always be up to the user.
5. Why Did WeChat's "Status" Feature Fail? Because People Still Want to "Put On a Show"
[Plain Language: WeChat wants you to easily share your momentary mood, but you still prefer to present a carefully crafted persona.**
WeChat realized the pressure on Moments and introduced the "Status" feature in 2021, hoping to separate "long-term identity" from "instant presence." In theory, this would separate performance from reality. However, in reality, few people use it:
1. Habits are hard to change: People still think of Moments as the place to express themselves, as it has an audience.
2. Conformity: If no one around you uses it, you're less likely to use it; if no one posts, you're less likely to check it.
3. Essence remains the same: Even with lower barriers to posting, people still prefer to maintain a crafted, long-term image rather than a spontaneous, possibly awkward momentary self.
Conclusion: Moments has evolved beyond a simple feature; it's become a "digital city" with its own businesses, advertisements, and promotional activities, as well as residents, streets, and social interactions. Good city management doesn't eliminate businesses; it limits distractions and maintains a space for genuine interactions. WeChat's role is to make it easier for users to manage their relationships (e.g., by making blocking and grouping more convenient) and to regulate official ads.
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💡 Journalist/ Scholar's Comment
The most profound part of this article is the final sentence: "Moments hasn't changed; what's changed is us." We're tired of Moments not just because of the ads, but also because we see the complexity, utilitarianism, and pretense of adults in it. Once innocent classmates have become resources to be maintained, and a place for showcasing success stories. We hate both the crafted personas and the forced performance we have to put on every time we open the app.
Advice for ordinary users:
1. Accept imperfection: Recognize that Moments is a semi-public showcase and don't expect to see a completely authentic version of others.
2. Take control: Use tools like "do not show to" and "tag grouping" to manage who sees your posts. Your attention is your most valuable asset, so decide who gets to see it.
3. Find other outlets: If Moments stresses you, try building deeper connections in more private groups or through real-life interactions. After all, true relationships are never maintained by photos alone.