After Vanity Metrics

Abstract

‘Vanity metrics,’ as they are critically termed, measure the performative work an individual carries out on social media. Posting on social media and subsequently displaying and maintaining like, view, and follow counts have been critiqued as both distracting modes of engagement as well as performance in a ‘success theater’. The notion of vanity metrics additionally implies how one may consider reworking the metrics. In an undertaking he calls ‘critical analytics’, the author proposes an alternative metrics project akin to altmetrics in science but utilized instead to measure actor activity around social issues and causes in social media. Critical analytics are means to analyse dominant voice, concern, commitment, positioning, and alignment of actors using social media to work on social issues and causes, seeking to contribute a conceptual and applied research agenda to orient the study of social media use and activity metrics.