Does Social Media Have a Gender?

Yesterday my family and I embarked on a fun-filled 9 1/2 hour road trip. And by “fun-filled” I mean “looking for the nearest cliff to drive off if a certain nine year old asked ‘how much longer’ when the ETA was clearly marked on the GPS.”

Road trips like that always enable Merriem and me to ponder the deeper mysteries of the planet, such as what would be the worst job we could possibly have (me: porta-potty cleaner, her: podiatrist) and where we would live if we weren’t in RDU (her: Nashville, me: Canada. Or maybe San Diego. But I guess the right answer would have been “Anywhere you are, my precious.”).

But the most interesting conversation revolved around what gender social media is. She’s new to Facebook over the last few months, and  claimed that the ‘Book is decidedly an arena for women. “You look at my Facebook page” she said, “and you’ll see a bunch of posts and comments that are 98% women.”

I wanted to argue that was because 98% of her Facebook friends actually are women, but I was still in a bit of trouble for wanting to move to San Diego when she was going to Music City, USA, so I decided to keep my trap shut.

She then went on to declare that Twitter is a guy’s playground, and blogs are neutral. So let’s review…Facebook is for women, Twitter is for dudes, WordPress is for Chaz Bono.

Which led me to ask more questions, both out loud and to myself. If every social media outlet has a gender, then what are they? Pinterest is easy: that’s a girl’s game. LinkedIn: mostly dudes. MySpace: creepy dudes who pretend to be girls. Foursquare: whatever gender you’d classify as “bugs the bejeezers out of me.”

So what do you think? Does social media have a gender? Are certain outlets more prone to men vs. women? Comment below, because this blog is a safe place for all the peoples.