An upcoming social feed will “do the doomscrolling for you.” Will that make its users more positive?

Amid a sea of negative social media content, BuzzFeed is looking to amplify the upbeat brand image that first propelled it to international prominence. The media company led by Co-Founder and CEO Jonah Peretti is reportedly working on a social media platform that is being developed under the name BFisland.

News of BuzzFeed’s social hub arrived on February 2, when Semafor reported on the company’s plan to counter the “vibe shift” that has driven American political and cultural discourse in a rightward direction. Peretti clarified that vision with a manifesto that is hyperlinked at the bottom of the BFisland homepage.

Peretti’s manifesto refers to the concept of SNARF: Content that is driven by

• Stakes
• Novelty
• Anger
• Retention
• Fear

The BuzzFeed leader explained that platforms like TikTok and Instagram are built on posts that possess those qualities because AI-driven recommendation systems value reactionary content over more measured takes. To back up that statement, Peretti cites a 2017 meeting with ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming and claims that TikTok only acquired Musical.ly because it needed a “source of video content” to pair with the advanced AI systems ByteDance already had in place.

“This dynamic is causing many different types of content to evolve into versions of the same thing,” Peretti wrote. “Once you understand this you can see how much of our society, culture, and politics are downstream from big tech’s global SNARF machines.”

BFisland will be different, Peretti claims, due to its combination of human-led curation that will “do the doomscrolling for you” and advanced features that will continue BuzzFeed’s existing investment in AI. “This social media platform will use AI to give users agency instead of stealing their agency,” Peretti explained.

If the idea of using social content to uplift users sounds familiar, it’s because BuzzFeed has championed that approach for nearly two decades. The company’s video push was initially driven by content that celebrated users’ unique identities rather than pitting those groups against one another. BuzzFeed’s rapid growth convinced thousands of creators to rip pages out of the brand’s playbook in search of their own social media success stories.

Unfortunately, the nature of internet discourse changed sometime around 2016 (couldn’t say why) and BuzzFeed — which was already grappling with internal disputes with its talent — struggled to stay positive within a difficult media environment. Peretti and co. have endured multiple rounds of layoffs over the past decade.

In Peretti’s manifesto, he argues that the cultural tide is shifting once again. He cited a survey that outlined Gen Z’s growing discontent with TikTok and the widespread belief that their lives would be easier if the addictive platform had never existed at all. Spurred by that level of discontent, BFisland is accepting pre-launch sign-ups on its website, even though few details about the platform are currently available.

Even if social media users are eager for a more positive experience, there are still questions about how BuzzFeed will build BFisland without abandoning its mission. After all, most tech companies embrace SNARFy content for a reason: It sells.

Perhaps BuzzFeed’s recent financial transactions can help provide a runway to get its new platform off the ground. The company did good business when it offloaded 2021 acquisitions Complex Networks and First We Feast in a pair of sales. Will the returns from those deals wash up on the shores of BFisland? The nascent platform’s website is the best place to check for forthcoming updates.