I think it’s fair to consider IRC a social tool. It’s build around small communities made up of people who both belong to and run the various rooms. So within that you have a social structure, you have familiarity and you have social hierarchies.

This is different from most “social” platforms on the modern web. Reddit, twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, instagram, hackernews and so on are all global villages, operated by a centralized organ which doesn’t really moderate. So you have anarchy, no-familiarity, no structure and no real visible hierarchy.

When you were on IRC you’d meet the same people every day, you got to know them and they you. By contrast we probably won’t ever run into each other again once we finish this specific conversation. You might not even read my post unless you specifically chose to do so.

A lot of the internet is like this now, and there is really nothing social about most social media.