I think a lot of the appeal of twitter and fb is a matter of perspective, that it's more appealing to people who barely were on the internet before these apps. A lot of these users never even knew web forums existed, and I hear them now after seeing those and they complaint because it's "too complicated" and "too much to read"

Extrapolate that and compare it to these same kids going to apps like instagram or tiktok which are even more visually-heavy (and less text) with content that it's even simpler and more optimized for user reach than user participation.