Social media and all that

An answer (although many may not agree).

Sum0 said:

,
Susan Boyle, -who?
viral hits, -what are those?
the trending topics on Twitter - self-fulfilling junk
a squillion hits on YouTube. - rarely look at
blogosphere, - someone cares about a blog?

all the people out to make a quick buck on the marketplace of the internet, -ancient news.

the new buzzwords like "user-generated content"
"monetize" "SEO", - never heard them.

Rage Against The Machine
getting to Christmas #1 through a Facebook campaign
- absolutely meaningless.

and the Iranian protests being organised through Twitter.
- this might be news.

Where has this internet culture made a difference?
Social media groups such as this one (AW) make a difference,
look at support groups, or psychological sciences in relation to group therapy (esp online groups on bi-polar). The online experience
brings a vast amount of information and a variety of people and
opinion, but so did any University setting. The largest change -to me- is the ability to research, support and educate through unofficial 'schools'.

- do you think it's all just a case of the emperor's new clothes, that lots of people have latched on to an idea which basically revolves around mindless Twitterings and asinine YouTube comments, or do you think there's something more valuable to this whole thing?

My Twit Face or what ever they are call it this week, enabled
me to re-find one very dear friend.

I've found no other use for it.

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Sum0 said:

This is sort of half-research, because I'm fishing for ideas for part of my novel, but I wasn't sure if it would fit in the research forum. (Sorry if this isn't the place.)

Basically I wanted to tackle this whole idea of social media - you know, Susan Boyle, viral hits, the trending topics on Twitter and cats falling off tables getting a squillion hits on YouTube. But also this battle between the "old" media and the "new" blogosphere, all the people out to make a quick buck on the marketplace of the internet, the new buzzwords like "user-generated content" and "monetize" and "SEO", right through to things like Rage Against The Machine getting to Christmas #1 through a Facebook campaign and the Iranian protests being organised through Twitter.

So in your opinion, what are the best and worst examples of social media? Where has this internet culture made a difference? (Along the lines of, say, the 1960 presidential election where the televised debate between Nixon and Kennedy made all the difference.)

And finally - and this is where the conflict in my novel may well stem from - do you think it's all just a case of the emperor's new clothes, that lots of people have latched on to an idea which basically revolves around mindless Twitterings and asinine YouTube comments, or do you think there's something more valuable to this whole thing?

Thanks for your ideas!

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Yes, of course there's something more valuable to the web: increased access to information and increased human interconnectedness.

I recommend Carl Jung and Jungian-inspired psychological studies and thinkers. The web is a wonderful exploration of the collective unconscious at work (good and bad in the case of certain memes that spread or some of the idiocy you mentioned). It is also an opportunity to gain insight to aid in the development of their own, individual consciousness.

I think of it, personally, like the "folding@home" projects/distributed computing (where you can lend some of your CPU to the efforts of crunching data or running simulations for important research projects) but with human minds as the added CPUs.

Of course, not everyone is tossing in their CPU for the better. Some are throwing out viruses of the mind and culture (memes and clutter like SEO/attempts at wealth accumulation) which do little or nothing positive for humanity. BUT, enough people seem to be using the resource for the better that the web has great potential for expanding human consciousness and what it even means to be human.

Communication, the speed and its relative speed and efficiency, are a major advantage for any species. It will be interesting to see where "social media" and the rest of these new technologies take us

Hope that provides some rough picture of my thoughts on the topic.

Sum0 said:

This is sort of half-research, because I'm fishing for ideas for part of my novel, but I wasn't sure if it would fit in the research forum. (Sorry if this isn't the place.)

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You are welcome to this forum for gaining insight for your novel; however, this is often a fast moving room where some discussions drop out of sight fairly quickly. If that happens with this thread, and you'd like more feedback, drop me a note and I'll shuttle it over to the Research forum, where others may also chime in and offer their views.

99.9% of everything on the Internetz is mindless twaddle...er...twitter.

Matera the Mad said:

99.9% of everything on the Internetz is mindless twaddle...er...twitter.

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I saw a similar statistic recently, only it had to do with e-mail messages, and how most of what is sent and received is spam related. Doesn't surprise me, though it's a sad commentary nonetheless.

Sum0 said:

This is sort of half-research, because I'm fishing for ideas for part of my novel, but I wasn't sure if it would fit in the research forum. (Sorry if this isn't the place.)

Basically I wanted to tackle this whole idea of social media - you know, Susan Boyle, viral hits, the trending topics on Twitter and cats falling off tables getting a squillion hits on YouTube. But also this battle between the "old" media and the "new" blogosphere, all the people out to make a quick buck on the marketplace of the internet, the new buzzwords like "user-generated content" and "monetize" and "SEO", right through to things like Rage Against The Machine getting to Christmas #1 through a Facebook campaign and the Iranian protests being organised through Twitter.

So in your opinion, what are the best and worst examples of social media? Where has this internet culture made a difference? (Along the lines of, say, the 1960 presidential election where the televised debate between Nixon and Kennedy made all the difference.)

And finally - and this is where the conflict in my novel may well stem from - do you think it's all just a case of the emperor's new clothes, that lots of people have latched on to an idea which basically revolves around mindless Twitterings and asinine YouTube comments, or do you think there's something more valuable to this whole thing?

Thanks for your ideas!

Click to expand...

It depends on what the expectations are, I think. It's not Emperor's New Clothes for a Pizza place to make a fun game on Facebook and expect that it might help sales. It is for every blogger to think she'll be the new Oprah, or that his book will sell a million because of a good site.

I think a lot of the quality of the news sites/blogs has plummeted. That's interesting to me. The stories are often too short and copy-and-pasted on every site out there. As if everything has to be served in little bites of attention that don't have to have originality at all.

The fact that everyone has a camera and can post a video on Youtube has changed the news to a certain degree. That's clear in places like Iran, but I think it's changed our news, too. That is, if we still care about any topic past the first 100 words we read on it!

Matera the Mad said:

99.9% of everything on the Internetz is mindless twaddle...er...twitter.

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So, Sturgeon's Law remains in effect? You seem shocked, for some reason. Hell, my first post on Twitter was something I did on my iPod touch in the john: "Here I sit, broken-hearted. I came to shit and only farted."

Want to see what ancient Romans in Pompeii might have posted to Twitter? It's the same inane shit.

What's not to love? Twitter and the rest of the mind streaming stuff out there has elevated shallow mediocraty to a thing of worship and enabled the paranoid, conspiracy theorists to find their fellow kind. This brings us one step close the the world as shown in the movie "Idiocracy"

Here is the trailer: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2682654/idiocracy_opening_sequence/

EnkelZ said:

What's not to love? Twitter and the rest of the mind streaming stuff out there has elevated shallow mediocraty to a thing of worship and enabled the paranoid, conspiracy theorists to find their fellow kind. This brings us one step close the the world as shown in the movie "Idiocracy"

Here is the trailer: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2682654/idiocracy_opening_sequence/

Click to expand...

With all due respect, Idiocracy was, perhaps, Mike Judge's worst movie.

The intro was amusing in the way it suggested that intelligent people were being selected against. After that, I continued watching, but I'm not certain as to why. It was all downhill from there for me, as a viewer, because I've never had a strong desire to witness the protracted beating of a dead horse. Yet, thanks to this movie, I have.

The internet contains a wealth of resources for self-improvement, communication, and education. That some people use it for mindless things...not surprising.

Some people use the library in the same way.

I once took a neighbor's child with my children to the library. My kids immediately ran to the books. The neighbor's child immediately ran to the video section. When I directed him back to the books, his reaction? "They have those here?"

I spent some time reading to him and he fell in love with one of the books--begged me to check it out. So, I did. And I took him back with us on the next trip.

That's the way it is, I'm afraid. To some people the library is a chance to read and gain information about the world. To others, it is "that free video rental place" on the corner.