My main excuse actually ties in quite nicely with my topic in this little musing; that being the nature of social media and it's evolvolution.
I'm sure most of you can remember the first instances of Facebook arriving in the country and it's subsequent domination of the social media market completely eclipsing the previous entry of MySpace into the market, and how quickly it took off. Yes we've all seen the movie "The Social Network" chronicling the rise to power of Facebook's 'creator' Mark Zuckerburg...and if you haven't seen the movie, pretty sure you'd be familiar with the story behind the phenom.
But its not so much Facebook I want to concentrate on but the whole universe of social media itself.
What we have seen in recent days with the growth of the Internet and its globalisation has been the randomness and diluting of much of what it has been about in the past. Personally I love the Internet, freely available highly accessible information is really amazing on so many levels!(Information Act be damned! As well as recent American congress policies to try and censor much of the information available to the general public, also no secret that South Korea's absolute authoristrian control over the Internet to it's general public has gone hand in hand with its poor development on the world stage). So basically: freedom of speech and free open source information is a very good thing.
But...and here is my major point; the freely available nature and accessibility inherent to the Internet has heralded the rise of social media and the randomness of so much white noise across its sphere.
With so many people tweeting, Facebooking, and yes...blogging, we find ourselves in a position where we can not only keep in constant contact with what Johnny had for breakfast, but what Suzie's cat looks like when it's sleeping (I'll never understand why so many people post so many photos of their cats on so many social media platforms). Thus arrives more white noise and randomness than ever before in our lives. Almost like living in a small town where we are constantly bombarded with the random mutterings of the local gossip queens and what mundane thing happened in their day.
Of course I realise that the mundane is a huge element to the human experience and comes hand in hand with how we live on a daily basis...but honestly my own mundane occurrences are enough for me, let alone being subjected to everyone else's.
So this is my excuse. Lately I have become disillusioned with social media in general and Twitter in particular. I have also been guilty of mundane tweeting in my past, my present and no doubt shall be in my future...My bad. At least I'm aware of my hypocrisy...
Thus a tendency that has arisen in our lives to constantly broadcast every thought, moment and every picture (of our cats)...whether or not that is a good thing is really up to you to decide, personally I'm not a huge fan. I think the one thing that so many people haven't developed is an appropriate filter to what is interesting and what is just noise. Of course each personality is different and each person's idea of interesting is different, but I think we can agree we don't really want to know what Johnny had for breakfast, but we'd be a whole lot more interested in a video of him bunjy jumping in a monkey suit blindfolded and eating a banana.
Basically I think it's important for each individual to ask themselves the question of relevance before broadcasting each moment. Think before you tweet, is the new look before you leap.
Of course as with anything it all does depend, after all I'm pretty sure a lot of people would be interested in what Lady Gaga had for breakfast, but we're not all Lady Gaga (thank goodness).
Interestingly with all this white noise barging into our lives, has come the emergence of an Internet 'cool' or social media 'cool' that sees certain individuals rising to some semblance of popularity as a result of their basic interestingness and creative ability with the platform itself. It's almost as if a new niche culture has arrived into the din of so many voices as to what voices are in fact, the ones to listen to. My only concern is are we becoming a culture that places too much relevance on what certain of these 'cool' individuals think, say or do? And i think we are.
You have only to check on how many followers Gaga for example has to realise this. And although it may be interesting to hear that she ate the entrails of a chocolate coated defurred bunny for her Easter surprise, and made a delightful necklace out of the leftovers...do we really care on a fundamental level? I really don't think it's going to solve any of the world's problems.
But I guess that's where it becomes fuzzy, I am, after all, writing this to you on a social media platform (amongst a million other blogs) and for me to think my voice or thoughts on the matter are any different or all that more relevant than anyone elses's is slightly naive and self centred really, but perhaps to a different individual following the world's new royalty (like Gaga) does alleviate some pain and difficulty associated with the problems of human existence...but for me it most certainly does not. After all, and here's my final point, the most renown world thinkers, artists, leaders and individuals aren't tweeting their mundane meanderings through everyday life. Can you imagine a Bertrand Russel, Noam Chomsky et al, tweeting about how cute their cats look sleeping on their backs? Or Beethoven tweeting "just finished my 9th Symphony...think this one is gonna be a goodie"
Anyhow that's enough random noise from me...
Hope this finds you all well!
Much love
Skeato
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