The idea that you can do something that’s funny or amazing and that all you need is the power of Twitter to spread it, or that if you “hustle” and have “passion” and you follow all these different cockamamie strategies that you’ll become rich and famous, or perhaps overthrow your government, or “disrupt” an established industry, it’s so obviously bullshit. But … it sounds great on paper. And given the record high unemployment rate and the general economic conditions America and most of the world currently has to deal with, anything that offers the promise of riches is what we’re going to cling to, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And because the myth sounds great, we make up these fantasies of what these platforms can do for us, and those fantasies get lodged so deeply in our minds that it’s virtually impossible to remove them.
Believe me, I know. I still think about Ashley. So when I argue with someone about how social media is bullshit, as frustrating as it is to have them just repeat the same specious “proof” that I’m wrong over and over again, I know deep down in my heart that the reason why they can’t accept the truth is the same reason this Ashley thing still exists in my mind: It’s because the truth sucks.
We want to believe that the beautiful woman can love the ugly guy. We want to believe that Twitter can give us a voice equal to a major news network, but … life sucks. There’s no other way to put it. And it sucks because neither of these things are not, and never have been, true.
BJ Mendelson, author of Social Media is Bullshit: What The Myth of Social Media Has To Do With A Beautiful Relationship That Doesn’t Exist | Modern Primate | man, that’s deep
I find BJ Mendelson’s anti social media rants to be really satisfying reads, especially given how many more followers he has than I do.
With the pixels sitting on the surface of your eye, behind the eyelid rather than in front… imagine the possibilities! If you thought it was fun to send your friends to a Goatse site with windows that evade closing, imagine a Goatse you literally cannot look away from, even with your eyes closed!
And what about the advertising opportunities? I know I don’t see enough billboards, posters, and other signage in every day life! I’ve been trying in futility to crush up advertising into a purified powder that I can inject straight into my eyeballs, but I think the pairing of Google Glass and Mr. Parviz’s contact lens display technology just might do the trick. After all, what is Google, what is Facebook, what is any mobile app or website if not an ad platform?
Remember when raising questions about Facebook’s mishandling of private data was something you could bring up without being construed as a drunkard?
Seems like it was just last week.
The ROFLcon Summit Is Coming To Portland! »
And BuzzFeed’s Chris Menning will be talking ‘NEW MEMES ON THE BLOCK,’ so go register!
Bodies hanging from bridge in Mexico are warning to social media users »
It seems governments aren’t the only entities disturbed over the power of social media. A drug cartel in Mexico has apparently dispatched a man and a woman in a manner brutal enough to warn of the disturbing nature of the text alone.
“This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet,” one sign said. “You better (expletive) pay attention. I’m about to get you.” >continue<
Beyond disturbing. If you haven’t been paying attention, now’s the time to start.
(via shortformblog)
I just posted a serious, no-bullshit, “how to go viral” presentation on BuzzFeed, complete with some problems that arise from losing control of the truly viral stuff. To see the whole thing, you’ll have to go here.
