Trapped in the echo chamber.
At times, I wonder just how it was newspapers filled their pages when they couldn't dedicate multiple anguished pieces to either actors making a poor choice of word, or alleged celebrities Twitter-shaming litterers. Then you remember there was never a halcyon period for newspapers, regardless of what anyone will tell you: the tabloids were always full of celebrity bilge, including Hugh Cudlipp's patrician Mirror. As for the broadsheets, they were in the main drier than downtown Jeddah on a Saturday night. Not for nothing was the ghastly but at least readable Express the world's biggest seller for a time.
Apparently then I must defend Katie Price's rightto party to claim disability benefits for her son. First they came for one of the most loathsome personalities of recent times, and so forth. Alternatively, I could let her get on with it, as I'm sure dear old Jordan can look after herself, surely? Much like Benedict Bandersnatch (that is his name, isn't it?) no doubt instantly regretted saying coloured, without it being necessary for writers to assume he couldn't have much contact with black actors if he was going around doing so. As for Kirstie Allsopp, well, as the personification of just about everything that would quickly send me completely and utterly fucking doolally, if she wants to be so petty as to put a litterer's number plate online, does it really need further comment?
Of course it does. And of course, it takes two or indeed dozens of sad acts for these mini-ripples to get anywhere in the first place. Reading Jon Ronson's interview with Adam Curtis, which quickly digresses onto the topic of Ronson's upcoming book on those who've found themselves at the centre of online storms, it's easy to forget these incidents would have felt that much less serious had the mainstream media decided not to join in the stupidity.
Personally, despite everything that's come since, I reckon the apogee was reached in the days after that woman put that cat in that bin. Why put the CCTV online in the first place? I love animals as much as the next carnivore, but let's face it, far worse than spending a night in a bin is going to happen to most cats through their own ahem, curiosity. Why demand answers as to why she put it in the bin? Did it matter? Would any answer suffice? She quite possibly had a terrible day, but rather than stroke the cat as most of us would have and probably felt just that little better, she put it in the bin. Or perhaps she does just hate cats. Either way, the why was irrelevant. She will now and forever more be the cat bin lady. Which could be preferable to being known as a cat lady when you think about it, who knows.
As you'll probably know by now, my own views on social media are roughly akin to both Ronson and Curtis's. Yes, it can all too easily become an echo chamber, but then most of us don't like having our thoughts and opinions challenged in the first place. Hence we buy that paper, we read that website, we turn our noses up at their rivals and so on. Far more pernicious to me at least is not the vehemence with which a transgression against something might be pursued, so much as the effect it's had on activism. On the one hand it's turbo-charged many campaigns, had a major role in the Arab spring, etc. On the other, as Curtis points out, what is there to show for the vast majority of hashtag battles? Not just the obvious examples for mocking, such as #bringbackourgirls or #kony2012, but what about #occupy? Apart from giving us the 99%/1% identifiers, what did it really change, and is that perhaps not directly connected to the lack of real leadership there so often is behind such Twitter co-ordinated protests?
Curtis doesn't get everything right. His remark on how in "ten years, sections of the internet will have become like the American inner cities of the 1980s" is just a little behind the times, considering how there have been subcultures online almost exactly as he describes since the late 90s, and you could probably identify similar groupings on BBSes if you so wished. It's also something of a stretch to point towards "consumer journalism" being a recent thing - Murdoch's Sun was precisely that, long before accusations of dumbing down were bandied about, while the painting of the world as black and white is old as newspapers themselves.
What's so odd and defies explanation is just how quickly the "shaming" aspect of social media has become accepted. Why should anyone care what a cricketer thinks about people on minimum wage for instance, and why does someone else known for their opinions on Twitter feel the need to dedicate an entire piece to it? It tells us precisely nothing wider about ourselves, just as Emma West's rant about immigration didn't. The answer maybe is that rather than giving everyone a voice, what social media has really done is inflate egos yet further and little else, empowering not individuals, but individualism. This hasn't just happened to the Stuart Broads, the Allsopps, or anyone else you might care to mention, but also those whose reaction to the Sun trolling everyone last week over page 3 was to stamp their feet rather than reflect they had been too quick to assume victory. More prosaically, another explanation is the encouragement if not active compulsion there now is to share, regardless of whether it's something that should be heard or deserves to be. When rubbed against not the right to freedom of speech but, hilariously, the "freedom to be offended" as the headline writing sub on Jessica Valenti's latest we're putting an end to every sort of ism through making everyone check their privilege piece put it, increasingly pointless battles are the inevitable result.
As ever, most of the criticisms directed against others can be pointed directly back at myself. Why moan about people moaning about inconsequential things? Hasn't writing this crap for the last nigh-on 10 years been all about boosting your ego too? Who gives a fig what you think about anything? To which the only answer is: curses, foiled again.
Apparently then I must defend Katie Price's right
Of course it does. And of course, it takes two or indeed dozens of sad acts for these mini-ripples to get anywhere in the first place. Reading Jon Ronson's interview with Adam Curtis, which quickly digresses onto the topic of Ronson's upcoming book on those who've found themselves at the centre of online storms, it's easy to forget these incidents would have felt that much less serious had the mainstream media decided not to join in the stupidity.
Personally, despite everything that's come since, I reckon the apogee was reached in the days after that woman put that cat in that bin. Why put the CCTV online in the first place? I love animals as much as the next carnivore, but let's face it, far worse than spending a night in a bin is going to happen to most cats through their own ahem, curiosity. Why demand answers as to why she put it in the bin? Did it matter? Would any answer suffice? She quite possibly had a terrible day, but rather than stroke the cat as most of us would have and probably felt just that little better, she put it in the bin. Or perhaps she does just hate cats. Either way, the why was irrelevant. She will now and forever more be the cat bin lady. Which could be preferable to being known as a cat lady when you think about it, who knows.
As you'll probably know by now, my own views on social media are roughly akin to both Ronson and Curtis's. Yes, it can all too easily become an echo chamber, but then most of us don't like having our thoughts and opinions challenged in the first place. Hence we buy that paper, we read that website, we turn our noses up at their rivals and so on. Far more pernicious to me at least is not the vehemence with which a transgression against something might be pursued, so much as the effect it's had on activism. On the one hand it's turbo-charged many campaigns, had a major role in the Arab spring, etc. On the other, as Curtis points out, what is there to show for the vast majority of hashtag battles? Not just the obvious examples for mocking, such as #bringbackourgirls or #kony2012, but what about #occupy? Apart from giving us the 99%/1% identifiers, what did it really change, and is that perhaps not directly connected to the lack of real leadership there so often is behind such Twitter co-ordinated protests?
Curtis doesn't get everything right. His remark on how in "ten years, sections of the internet will have become like the American inner cities of the 1980s" is just a little behind the times, considering how there have been subcultures online almost exactly as he describes since the late 90s, and you could probably identify similar groupings on BBSes if you so wished. It's also something of a stretch to point towards "consumer journalism" being a recent thing - Murdoch's Sun was precisely that, long before accusations of dumbing down were bandied about, while the painting of the world as black and white is old as newspapers themselves.
What's so odd and defies explanation is just how quickly the "shaming" aspect of social media has become accepted. Why should anyone care what a cricketer thinks about people on minimum wage for instance, and why does someone else known for their opinions on Twitter feel the need to dedicate an entire piece to it? It tells us precisely nothing wider about ourselves, just as Emma West's rant about immigration didn't. The answer maybe is that rather than giving everyone a voice, what social media has really done is inflate egos yet further and little else, empowering not individuals, but individualism. This hasn't just happened to the Stuart Broads, the Allsopps, or anyone else you might care to mention, but also those whose reaction to the Sun trolling everyone last week over page 3 was to stamp their feet rather than reflect they had been too quick to assume victory. More prosaically, another explanation is the encouragement if not active compulsion there now is to share, regardless of whether it's something that should be heard or deserves to be. When rubbed against not the right to freedom of speech but, hilariously, the "freedom to be offended" as the headline writing sub on Jessica Valenti's latest we're putting an end to every sort of ism through making everyone check their privilege piece put it, increasingly pointless battles are the inevitable result.
As ever, most of the criticisms directed against others can be pointed directly back at myself. Why moan about people moaning about inconsequential things? Hasn't writing this crap for the last nigh-on 10 years been all about boosting your ego too? Who gives a fig what you think about anything? To which the only answer is: curses, foiled again.
Labels: Adam Curtis, bloggocks, freedom of speech, media analysis, politics, social networking websites, Twitter
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