Social Media Settling in Nicely
Aaaaahhh. That feels a lot better now.
It seems that it is becoming much more common place to accept that social media is OK; that the big media people are coming along with us. That journalists and social commentators are getting stuff published which says that we can carry on Tweeting, blogging, facebooking, YouTubing … etc. Cory Doctorow has this in The Guardian. He argues that:
Criticising social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook is as pointless as knocking people who discuss the weather.
Such a relief to read this kind of stuff which recognises the social function of online activity. You never know, one day people may no longer have to defend the fact that they watch Coronation Street (or deny that they do). It seems that it is still not the case that television has ever totally shaken the ‘chewing gum for the eyes’ type of snobbery it attracted when I was at school (some 33 or more years ago). If things get popular really quickly then it seems that there is always some kind of backlash which assumes that just because the masses love it, it must be bad. There is an assumption that mass consumption means mass idiocy. But maybe, just maybe, lots of people can recognise a good thing when they see it.
Anyhow, here’s a tree which looks vaguely rhizomatic and networky:
