The Disturbing Death of Social Media

The Peculiar and Disturbing Death of Social Media

In which we witness a long-awaited and not-so-pretty demise of a bullshit idea.

I'm pretty damned tired of Facebook and G+ and whateverthefuckissocialmedia.com. I have a closed loop of friends that I like to check in on and post snarky comments and I jump at the chance to post a cool zombie movie clip. Other than that, there really is no value in this enterprise.

Cultural Communication

We're in a culture of COMMUNICATION. The noun has no valence. It is neither good nor bad. Unfortunately, the urge to COMMUNICATE via every goddamn device you own does not mean it is good, meaningful communication. It is, to be frank, drivel.

I'm not sure what Caturday is. I'm all in for fluffy puppies. I do know that this is entertainment. It's a type of communication.

What's disturbing is that social sites are now so heavily populated that communication and entertainment have formed this unholy alliance where every bit of information is treated as a reliable source. I know that this is a long-running issue with journalism in the digital age, but it remains unresolved. Case in point:

Dinosaur Killer!

Steven Spielberg is a mad dinosaur murderer! The outrage that followed is hilarious to read and impossible to do so without shaking your head.

The fact that social media can actually play this game with "content" like this shows its versatility, popularity and insanity. How can we take this (admittedly stupid) example and then switch to, say, a post by Obama? Do companies really want to spend their marketing dollars to stand alongside this?

Curation vs. Mob Rule

There seems to be a renaissance of quality television. Exciting, rule-breaking shows are pouring out of the woodwork, from non-traditional producers such as Netflix and Yahoo! and Amazon (Enlightened, my personal fave) to the legacy networks that look like they're running scared. This trend pushes the frivolous, silly and inane off the page simply because the quality of the content demands the full attention of the media critics.

Similarly, Facebook et. al. will begin (I think) to move to a self-curating model where the content's importance is its prime motivation. Think of it as the anti-Buzzfeed. Content that exists for a reason other than generating millions of mouse clicks.

Or we could just stick with being outraged about dinosaur hunting.