Posts Advance notice – this post contains adult concepts and the phrase “photocopy their bums”. If you want sweetness and light instead, the Happy Little Elves are over here.
“New Media Douchebags” is not my choice of term….nor one I endorse…. but it’s been rattling around in my head ever since October when I saw Kelly Stewart‘s parody on the Common Craft videos and up-themselves new media types, New Media Douchebags in Plain English. It’s also been posted to YouTube (clip below) by persons unknown: New media douchebags . I mentally ticked the “I am a NMD” box when I realised that I knew most of the services listed at the end of the clip.
Yesterday I raved about the general fabulousness of new media – or at least explained how it can have impact on librarians. Today I saw something that confirmed my prejudice that a species that uses the office copiers to photocopy their bums, will do the equivalent with new media tools. The prevalence of vampires and zombies and the bl**dy SuperFunWall on Facebook kind of had me convinced already.
About 4am UK time, mid afternoon in Australia, there was a mass migration of a mob of bored twitterfolk to watch a self-broadcast show on Ustream.tv . The attraction? A very, very drunk host who was singing about “Naked Time”, and who then stripped and hung freely before the audience’s eyes. Either it was a deliberate bid for publicity by the host or he’s really, really embarrassed right now…I’d rather not mention the host’s name or web company if either is the case. If you really want to see an excerpt , check out this Techcruch post.
Ustream.tv streams output from a webcam to the users’ screen with a chat room at the side, where viewers can converse about the content. There is also a telephone number that callers can phone to interact live with the host.
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OK – so my first geeky kind of thought was – “wow! this would be great for education”, then it was”is this guy’s hair green?”, then “isn’t this kind of a waste of bandwidth”, then “hey, some twerpy spammer is pushing the same URL into the chat box over and over”, then “people are discussing this as if it is an unusual occurrence on the internet – what about all those porn sites legislators are constantly in a moral panic about?”, and finally “this just proves the whole mob of us watching are NMDs”.
It reminded me of the dystopia created in Ben Elton’s latest book, Blind Faith . Characters with Second Life kinds of names (Caitlin Happymeal, Princess Lovebud, Caramel Magnum Moonbeam) are compelled by social, religious and governmental pressure to “tube” their entire lives. The most intimate moments are expected to be broadcast, with neighbours cheering on participants and offering suggestions. Family disputes are aired for congregational judgement in a cross between the Jerry Springer show and a baptist revival meeting. The story arc deliberately follows Orwell’s 1984, much the same way as Zadie Smith’s On Beauty follows Forster’s Howard’s End.
It’s probably this type of thing that made local Perth-ite, Myles Eftos, throw up his hands in despair and first propose mass Facebook suicide pact and then go on to create the Original Social Network.
UPDATE 29 December 2007: It was actually the other Perth webby Miles who created The Original Social Network – Miles Burke .
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Hey Kathryn,
You hit the nail on the head. As you said, all this technology has fantastic potential when used correctly – unfortunately, most of the time it isn’t, and the tubes are suffering because of it. This is the reason why I’m not subscribing to any of this new media bollocks any more.
Oh, BTW – you are getting your My/iles’ confused – the Original Social Network is Miles Burke
Thanks Myles.
Two-edged sword, though – forums that could degenerate to a delinqunt morass really need voices like yours knocking some sense into them and showing how these tools could be used to make superfabby tubes.
Miles / Myles now unconfounded.
Kathryn, I’ve been in two minds for a couple of years now about the argument that ‘sensible voices’ need to be there. Sometimes I think the tools need to be built a little differently in the first place. I had that discussion over at Larvy Prod about eighteen months ago (a large political group blog) – not that they are that insane, really, but there were issues with comments management that were driven very quickly into a corner with the Sierra thing.
I tend to think more that the sensible voices will find each other and block out the rest. As sometimes occurs (and sometimes not) with not so new media (Caroline Overington, anyone?).
Great post, though – thank you, as always, for being right up to the minute. Off to look at the Original network and the NMD post now, have a very happy New Year.