The Internet is all a Twitter (literally) and all a YouTube, if you can say that, with the recent celebrity outbursts. In the same week, we saw the displays of bad manners and lack of self-control of tennis star Serena Williams, hurling her frustration in a stream of invectives at a line judge in the US Open; rapper Kanye West expressing his opinion of the award choice during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Music Video Awards; and Congressman Joe Wilson doing the same to President Obama over the impact of the proposed health care package during Obama's address to the US Congress.
What's the deal? Is this Celebrity Tourette's syndrome of a sign of the times? Are we a society of rampant narcissists and Twitter-length cognitive processors? Has the new social media environment so empowered us to speak our opinion that we think we can do it at any time with no content censor?
No. People haven't really changed. The technology changes much faster than we change our behavior and certainly faster than our biology can keep up. But, even if we aren't really changing, it's time we at least understand the program. As individuals and as a society, we must realize that information in the digital age has different properties than when we relied on flyers, party lines, and the 6 o'clock News. We function as an information network. Every single one of us can document and distribute events and information. The very act of people passing along a piece of information changes its import and impact.
Social networks take the information far beyond what happens in mass media, because the conversation is two-way but not just between two people. It's a continual exchange between many people, all at the same time. Once the information is out there, it moves across multiple channels and with great efficiency as it can shape shift through combinations of different forms: words, sounds, and images.
The digital environment means several things for information.
• There's a lot of airspace to fill, so all kinds of information is needed to fill up the vacuum.
• That loud sucking noise from the information void means that something you don't want someone else to know is very likely to show up somewhere you don't want it to.
• Information hangs around for a very long time.
• While the information is out there hanging around, somebody clever, creative, funny, or even mean may decide to integrate it with other information and it takes on a new life with new meaning as a mash-up. (Did you see the YouTube video edited to make it look like Kanye West interrupted President Obama? As of Sunday, it had 3,519,163 views. )
This no-secrets, no do-overs environment has some advantages.
As a society:
• The extensive coverage makes it impossible for the celebrity to downplay or disavow their behavior. They have to take responsibility for their actions as we saw with public apologies across the board.
• The public response from fans, peers, and dignitaries get as much play as the original event. This is a great tool for providing feedback about social norms and rebuffs and censors for deviation. If the President thinks you're a jackass, maybe you'd better shape up.
• People engage and participate in culture. They take current events and remix them to make their own points. The Internet is full of creative responses, such as voting for the week's worse outburst or a YouTube video edited to make it look like Kanye West interrupted Obama's speech. This really speaks to the public nature of media with new technologies and social networks. People can take charge of information, and make their own imprint. It underscores the inability of the content producer to control messages in this environment. Personally, I find this proof of life encouraging.
As a parent:
• The viral nature of these events, including the apologies and reactions from others across YouTube and the Internet as well as traditional media channels, provides ample opportunities to discuss it with your kids. You don't have to worry about something getting by without you seeing it or having a chance to hunt it up and find out what the squawking is about for yourself.
• It's a great opportunity to understand how your kids and their peer group interpret the event. That way you can effectively talk to them about what you think are the key points and have an idea about the impact those events actually have on your kids. It makes a much stronger point to make a cautionary tale out of current events than have to rely on Aesop's Fables.
• Parents can even use these opportunities to make points that go beyond the questionable celebrity behavior to include qualitative aspects of new technology, i.e. the way information spreads quickly to a large amount of people making an event seem worse and more embarrassing or the permanence of digital information, particularly if it's something that reflects poorly on you. What about future employers or future friends?
It used to be that there was ‘no such thing as bad publicity' but I like to think that may no longer be the case. In the new media world, coverage of events happens both inside and outside of traditional media channels. We are shown transgressions of all kinds not just celebrities stepping in cowpies-including bias and oversight by traditional media. The negative public reaction travel as far and fast as the event. If we can expose bad behavior of celebrities, no matter how superficial that seems in the grand scheme of things, we have a much better chance of exposing the negative things that really matter--such as abuses of power.
--
Photos: istock photos, http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/
