Oh NYT. What are we going to do with you this month? First you\u00a0run an op-ed\u00a0so out of touch with reality it made the AARP look trendy. Now you\u00a0run a story\u00a0on Twitter that would make a newbie metablogger blush.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure I had ever read a column by\u00a0Jenna Wortham before but this one found it\u2019s way into my stream. As I\u2019m a fan of Nick Bilton and this was on the NYT Bits blog, I figured it was worth a read. But it was a huge let down. I know I demand a lot from media, but it\u2019s the Times so they should be held to a high standard.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go through the parts of the story that were just completely wrong:<\/p>\n
At some point, Twitter and the rest of social media became less about wanting to share the news and more about wanting to\u00a0be<\/em>\u00a0the news.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
At\u00a0some<\/em>\u00a0point<\/em>? Nope, Twitter has always been about sharing the news, being the news and more. Also note how a journalist thinks Twitter was\u00a0just about sharing<\/em>\u00a0the news at one point (it wasn\u2019t).\u00a0Users have always been all over the spectrum of sharing, commenting on, remixing or inserting themselves into the news. It is social media, after all and all aspects of how people socialize are represented. I suppose we have to excuse some people for not realizing that we\u00a0have been socializing\u00a0on the web from day one. It just seems like about once a month we get someone who writes a Rip Van Winkle type story, as if they\u2019re just waking up to what is happening online.<\/p>\n
Continuing\u00a0[emphasis mine]:<\/strong><\/p>\n
Take Justin Bieber, for example.<\/p>\n
As reports of the once-angelic and deeply troubled Canadian pop star\u2019s\u00a0arrest\u00a0began to make its way around the web, reactions streamed onto Twitter, ranging from jokes to tongue clucks.<\/p>\n
But by far, the most common refrain was something like this: \u201cWhy is this news??\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
The simplest answer is that it wasn\u2019t \u2014 at least not the most important news happening on that particular day.<\/strong>\u00a0But Twitter isn\u2019t really about the most important thing anymore \u2014 it stopped being about relevancy a long time ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The hypocrisy here, it burns. A mainstream media columnist lamenting that celebrity gossip exists in a social platform. As if that\u2019s anything new (it isn\u2019t) but it\u2019s hypocritical of her industry when supposed \u201cserious\u201d\u00a0news networks such as CNN interrupt an interview with a congresswoman to break this \u201cnews:\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, mainstream media news outlets clocked in at \u00a0a mind-numbing 1,789 sources sharing this news at last check-in Sunday evening:<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the New York Times didn\u2019t just cover this\u00a0story,\u00a0they have an\u00a0entire topic page<\/strong>\u00a0dedicated<\/em>\u00a0to Bieber.<\/p>\n
But of course, let\u2019s blame Twitter for this when it is in fact mainstream media that are the starting point for this conversation. Also this reporter seems to be lamenting a world that never existed. We live in a celebrity-obsessed culture where media live to (over) cover this sort of thing. Social is merely a reflection of the world around us, so it\u2019s hilarious to blame Twitter here. Twitter is actually successful at the macro level\u00a0because\u00a0<\/em>of its ability to react to this topic in real-time. Lament the subject matter all you want but it totally misunderstands the Internet to place blame here on a platform that\u2019s a blank canvas. I would actually blame the reporter\u2019s industry, not tech, for our celebrity obsession.<\/p>\n
I suppose we\u2019ll continue through a few more points:<\/p>\n
Twitter seems to have reached a turning point, a phase in which its contributors have stopped trying to make the service as useful as possible for the crowd, and are instead trying to distinguish themselves from one another. It\u2019s less about drifting down the stream, absorbing what you can while you float, and more about trying to make the flashiest raft to float on, gathering fans and accolades as you go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Wait, what? According to who? What data or citations are here to back this up? Oh, that\u2019s right the author\u00a0follows\u00a0nearly\u00a04,000+ people including (at a cursory glance) a mess of fire-hose streams that feed every piece of content they run automatically into Twitter. The fact that the author didn\u2019t even fill out a URL as part of their bio is also suspect, I\u2019d imagine if they didn\u2019t do something so simple they haven\u2019t gone through the effort of creating the right filtering system for sorting signal from noise in the stream either. Hint: there are tools to do this. Also, there\u2019s a giant unfollow button: perhaps prune those pumping celeb-obsessed garbage into the stream? No, that\u2019d be too easy. Write a column complaining the tech is broken instead.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s keep going because I still don\u2019t know how this was published in the New York Times and not some personal blog:<\/p>\n
The psychology of crowd dynamics may work differently on Twitter than it does on other social networks and systems. As a longtime user of the service with a sizable audience, I think the number of followers you have is often irrelevant. What does matter, however, is how many people notice you, either through retweets, favorites or the holy grail, a retweet by someone extremely well known, like a celebrity. That validation that your contribution is important, interesting or worthy is enough social proof to encourage repetition. Many times, that results in one-upmanship, straining to be the loudest or the most retweeted and referred to as the person who captured the splashiest event of the day in the pithiest way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So basically this person follows a bunch of self-promotional narcissists who crave celebrity endorsement or think vanity metrics matter. The author is clearly new to social platforms, these people have always existed. Forever. Since boards and forums of the 90s. But this is\u00a0an ongoing\u00a0(and strange trend): reading articles discussing Twitter and FB, w\/o mention of the social web at large. It\u2019s sort of depressing to constantly see the history of social glossed over. Journalists need to show context for us to take their arguments seriously, it shows they have been paying attention. As someone who has used social software since the 90s, I\u2019ve see this behavior across platforms. It is\u00a0not unique<\/em>\u00a0to Twitter which despite being a community focused on real-time has the same dynamics (even forums used similar social proofing such as showing post counts, year joined, etc.).\u00a0The other thing here is this \u201cproblem\u201d if you could call it that is the authors fault. I do not have this experience at all on my streams.<\/p>\n
As a result, recency trumps relevancy, which is how a single, relatively insignificant news event can exasperate much of an entire community over the course of a day. There are\u00a0several other\u00a0recent events, in addition to Mr. Bieber\u2019s arrest, that have captivated Twitter to the point of exhaustion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is just a strange statement and again shows a fundamental misunderstanding of digital communities. These events are not \u201cinsignificant\u201d to the community if the community discusses them and finds them interesting. The point of social is in fact to be social, and part of being social is finding topics of conversation. On the Internet the insignificant is in many cases actually quite interesting, ripe for commentary and to those communities significant. Everyone is free to join and create the communities they find worthwhile.<\/p>\n
As a sidenote one of the stories linked was the whole\u00a0Justine Sacco fiasco. This story was\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0insignificant. A PR director of a major brand who is in a position of great responsibility to many stakeholders and employees making racist comments (not to mention a long list of Tweets sharing many inappropriate and offensive things, particularly for a senior comms person to say). As a member of the marketing \/ PR industry this person makes our whole category look bad, not to mention is potentially putting the reputation of her brand at risk. It\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0worthy of comment.<\/p>\n
It feels as if we\u2019re all trying to be a cheeky guest on a late-night show, a reality show contestant or a toddler with a tiara on Twitter \u2014 delivering the performance of a lifetime, via a hot, rapid-fire string of commentary, GIFs or responses that help us stand out from the crowd. We\u2019re sold on the idea that if we\u2019re good enough, it could be our ticket to success, landing us a fleeting spot in a round-up on BuzzFeed or The Huffington Post, or at best, a writing gig.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Again, this NYT columnists is clearly speaking from observation of the people she follows. An overwhelming majority don\u2019t care about being included in a round-up on Lamefeed.<\/p>\n
But more often than not, it translates to standing on a collective soapbox, elbowing each other for room, in the hopes of being credited with delivering the cleverest one-liner or reaction. Much of that ensues in hilarity. Perhaps an equal amount ensues in exhaustion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Then unfollow your friends who you don\u2019t find compelling. Actually, at this point her post is causing me to be exhausted more so than any Bieber jokes.<\/p>\n
To say the service is no longer relevant or informed seems inaccurate \u2014 much of my day is still spent poring over Twitter, picking out the best links, insights, quips and bits to examine and share later \u2014 but it is less informed (and informative) than it used to be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
First of all, there are so many sources for story ideas besides Twitter. As a columnist and blogger myself Twitter is a great source but because I have a social listening dashboard setup as well as RSS feeds and belong to several niche communities. If Twitter is not fertile for good ideas, I look elsewhere. No one source will always produce. The author doesn\u2019t have a problem with Twitter, they have\u00a0filter failure.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all milling about, infinitely hovering, waiting for our chance to speak, to add something clever to conversation, even when we\u2019re better off not saying much at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Nope, we\u2019re not. Just people who don\u2019t understand the high cost of now. Seth Godin\u00a0eloquently outlined\u00a0this \u201cproblem\u201d in 2008 and it isn\u2019t a problem at all if you audit where you spend time and how and create the right alerts. Automation is your friend. Professionals don\u2019t mill about and wait for things, they create processes.<\/p>\n
Twitter is starting to feel calcified, slowed down by the weight of its own users, cumbersome, less exciting than exhausting. It may be why less public forms of communication \u2014 messaging applications like Snapchat, GroupMe, Instagram Direct and even old-fashioned e-mail threads and Google groups \u2014 are playing a bigger and bigger role in the most meaningful interactions during my day online.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I love this comment because it completely ignores ICQ, IRC, AOL IM and every other private chat we\u2019ve had forever. Twitter solves a different and unique problem than messaging apps and appeals to a different type of user.<\/p>\n
But even if the company were to snap to attention and give its community something other than Twitter lists and block or unfollow buttons to help users tailor their feeds, it most likely wouldn\u2019t be enough. We, the users, the producers, the consumers \u2014 all our manic energy, yearning to be noticed, recognized for an important contribution to the conversation \u2014 are the problem. It is fueled by our own increasing need for attention, validation, through likes, favorites, responses, interactions. It is a feedback loop that can\u2019t be closed, at least not for now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The last graph of this is great because the author even recognizes it is the people she chooses to follow that are the problem but glosses over the fact she has the ability to fix it. Everyone else using Twitter understands the importance of occasional pruning. Maybe one of the millions of supposed \u201csocial media experts\u201d can help\u00a0Jenna get it together?<\/p>\n
And we didn\u2019t even mention the title of the story:\u00a0Valley of the Blahs: How Justin Bieber\u2019s Troubles Exposed Twitter\u2019s Achilles\u2019 Heel.\u00a0<\/em>Except a more accurate title would be \u201cJenna Wortham follows people who share blah-worthy content and are obsessed with teen celebrities.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oh NYT. What are we going to do with you this month? First you\u00a0run an op-ed\u00a0so out of touch with … <\/p>\n