Mine was beige, with flowers. Which, as the evening wore on, proved to be one of the more boring updates. (I especially loved the person who asked, “Why is everyone posting synonyms for tan in their status?”) But what occurred on Facebook last night and this morning was, in my opinion, pretty amazing. A meme took hold in a matter of minutes and, perhaps most impressive, had no explanation directly attached to it. You had to Google it or scan comments in your friends’ posts to find out what the hell was going on. But the number of people participating was overwhelming, nonetheless.
What also took mere minutes was the indignant faction who were either annoyed, offended, or downright angry. While watching the BCS game (which is an entirely separate argument we won’t discuss), I found myself in a heated debate with a friend as to the effectiveness/harm of posting your bra color for breast cancer awareness. Her key point was that “hollow gestures threaten to undermine substantive action” and she circled back to her favorite rant topic: the aligning of twitterers with the Iranian democracy revolt last summer. I disagree strongly; people turning their avatars green has no effect – negative or positive – on Iranians’ fight for democracy, just as typing the word “beige” next to my name on Facebook isn’t going to set breast cancer research back 10 years.
What it does do however is a couple of other important things. It serves a very real sociological need for affiliation. Humans define themselves, at least partially, by their causes. “I’m against Prop 8; therefore I am liberal and open-minded.” “I’m a member of the NRA; therefore I am conservative and like to kill things.” (Sorry. I’m only human.) So when you glom onto to one of these silly online memes – and yes, they are mostly silly – people feel they’re defining themselves a little bit.
The second point is one that’s much more salient. Last night’s bra-color game was a hint of what is possible when you combine social causes with social networks. Even those who were offended as hell have to admit: we’re talking about breast cancer now. Yes, of course, we were talking about it before. On occasion. In October when every household object on the market is tinted pink. But it did in fact, achieve precisely what it set out to do – raise awareness. The Huffington Post wasn’t focusing on the anger and raw emotion of a breast cancer survivor last week. The rage that cancer engenders was not getting ink in the Washington Post. And the Komen fan page on Facebook, for whatever good it does, had far less fans yesterday morning. Now the efficacy of ‘awareness’ is most definitely up for debate. But if one little meme involving a color can take hold that quickly, and make that much of a splash in less than 12 hours, what’s going to happen when someone – and I’m betting it will be a political candidate – figures out how to really utilize our personal networks?
Because I’ve argued enough this week, I’ll let my friend have the last word. Kind of.
If tech and social media wants to be taken seriously as a potential cure for that ill, action has to make a leap from status updates to the real world.
I couldn’t agree more. She goes on to posit, though, that online actions make people feel they’ve done their part and therefore won’t contribute more substantive action in the real world. Perhaps, with some people, yes. But I can pretty much guarantee those folks weren’t going to contribute much to begin with.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in emerging technology, it’s that you can’t start at the top. You lay the groundwork at the very bottom and hope that subsequent companies and technologies will build on it in your wake. No, we didn’t cure breast cancer last night. But I’m certainly willing to keep playing these little games until we do.
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And color me misunderstood. Despite the heated debate.
Let’s recall where it started. I responded to the color meme with a status update of my own, “Supports FB activism but wonders if posting your bra color is the latest trend in supporting democracy in Iran. Looks likely to be as effective.” True, my favorite rant was present but there was no indignation. This appears to be a very easy way, however, to draw your ire. Really easy… and fun!
In our discussion I suggested that neither green avatars or bra colors were likely to have a positive or negative effect. You’ve advocated a positive effect with little tolerance for a discussion of possible negative effects. I have complete confidence that the work of cancer researchers and democratic reformers marches on with little notice of the memes on Twitter or Facebook. That’s precisely the point that’s missing in your repackaging of our great debate. Is the objective mere participation or awareness?
The sheer numbers of people participating only proves participation… no understanding or awareness necessary. My feed continues to include posts from women and men asking what the deal is. Awareness requires a message. A task. A take away. This was simply an exercise in participation. And here’s the thing with you tech folks (and, yes I’m now presenting myself as the sole representative of the real world), you get excited about a meme and declare it “amazing” and the numbers participating “overwhelming.” The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project tries to keep their finger on the actual numbers associated with our online activities. Just a few days ago, they released their report that 74% of adults report using the Internet. Wealth, education and race all influence how likely you are to be online. This, of course, isn’t the same as using social media. An October report indicated 19% of Internet users reported sharing an update via Twitter or Facebook or a similar service. You’re absolutely correct, a good majority of the people using these services are likely to be aligned with a cause. They are also likely, because of those demographic characteristics mentioned previously, to have been aware of breast cancer, to conduct self-exams, and to schedule regular mammograms (if that’s appropriate). We can celebrate our good nature and this new frontier in the self-esteem movement or we can raise the bar just a bit. This good-natured minority using social media has to imagine it’s necessary to break outside their posh and groovy bubble to demonstrate the real power of these tools. Come on, Thompson. We’ve had this discussion when it comes to politics and you agree with me.
And to that, let’s remember your original position was that this was all a bit of silly fun. To which I responded, “hollow gestures AT LEAST threaten to undermine substantive action.” You really are blind to those moderate qualifiers aren’t you? Context matters as does the true grit of these survivors’ stories. My advocacy position is simply that change is hard work. The downward trend in civic participation has been well documented over the past thirty years. We need these new tools of social media to reverse that trend but silly memes aren’t anything but a demonstration amongst an already in-crowd.
We’ll have to get together to talk about how political candidates have realized this potential. The problem is that most campaigns are constrained by a harsh reality that tech analysts get to brush aside… this is a very shallow pool. The world isn’t here yet. You, Ms. Thompson, and your cronies still have work to do. In the meantime, I will continue to recruit women to show their support for democracy in Iran by posting their bra color.
I suppose that the definition of an argument includes misunderstanding each other so we’re doing well there. I don’t want to subject the Guidewire audience to too much back and forth. But:
-We’ve both misquoted and misused each other’s words so I suppose I got mine. My use of ‘amazing’ and ‘overwhelming’ was only meant to convey that a concept took hold of a number of people almost simultaneously, with no accompanying context. I maintain that that’s pretty cool.
-I don’t have a tolerance for negative effects in this situation because that’s essentially my whole argument – there is no negative effect.
-I don’t get how “at least” changes the context of that phrase. But we can argue that over the next round of beers.
I think, stepping back a bit, the reason this and the Iran thing get my ire up is tied to the comment you made on Facebook a bit ago regarding whether I was “writing the RIGHT thing about it all.” The implication is that we’re doing this all wrong; that people are wrong for the way they choose to participate in social media. That they have to use it a certain way and in a certain manner for it to rank with you. It just seems that you’re putting rules around a technology that really doesn’t even know what it is yet.
I’m just asking that you give it more breathing room sometimes and let it be what it is.
And now I sound like a damn hippie.
It was bound to happen…. the damn hippie part.
I merely ask that this technology that doesn’t know what it is yet exercises some restraint in declaring its max power for awareness, organizing and activism. You, and many others, posted your bra color online. That’s it.
To claim something else of any size or degree happened is to handicap the effort to have the potential of these tools taken seriously. That’s a consequence that affects both of us and has nothing to do with boobs or democracy.