i had an ephiphany last night, and i want to share it with the liberal community as quickly as possible...
last night i was looking over the shoulder of someone on "myspace" who had just recieved an invitation to be someones "friend". at first, she didn't know who it was, but then she was like, "oh my god, it's (whoever)" and quickly proceeded to her web site, where she browsed over her photo album and got nostalgic about her school days. she quickly accepted the friends invitation, and a long last contact was reestablished.
seeing how powerful this simple event was on this one lady, i began to wonder how many times a day that scenario must happen, and how, soon, through social networking, our "6 degrees of seperation" will be neatly laid out on your computer desktop for the shortest link between you and (whoever).
coupled with the recent news article that said we are all closely related,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
coupled with the fact that geneology and scrapbooking are gaining popularity, coupled with human and non-human DNA mapping, tells me that we will very soon be able to see just how closely related we are to "our enemies", and vise versa.
knowing your 3rd cousin is an iraqi may make [us] a bit less enthusiastic about bombing her.
but there is some serious political awareness evolution going on im myspace, with "people" called things like
"george"
http://profile.myspace.com/...
who has been online only a couple of months, and already has over 700 "friends", or
"david brooks hates poor people"
http://profile.myspace.com/...
who likewise has been on only a few months, and has several hundered "friends", or
"9-11 truth"
http://profile.myspace.com/...
again, a very specific site for a very specific political message.
george bush has plenty of sites, as do ann coulter, bill o'reilly, etc, etc, etc. there are obviously people who have "war on drugs" views, religous views, etc.
by "pimping" these sites with video clips from "youtube", these sites are able to reach wide audiences very quickly.
one result could be the recent revelation on how upwards of 42% of americans believe the government was either involved or complicit in the 9-11 attacks.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
If you were part of the 10% who didn't support GWB shortly after 9-11, you are part of an even smaller minority than the percentage of people who are "tinfoil hat" wearing CTists. i was part of the 10%, BTW.
"A picture is worth 1000 words", is something we have been hearing since we were kids, and here is a real life application of that principal. yet here we are, typing, blogging, etc. reaching a few people who have the time and desire to actually sit down and read something.
in the meantime, video messages are travelling much faster. not long ago, myspace was thought of as a place where young people went to "hang out", but it is quickly becoming popular with the college crowd, and other adults, including my 60 year old mother.
these messages are being passed along at light speed through the younger generation, and so far as i can tell, well under the radar of everyone. i guess that makes sense; we didn't really expect the older generation to stand up for progressive thought did we? has that ever happened?
then there are sites like digg,
http://digg.com/
a site that allows the "cream to float to the top" based on users ratings of news stories. in this "inverted" relationship, the news consumers decide what is important, and what is not. perhaps if the MSM were forced to compete with models like this, they would carry fewer "natalie hollaway" stories and more "darfur" stories.
no, folks, the younger generation is getting its news and views from places we hadn't expected, and i expect this will come to fruition in the years ahead as these young people become voters in future elections.
my suggestion is this. familiarize yourself with the phenomenon, and get your message out there as quickly as possible, before your advisaries do.