The Blog

I was at a concert last weekend at Wembley Stadium which is, if you haven’t been, H U G E. It was filled to the brim with 80,000 people who had paid good money to see a nameless boyband. I was one of them. :)

Not long after the first support act had finished, the murmurs of a Mexican wave started around the stadium. It was awesome to watch. Each time it went around it grew, until by the third or fourth loop almost everyone was standing up. Watching 80,000 people synchronize themselves, spontaneously, is really quite phenomenal.

How did it start? Why did it start? And why did 80,000 strangers join in – creating a singularity. A wave.

We are, I think, compelled to join. Ultimately we all want inclusion, not because of any misdiagnosed lack of self confidence (although we all suffer to some degree from that – except politicians). No. I believe we are compelled to be included, it’s inherent in our being. We want to join in, to contribute, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Isn’t that what a Mexican wave is? An expression of joy. A chance to be part of something bigger, whilst still retaining our own sense of identity.

It made me think about social media, and it’s explosion over the last few years. When Michael Jackson dies and the news is broken across Twitter moments after it breaks on TMZ. When CNN, the BBC and others quote Twitter feeds because it’s the quickest way to get comment and feedback. When we all turn to the internet or our smartphones for confirmation, not from traditional news sources but from trusted bloggers and Twitter accounts, you know it’s big.

And we all want to be a part of it. We’re compelled to. Although most people sign up to Twitter, tweet once, and then bugger off, the important part is that they do sign up.

They want to know what Twitter is. They want to be a part of it.

But because social media is so new, because this is such a new way of communicating (if you think that communication began with the grunt of a caveman), most people don’t quite understand what to do. And so they leave.

Is this a problem with Twitter? Possibly. I think they could redesign their sign up process to single out and hand-hold people who have no idea what it’s about. Twitter is the medium through which we connect, but like strangers at a party we’re often dumbstruck when faced with talking to people we don’t know. Here’s a question whose answer might make you a millionaire: how can we bridge that gap? How can bridge the gap between the technology that allows us to say hello, and actually saying ‘hello’?

Or look at this another way. Why do we want a bunch of followers we don’t know to listen to what we’ve got to say? Is it because it allows us to touch our own version of celebrity? How arrogant are we?!?! I have enough trouble keeping up with the few ‘real’ friends I have, let alone telling my Twitter followers what I’ve been up to. Is Twitter, like Facebook, a substitute for lazy friendship?

Maybe. Twitter, Facebook, email and even texting allows us to engage in one way communication without worrying about what the other person has to say. The great thing about these forms of communication is that we can reply when we want to, and carefully craft what we want to say (and how it’ll be interpretted). And yet Twitter brings us, almost, full circle. All these forms of communicaiton are in some way instantaneous, but Twitter as a form of communication encourages conversation in real time. It’s like text messaging on acid, and allows us to join conversations with people that share our interests – not necessairily close friends.

Many many many years ago, I wrote a paper on how the internet segregates people not by gender, race, religion etc, but by interest, by values. It segregates us by who we really are. In fact, segregates is the wrong word. It does not segregate, it unites.

And perhaps that’s the point of Twitter. It brings us together, because we are compelled to join in, and it brings us together with those who share our interests and values. They may not be our real friends, but then maybe we can have different types of friends. One type is no better or more valued than the other – we just need them at different times of the day, week, month, and our life.