4 Comments

The Curse of Social Media

Jan 19, 2008
by

A 16 years old boy from a regular Melbourne, Australia neighborhood plays “Risky Business” by throwing a party and invites virtually everybody in town while his parents are out of town.

500 people show up, the party gets out of hand, cops came, some brief riots occurred, causing a few thousand dollars in property damage.

The boy plays it cool wearing his sun glasses, refusing to take them off. He says in front of the camera that he is sorry, because that is expected from him. He does not feel remorse really, because he was not involved in the riots and damage of the neighbor’s property. When the reporter asked him what he would suggest to other teenagers who plan a party while their parents are gone, he responded that they should get him to organize the party.

The interview was put on YouTube on January 14, 2008 by several people and over 500,000 people watched it within only four days and over 3,500 people commented.

Add to that the ludicrous idea of some officials to charge the boy alone with $20,000 in reparations for the property damage and the police deployment, he refuses to go home = face his parents and off you go to social media land to a spectacle where local press, social web and his local friends escalate things more and more.

He thinks that he is the coolest kid in town, his peers envy him, the tabloids have a field day and nobody even thinks about to get the guy to his parents to tan his hide, because he deserves just that, no more, no less.

But no, he is now invited to the local radio station, is suddenly receiving mysterious death threats (yeah, right), does not take his “cool” sunglasses off as if they were one of those friendship bracelets that were popular in the nineteen eighties and to top it all off, gets offered to organize another party like the one he accidentally pulled together a few days earlier, but this time against a hefty fee.

Here you can see where social media goes wrong and bad. It is an amplifier of good and bad things in the same way. Check out this one to see how messed up things actually are.

We would like to remember and highlight the good things and forget about the negative side effects of it, but we cannot avoid those problems forever. People who embrace this kind of crap by casting positive votes, social bookmarking it or enter encouraging comments with their semi-anonymous user account are in part responsible for the consequences that arise from it. It wasn’t meant that way? It will not do anything, this single little vote, comment or glorification? Of course it won’t do anything all by itself, but the sum of all those tiny and irrelevant actions are what becomes the power and force of social media that can blow away any rational voice of reasoning and righteousness, just like a virtually unarmed but angry mob can overrun armed barricades of military regimes, that no single person would have been able to accomplish.

This social media mob can feed those forces that are exploiting the misery of others or the hype created by a brainless crowd to make a quick buck or in some nasty cases fulfill the sick desires of some human beasts as it did in this example of social media gone wrong, about one year ago.

Must people will not experience first-hand the awesome force of sheer masses of people in the real world, where each individual does virtually nothing and yet does his part to unleash incredible power as a whole. This is sad and like the evolution from killing other human beings with a somewhat dull copper sword to controlling a joystick via the movement of your wrist and pushing a button to release a GPS or laser guided missile into a building with dozens of other human beings in it.

You only moved your hand a bit and pushed a simple button, nothing more, death feels completely unreal and it is hard for the human mind to comprehend the consequences of those little actions to be able to feel any kind of guilt or sadness about what you have done. It is important to remind yourself about the fact that the consequences are real to avoid that you will be able to perform the action again and again without feeling anything about it.

Everybody has to remind himself when it comes to social media. Make sure to think about the possible consequences of doing virtually nothing, at least nothing serious in itself on the social web. Ask yourself every time you do something little online or offline, where you know by heart that it is wrong, If you would still do it, if 100 million people would follow your example and for sure cause some significant impact by doing so? If you would not do it under those conditions, don’t do at all. You never know if or when your little action will become one piece of hundreds of thousands or even millions and cause something that you definitely don’t want.

“Use your powers wisely, Master Luke!”

Carsten Cumbrowski

About Carsten Cumbrowski

Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur and Blogger. To learn more about me and what I am doing, visit my website and check out the “about” section.

Twitter: ccumbrowski
Filed under: Online Video + Social Media
  • Sam Spade

    You, sir, are adding to the problem by suggesting that it is “ludicrous” that Corey be charged “for the property damage and the police deployment”. I can not state strongly enough how much I disagree with such an attitude. Perhaps if there was more ’cause and effect’ and more being living with the consequences at play in that brat’s life he would not be in the position he is in now. Oh, didn’t you know? He’s facing child pornography charges because he took “lewd” photographs of under age girls playing twister at his party – the “tabloids” wesn’t there when he was taking those photos, nobody grabbed his hand and forced him to take those shots. Understand this, the boy was having an absolute ball pre, during and post party, loving the attention, and thought he was too cool for school until reality hit him in the face via the very serious charges he now faces. Now that things have gotten serious, all of a sudden he doesn’t want the media anymore and has gone to ground and his family are pleading for him to be left alone. Sorry Corey, but you played up to the media, demanding money (and getting it), bragging and strutting – you can’t turn around and say “don’t wanna do this no more”. So, while you ponder whether being faced with a $20,000 police bill is ludicrous, sit there and also ponder what he now faces and ask yourself whether it would, perhaps, have been better to have to live with consequence so that Corey did not end up thumbing his nose so much at the police, the community and the press that he is now being “taught a lesson”.

  • Carsten Cumbrowski

    Hi Sam,
    Thanks for your comments.

    I avoided on purpose to mention the name of the folks, because I was not writing about them. Regarding the charges. That is beside the point that I wanted to make with my post and I will for this reason not go into further details with it. I agree in part with your other statements.

    Regarding playing the media. I pointed out specifically the average people who use social media and the possible dangers and effects of tiny actions performed by masses of people and that you should be more responsible about how you participate and use social media. I honestly do not care much about the boy and what he did or not did.

  • http://www.fathomseo.com Mike Murray

    I liked the piece and get your point. However, stranger things have happened to people. Once you make the news, you make the news in all sorts of places – traditional and then social in some cases. People are obsessed with the Web – myself included. Yesterday I came across the video for a U2 melody/Bank of America song. These guys didn’t look like rockers, but the guy sang well. And then I saw that multiple people had posted videos of the implosion of a bank building. I guess it would be fun to watch one, but should it be surprising how many people posted the same non-essential-viewing event. Banks may seem boring, but what about quirky things like party boy? I can make worldwide news just by slipping in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’re just all too easily amused.

  • Carsten Cumbrowski

    There is nothing wrong with some amusement here and there. The problem is, if our internal rebel and prankster is let loose and forget that we as adult have some responsibility when it comes to teaching the right values to kids, not only our own. The web makes everything appear to be far away and not real that we sometimes forget that there is a reality somewhere, where those unreal things appeared from. With web 2.0 is it not anymore like it was back in the old days where the communication was one way via tabloid press or TV and where response either didn’t happen or was too slow to have any impact on the realities that happen somewhere on this planet. This is not the case with Web 2.0. The communication is two-ways and the response almost instantly that realities can be impacted in a positive or negative way. This is the big difference. With this open channel for communication comes responsibilities for how to use it. Do you know what I mean?